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Warm Springs Herd Management Area

What Cirrus inspired:

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The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

Happy National Help a Horse Day! 🐎

It’s hard to put into words just how important holidays like today are to our team at the American Wild Horse Campaign. To celebrate a national holiday specifically dedicated to protecting the animals we hold so close to our hearts means so much to our team who day in and day out carry on the fight to protect the lives and freedom of our wild herds.  

So today, as we celebrate a holiday meant to inspire the masses about the plight of our dearest equines, we wanted to tell you about Cirrus — a mare whose story continues to inspire each and every one of us at AWHC. 

In 2018, an AWHC field representative was on-site to report on the ongoing helicopter roundup and removal operations happening at the Warm Springs Herd Management Area in Oregon. There he saw the most extraordinary mare: 

PROTECT MARES LIKE CIRRUS →

Cirrus had the likeness of a horse imprinted on her neck. As she ran, chased by helicopters, the horse moved with her. To see something so beautiful in the most devastating of circumstances… was surreal, in a way that perfectly embodied the beauty of these innocent animals and the tragedy they are plagued by.

We managed to keep track of Cirrus while she was in holding, hoping to find her a forever home. However, we found that she was slated, along with a dozen other mares, to be a test subject for a surgical sterilization study — an unproven and brutal procedure with a high mortality rate.

When we found this out, we knew we had to continue fighting against these studies. So we joined forces with two of our partner organizations and filed a lawsuit to stop the barbaric surgeries from proceeding. And , we won. 

Thanks to donations made to our Legal Fund and our amazing legal team, we were able to make this court win a reality. Saved from an uncertain fate, Cirrus is living out the rest of her days at AWHC’s Board President Ellie Phipps Price’s 2,000-acre sanctuary, Montgomery Creek Ranch — the next best thing to being wild and free.   

So, this National Help A Horse Day, we’re asking you to make a contribution of whatever you can afford to fuel our Legal Fund to help us win more battles in the field, on the Hill, and especially in the courts to protect more horses like Cirrus.

FUEL OUR LEGAL FUND →

Thanks for your continued dedication to our wild horses and burros.

Suzanne Roy
Executive Director
American Wild Horse Campaign

Speak up for the Warm Springs wild horses and more news!

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The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

News & Alerts

Speak up for Oregon’s Warm Springs Wild Horses

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking public comments on a plan for the Warm Springs Herd Management Area (HMA) in Oregon. This HMA was recently the site of a large roundup that removed 100 percent of the wild horses living there, including 100 mares who were slated to be used in an experimental surgical sterilization study. That plan was dropped after a federal judge issued a Preliminary Injunction in response to litigation by filed AWHC, The Cloud Foundation, and the Animal Welfare Institute. The BLM’s new plan is to return just 66 of the 846 horses removed from the HMA and treat all released mares with PZP fertility control. Bottom line: The BLM is releasing too few horses to maintain a healthy, genetically viable population in the Warm Springs HMA. Please take action with us below!

 

Forest Service Hands Reins of Wild Horse Management in CA to Cattle Interests

For the last several months, our team has been investigating how livestock interests in northern California’s Modoc National Forest took control of U.S. Forest Service policy regarding the management of federally-protected wild horses. Our reporting shows a trail of money, extremist politics and junk science leading to the current situation in which the Forest Service intends to sell federally-protected wild horses without limitation on slaughter for the first time in history. Read more about the situation and the disturbing precedent it sets for special interest takeover of public lands policy by clicking below.

 

Rescue Video: The ‘Alabama 5’

When we learned in April 2018 that five Virginia Range mustangs who had been adopted to a small sanctuary in Alabama were sold to a notorious kill buyer, we sprang into action. Just days before they shipped for slaughter, we rescued them. Thanks to supporters like you — and to Chilly Pepper Mustang Rescue and Freedom Reigns Equine Sanctuary — this small family is safe. Just four years ago, these mustangs were roaming free in Nevada. When we reached them in Alabama, they were in rough shape — neglected, traumatized and very thin. Today, they’re back home in the West looking happy and healthy. Watch their story in our latest video, and then share with your friends and family!

 

Meet Sage

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The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

Help us save horses like Sage: Make a matched, tax-deductible gift today!

Earlier this year our team captured these images of Sage, a wild mare from the Warm Springs Herd Management Area (HMA) in Oregon.

Sage lived her life amidst the sagebrush, junipers and wide-open spaces of Oregon’s high desert. But then, on October 3, 2018, the helicopters descended.

She was captured along with hundreds of other wild horses and put in a small holding pen – set to become a subject of a gruesome, invasive, and potentially fatal BLM sterilization experiment.*

Our lawsuit saved Sage and 224 other wild mares from the brutal sterilization experiments that the BLM had planned. But now we’re fighting to get her and her herd back to the range, after BLM removed 100% of them in the October roundup.

This year, we filed seven lawsuits to defend the freedom, safety and welfare of wild horses like Sage. Our litigation has been highly successful, but it’s not cheap.

Please support our work to help us help wild horses like Sage be safe, wild and free in 2019.  All contributions are tax deductible and are being matched up to $100,000 through December 31, so you can double your impact by making a gift today!

Thank you!

Brieanah Schwartz, Esq., AWHC Government Relations & Policy Counsel

*WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAIL: An “ovariectomy via colpotomy” involves a veterinarian making an incision in a mare’s vaginal wall, placing their hand and arm through the vagina into the abdominal cavity, manually (and blindly) locating the ovaries, and then severing them with a rod-like chain tool known as an “ecraseur.”

Breaking: We just sued the BLM

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The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

We’re filing suit to stop cruel sterilization experiments — can you donate to fuel our fight?

Today, we filed a lawsuit in Oregon to stop the BLM from conducting cruel and dangerous sterilization surgeries to remove the ovaries of wild mares.

The BLM’s plans violate the U.S. Constitution and three federal laws – and they pose a serious, dangerous threat to wild horses. Our suit asks for an immediate injunction to stop these experimental procedures from moving forward.

We can win this in court but we need your help. Donate now, and help us stop the BLM’s cruel sterilization experiments.

The experiments are gruesome and painful: a veterinarian inserts his arm into a mares’ abdominal cavity through an incision in the vaginal wall, manually locates the ovaries, then twists, severs and removes them using a rod like tool with a chain on the end. The procedure is outdated, inhumane and will subject the mares to life-threatening complications. The National Academy of Sciences itself warned the BLM that it is too risky for field application, but the BLM just ignored that warning.

We know the agency is bought off by special interests, which is why we must turn to the courts to stop this. We can win this case, and we’ve teamed up with our colleagues at The Cloud Foundation and Animal Welfare Institute to ensure that we do!

This legal strategy is costly. Please donate now to help us fund this lawsuit and keep it going!

Starting next month, the BLM plans to start rounding up 100 percent of the wild horses in the Warm Springs Herd Management Area in southeastern Oregon. An estimated 685 horses will be permanently removed and another 100 mares will be surgically sterilized. Chip in now, before it’s too late for these mares.

We need your support to win this fight.

Thanks,

Suzanne