Newsdate: Fri 18 March 2016 – 07:15 pm
Location: HINES, Oregon

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC)  today released a new video depicting the reality of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) plans to “spay” wild mares.

BLM holding pen of wild horses

The video includes never-before-seen footage of the risky, painful, invasive and archaic sterilization (“spay”) procedures the BLM is proposing to conduct on wild mares held at its Wild Horse Corrals.
© 2016 by AHMF

The video includes never-before-seen footage of the risky, painful, invasive and archaic sterilization (“spay”) procedures the BLM is proposing to conduct on wild mares held at its Wild Horse Corrals in Hines, Oregon and on the range in Wyoming.

Last month, more than 21,000 citizens submitted comments in opposition to the proposed experiments, which equine veterinarians called “barbaric” and “unconscionable.”

“The BLM’s plan to “spay” wild horses sounds benign but it’s not. Our video shows exactly what the BLM has in store for our wild horses, and it is animal abuse,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of the AWHPC.

“The BLM wants to subject federally-protected wild mares and their unborn foals to archaic, invasive and dangerous sterilization surgeries that the National Academy of Sciences itself warned against due to high risk of prolonged bleeding and infection.”

The BLM intends to conduct sterilization experiments on 225 mares at its Oregon Wild Horse Corrals. The majority of these horses will be pregnant and many will suffer abortions. Of most concern is the plan to use 100 of the mares in a procedure called “ovariectomy via colpotomy” – the procedure shown on the video.

It involves a veterinarian making an incision in a mare’s vaginal wall, placing his hand and arm through the vagina into the abdominal cavity, manually (and blindly) locating the ovaries, then severing them with a rod-like chain tool (known as an “ecraseur”).

The BLM in Wyoming also wants to sterilize mares on the range, and has removed the ovaries of at least 8 wild mares through surgical incisions in the horses’ sides, a procedure also depicted in the video.

“These are America’s wild horses and Americans overwhelmingly want them protected on our public lands, not brutalized by the BLM in holding pens or on the range.” Roy concluded. “It’s especially unconscionable when a humane method of population control through the use of the proven PZP birth control vaccine is available, but the BLM continues to vastly underutilize it.”

In addition to opposing the sterilization experiments, the AWHPC is also working to defeat a provision in the BLM’s 2017 budget proposal that would open the door to slaughtering captured wild horses. The BLM is asking permission from Congress to strip captured wild horses of their protected legal status before turning them over to state and local governments, many of whom have actively lobbied for mass mustang removals and slaughter.

For more information on the sterilization experiments, please see:

• BLM Mare Sterilization Research EA
• Comments on Mare Sterilization Research EA

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is a national organization dedicated to preserving America’s iconic wild horses and burros in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. AWHPC’s mission and grassroots advocacy efforts are endorsed by a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations.