KBR Wild Horse and Burro News

  BLM CONSIDERS ANOTHER
SPRING WYOMING GATHER

(in 1999)
Story date: February 5, 1999

I received the following post from Ginger Kathrens. (For the record, the gather is now tentatively rescheduled for February 24th, but I left Ginger's original message unedited.)

"On February 15 Wyoming intends to begin a Spring round up of wild horses. These helicopter round ups would continue through April 15. All the wild horses will be run over rough terrain for up to ten miles. Many will be pregnant mares in their last months, weeks or even days of a 342 day (give or take 10 days) pregnancy. Early newborn foals unable to keep up can be left behind or might run themselves to death trying to keep up with their mothers. All this at a time when the horses are at their most vulnerable due to winter weather. Horses put on fat in the fall which helps to sustain through winter. By late winter or early Springs they are their thinnest and most vulnerable. Add to this the late pregnancy situation of many of the mares.

Round ups at this t;ime of the year are cruel and inhumane and must be stopped! How many people who raise domestic horses would submit their pregnant mares or newborns to this kind of treatment? Why then is it acceptible treatment for a precious national resource like our wild horses?!

Please call today to the Wyoming BLM office and protest. Better yet attend the Feb. 8 meeting in Rock Springs. Last year Animal Legal Defense Fund, The Fund for Animals, and the Doris Day Animal League were present and intelligently but firmly presented their case. The round ups were cancelled. The phone number to call is (307) 775-6097 for Director of the Wyoming BLM, Al Pierson, or the contact person for the meeting and round ups, Don Glenn. You can also fax your comments to Al Pierson and Don Glenn at (307) 775-6003.

Thanks, Ginger, for the notice.

Here is my email message to Messers Pierson and Glenn:

Dear Messers Pierson and Glenn;

I am greatly disturbed over news that the BLM, Wyoming is again considering scheduling a spring wild horse gather. It is my recollection that last year this practice was deliberated and conclusions were drawn that to take such action was not in the best interest of the affected horses and that the negative publicity generated from this proposal was not in the best interest of the WHB Program.

If you are once again considering a spring gather, please provide me with your compelling rationale which precludes your undertaking a safer late spring / early summer gather, and any reasonable and feasible mitigation measures that you are committed to employ to ensure that late term pregnant mares and newborn foals will not be seriously or mortally harmed by your actions.

Hopefully this spring gather business is nothing more than a misunderstanding in which case I would like that fact to be affirmed by you so that I can set the record straight.

Sincerely,

Willis Lamm

c: Tom Pogacnik

2000 Wyoming Gather Issues

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