By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
We condemn in the strongest terms a disturbing act of cruelty caught on video by a wild horse advocacy organization at a Bureau of Land Management wild horse gather in Pershing County, Nevada.
The video footage, taken on July 26, showed a BLM contractor kicking a wild horse mare in the head during a roundup at the Blue Wing Complex, located 65 miles northeast of Reno. The site encompasses approximately 2,283,300 acres of unfenced public lands—about the size of Connecticut—and as of March was home to an estimated 1,912 horses and 476 burros.
In the video, captured and circulated by American Wild Horse Conservation, the downed horse appears exhausted, stressed and unable or reluctant to stand up on her own when the contractor kicks her.
The cruelty and indifference of the wrangler in the video violates the BLM’s own Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program. The program’s humane handling protocol specifically prohibits “hitting, kicking, striking, or beating any (wild horse or burro) in an abusive manner,” and both BLM employees and contractors must adhere to its standards. The contractor’s actions are a clear violation of the protocol, and they also violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which requires that wild horses and burros be humanely handled when capture is necessary.
BLM officials have said that they are shocked and disheartened by the misconduct documented. But we are greatly dissatisfied with the agency’s response because so far, it has yet to take serious action. This was a no-brainer: The BLM should have immediately dismissed the contractors, launched an investigation and suspended the gather until such time as it could assure itself and the public that no further violations of the agency’s rules could occur at the site.
In a joint letter last week to Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the BLM, the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund called for just such action, and further recommended that the BLM revise the protocol to include specific provisions for an immediate cessation of gather operations when violations occur, and prompt follow-up to ensure that appropriate punitive action can be taken in real time.
The horse abused in this footage recovered, but the matter shouldn’t end there. It is incumbent that the BLM take every measure to ensure that gather operations, when legally required, are conducted with the utmost attention to animal safety. As advocates, we have fundamental expectations of good faith and commitment on the part of the BLM. The Bureau’s protocols exist for a reason, and we cannot take lightly such an extreme breach of their fundamental premise: that these animals deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, the opposite of what we saw on display in the footage.
We have been consistent champions of increased funding for the BLM in the interests of advancing necessary reforms in philosophy and approach to wild horse and burro gathers, and we have sought to work constructively with the BLM to ensure that the management of wild horses and burros is nonlethal, and to advance the use of contraceptive technologies and other innovative population control approaches in the field.
In this disgraceful incident’s aftermath, the BLM must make clear its absolute commitment to a zero-tolerance policy in respect to contractors or employees who have abused or mistreated federally protected horses. Nothing less will do.
Kitty Block is CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.