SALT LAKE CITY A federal effort to permanently remove 480 wild horses from western Utah also includes a plan to surgically sterilize more than a dozen mares that will be returned to the range.
The procedure, which has never been performed before on wild horses under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management, was done on mares occupying a national wildlife refuge in Nevada with success, federal officials say.
But some wild horse advocates are condemning both the Confusion herd gather and the planned surgeries for next spring or summer, asserting the method is both unwarranted and cruel. It is not a population management tool, said Grace Kuhn, communications director for the American Wild Horse Campaign. It is pretty barbaric.
Deseret News
Effort seeks to sterilize some wild mares
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Steve Griffin, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY A federal effort to permanently remove 480 wild horses from western Utah also includes a plan to surgically sterilize more than a dozen mares that will be returned to the range.
The procedure, which has never been performed before on wild horses under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management, was done on mares occupying a national wildlife refuge in Nevada with success, federal officials say.
But some wild horse advocates are condemning both the Confusion herd gather and the planned surgeries for next spring or summer, asserting the method is both unwarranted and cruel.
Agriculture
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December 11, 2020
American Wild Horse Campaign and Robert Hammer, a data analyst and wildlife photographer specializing in horses, filed a complaint in the District of Columbia on Thursday asking for injunctive and declaratory relief from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Department of the Interior’s efforts to sterilize wild horses.
Reportedly, the Wild Horse Act allows the government agencies to round up wild horses in Utah’s Confusion Herd Management Area (HMA) and “permanently sterilize mares through ovariectomy via colpotomy.” The plaintiffs argued that this method is inhumane and outdated. It involves using a chain to seer organs inside a female horse and the BLM reportedly previously analyzed the procedure and decided to conduct experiments on its effects on horses.
Fedsâ Utah horse sterilizations draw two lawsuits alleging inhumane treatment
Five horses died during a recent roundup, including three euthanized for poor health.
(Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo) This Sept. 15, 2015, file photo shows wild horses runing in their pen as they are cared for in the Bureau of Land Management s off-range corral, located on a 32-acre private ranch in Axtell, Utah. A roundup that ended this week of horses from the Confusion herd near Milford gathered 304 horses for purposes of sterilizing mares using a controversial medical procedure to reduce the population on rangelands. Five died in the roundup, three from euthanasia because of poor health.
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