Urgent! Please Comment Today by 4 pm to Stop BLM’s Gruesome Torture of Wild Mares By Carol Walker, Director of Field Documentation, WHFF

The BLM has released a Scoping Document on the Warm Springs Herd Management Area in Oregon that proposes spaying wild mares using ovariectomy via colpotomy. Despite massive public outcry and three lawsuits that ultimately stopped the BLM from proceeding with these so-called “experiments” in 2016, they are proposing it again. This is not about controlling a supposedly out of control population of wild horses, this is not about actual data driven scientific research and this is no way, shape or form humane, safe or responsible treatment of the wild horses that the BLM is mandated to manage and protect. This is instead cruel, unsanitary, unethical and lethal torture of wild mares. What kind of monsters propose ripping out the ovaries of wild mares in a BLM holding corral in Burns, Oregon, one of the most dirty and unsanitary places that can be found? Many of these mares and their unborn foals will die, many will suffer horribly, and for what? Spaying of domestic mares is a procedure very rarely done, not using this outdated, obscene method, and is only done in sterile, controlled conditions.

Scoping Letter:

https://www.wildhoofbeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Scoping_Letter_-_May_2018.pdf

In 2016 Don Moore, a veterinarian in Colorado commented on the plans for sterilizing wild mares in a holding corral ovariectomy via colpotomy:

“This type of trial and error butchery is a violation of the least feasible management clause of the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Mass experimental surgeries performed under these conditions outlined in the proposal, amounts to negligence and abuse. I believe experiments such as this proposal are unethical, inhumane and unwarranted. Any veterinarian(s) who would perform these experiments is in violation of the oath taken as a graduating veterinarian, “above all else, do no harm”. If a veterinarian in private practice performed these procedures in the manner described in this document they would most certainly be reported to and disciplined by the regulatory board of that state. Discipline would likely mean suspension of that veterinarian’s license to practice in that state.”

To read his comments in full, go here: https://www.wildhoofbeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DonMooreCommentsOregonSpayProposal.pdf

What can you do to help?

Say that you oppose the spaying of wild mares under any conditions. Say that the BLM must abandon all research plans that use the sterilization of wild horses and that they must use only humane and safe methods to manage wild horses in the wild on our public lands where they belong.

You can email the BLM using this information by 4pm today:

Email: blm_or_spaystudy_warmsprhma@blm.gov

Subject Line: DOI-BLM-ORWA-B050-2018-0016-EA Spay Feasibility and On-Range Behavioral Outcomes Assessment and Warm Springs Herd Management Area Population Management Plan

Letters – postmarked by June 4

Lisa Grant, Wild Horse & Burro Specialist

BLM, Burns District Office, Oregon

28910 Highway 20 W

Hines, OR 97738

Tel. (541) 573-4555

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