Summer roundups are beginning soon — here’s what you can do
The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:
In a little less than a month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will unleash helicopters to begin its summer assault on wild horses and burros living on public lands in the West. In the BLM’s crosshairs: wild horse and burro herds in Utah, Colorado, and Nevada.
The largest roundup of the summer will take place in Nevada’s Shawave Mountains Herd Management Area (HMA), just 50 miles northeast of Reno. The HMA is part of the 1 million-acre Blue Wing Complex, where the BLM allows just 333 to 553 horses and 50 to 90 burros while authorizing 1,200 privately owned cattle and 2,700 sheep to graze year-round.
This is just the beginning. If the BLM has its way, as many as 18,000-20,000 wild horses and burros will lose their freedom each year… if Congress decides to fund the agency’s mass roundup plan.
Summer roundups are particularly inhumane due to sweltering desert temperatures and the presence of tiny, vulnerable foals, who are sometimes literally run to death in miles-long helicopter stampedes.
This summer, this cruelty could take place out of public view, as the BLM is already signaling that it may use COVID-19 restrictions to block the public from witnessing these brutal capture operations and documenting their terrible impacts on wild horses and burros.
AWHC is gearing up for these summer roundups, both to document them and to fight back if the BLM attempts to crack down on public observation.
At the same time, we’re working on Capitol Hill to shelve the BLM’s plan to massively scale up roundups and force the agency to prioritize humane fertility control to manage wild herds and keep them wild.
Your help is needed on all fronts! Here’s what you can do today:
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- Donate to our Roundup FundToday’s donation will keep our team in the field during the roundup season and give us the resources necessary to ensure our legal team can challenge any attempts to block public observation.
- Contact Your Representative and Senators
Ask them to put the brakes on BLM’s mass removal plans, require the use of humane fertility control as an alternative to roundups, and prohibit the conducting of helicopter roundups in the absence of public observation.
—American Wild Horse Campaign