Newsdate: Tue 16 August 2016 – 07:00 am
Location: WASHINGTON, DC

Opposition is mounting in Oregon, and nationally, to a Bureau of Land Management plan to work with Oregon State University to sterilize wild horses using barbaric, cruel and unsafe methods.

Wild horses held by BLM

The sterilization procedure proposed is an ovariectomy via colpotomy, involving only partial sedation and a veterinarian reaching into the mare’s abdomen and through the vagina to secure a chain around the horse’s ovaries which are twisted, severed and then pulled out.
© 2016 by Peter Schmalzer

In addition, the Oregon BLM has rejected the second request by AWHPC and Cloud Foundation to observe these barbaric sterilization procedures.

The most objectionable surgical sterilization procedure proposed by OSU and BLM, an ovariectomy via colpotomy, involves only partial sedation and a veterinarian reaching into the horse’s abdomen and through the vagina to secure a chain around the horse’s ovaries. The ovaries are twisted, severed and then pulled out.

Veterinarians say the procedure’s risk of pain, infection, hemorrhage, evisceration and death, already significant, are elevated in wild, untamed horses who cannot be provided with required post-operative care.  The procedure will also cause many of the pregnant mares to abort their unborn foals.

Critics of the experiments maintain there are far safer ways to manage the populations, including darting the horses with a proven contraceptive vaccine, a contention that is supported by the National Academy of Sciences Report.

To date, one federal lawsuit and three appeals to the U.S. Department of Interior land appeals board have been filed.  The opposition seeks to stop the procedures from occurring at the BLM Wild Horse Corrals near Hines, Oregon on 200 wild mares, 75 percent of whom will be pregnant. 

These procedures have been deemed “experimental.” However, they are known by veterinary and wild horse experts to cause pain, abortions and death in many cases.

Now, adding to the legal actions in opposition, a Colorado congressman, several veterinarians, many horse advocates, and a scientific group are expressing outrage over the proposed taxpayer-funded experiments.

Colorado Congressman U.S. Rep. Jared Polis: “The surgical sterilization of wild horses and burros is simply cruel and it has been coming at the expense of taxpayers’ dollars for too long. There are far more humane and less costly methods already available to limit population growth.” House of Representatives Floor Statement

Equine Veterinarian Dr. Robin Kelly: “The mare sterilization research plan proposed by the BLM poses significant risk to the survivability of the mares…It is inappropriate and inhumane.”

BLM National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Humane Advocate, Ginger Kathrens: “What OSU and BLM are preparing to do to these wild mares and foals is unthinkably cruel and completely unnecessary given the availability of the proven fertility control vaccine, which provides a humane wild horse management alternative.”

Even the National Academy of Sciences has recommended against the procedure in its 2013 report, concluding: “The possibility that ovariectomy may be followed by prolonged bleeding or peritoneal infection makes it inadvisable for field application.”

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) and The Cloud Foundation are considering legal action to force the BLM to grant access for public observation and/or video documentation of the procedures.

“The BLM has stated that one purpose for the experiments is to determine whether or not the procedures are socially acceptable,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of AWHPC. “The BLM can only answer that question if the experiments are conducted with full transparency and public observation. This agency must not be allowed to conduct these egregious experiments on innocent wild horses behind closed doors.”

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is a national wild horse advocacy organization whose grassroots mission is endorsed by a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations. AWHPC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. www.wildhorsepreservation.org/about

The Cloud Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of wild horses and burros on our Western public lands with a focus on protecting Cloud’s herd in the Pryor Mountains of Montana. Cloud is the subject of Foundation founder Ginger Kathrens' groundbreaking PBS/Nature documentaries.