RENO, Nev. (AP) — A judge has asked federal land managers to explain why they should be allowed to continue capturing more than 2,500 wild horses in northeastern Nevada — a roundup opponents say is illegal and has left 31 mustangs dead in 26 days.
Wild Horse Education, a nonprofit seeking to protect the horses, has sued the Bureau of Land Management and is seeking a court order to temporarily halt the roundup halfway between Reno and Salt Lake City.
Among other things, it says the agency is violating its own safety standards that prohibit roundups in extreme heat and the use of helicopters to assist in the capture of the animals when foals are present.
More than 260 foals are among the 2,643 animals that have been rounded up for transport to government holding pens since July 9, the agency said on its website Saturday. Several-hundred more are expected to be gathered before the roundup ends Aug. 22.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, of Nevada, has introduced a bill that would outlaw the use of helicopters under any circumstances to assist wranglers on horseback chasing the mustangs into traps — makeshift corals on the high-desert range.
She urged the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee this week to expedite a hearing on her proposal due to the horse deaths, including one with a broken leg that was chased for 35 minutes before it was euthanized.
"Despite BLM`s directive to `humanely capture` wild free-roaming horses and burros ... the use of helicopters routinely creates frightening and deadly situations for horses as demonstrated in recent weeks," Titus said.
``Without meaningful reforms, BLM`s operations will continue to kill off these icons of the West in completely avoidable circumstances,`` she wrote.
Nevada is home to nearly two-thirds of the 68,928 wild horses the bureau estimated on March 1 were roaming federal lands in 10 Western states stretching from California to Montana.
The bureau said in a court filing Wednesday that its latest roundup, which began July 9 between Elko and Ely near the Utah border, is a "crucial gather" because overpopulated herds are seriously damaging the range.
It said the estimated 6,852 horses on the land is nearly 14 times what the land can ecologically sustain. It says roundups typically have a mortality rate of less than 1%.
Following a July 25 gather at the Antelope Complex-South, 1,107 excess wild horses were removed from public lands. According to officials, an estimated 1,015 horses remain; Antelope HMA has an Appropriate Management Level (AML) of 150-324 horses.
The Antelope Valley HMA (east of Highway 93) has an AML of 37 wild horses, and an estimated population prior to the gather of 2,122, excluding this year's foals.
“The gather was critical to ensuring the health of public lands within the management areas, as well as the wild horses in the area, both of which are at risk due to herd overpopulation,” said Robbie McAboy, Ely District Manager.