Cross-posted from The Salt Lake Tribune
Written by BRANDON LOOMIS
Federal wild-horse managers are suspending adoptions from their Herriman center and placing a quarantine on about 500 animals because of an equine-distemper outbreak.
Eleven horses have died — some on their own and some from euthanasia after being badly stricken — and two- or three-dozen more show signs of the upper-respiratory infection, said Gus Warr, head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Utah wild-horse and burro program.
An outbreak happens just about every year, Warr said Tuesday, but this one is unusual in the number of animals it is affecting at one time. The BLM is separating the sick horses and working to disinfect their areas, he said. The agency plans to monitor all the horses for 30 to 45 days to see if the outbreak has run its course before resuming adoptions.
State Veterinarian Bruce King said equine distemper is common, and he sees no reason for south-valley horse owners to be alarmed. Most domestic horses have exposure to the bacteria when they are young and develop antibodies from their mothers’ milk, he said, but wild horses, which the BLM rounds up from its ranges, lack immunity. Read full report >>
Equine distemper is commonly referred to as strangles.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has removed more than 14,000 wild horses and 500 burros from Utah’s rangelands since government roundups began in 1975. More than 6,700 of the animals have been adopted locally. Source: http://tinyurl.com/2b7fwjz
Tuesday's Horse 
This was all brought on by the Vicious BLM , and their needless round ups, now our Mustangs are forced to suffer again………………….The Blm needs to held responsible for all the suffering of the Wild Mustangs…………………… They need to sit in a jail cell and contemplate why they made the Wonderful Wild Mustang suffer needlessly…………… They need to live in hell they have created……. What they have done is unforgivable… and unmistakably Criminal ………………………………
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BLM has been well documented on spreading this infectious disease across the country. While you can get 10 Vets to tell you different treatments, not to worry, it happens. Stiff the bottom-line is their sick horses. Bringing them into new territory and trucking them only makes this “Distemper”, “Strangles”, “Shipping Fever” all the more dangerous. Palomino Valley in 2007, September had the worst case of these commonly used names and they shut down but never has any Vet any came back and cleared the facility as “disease free” and yet they kept shipping horses out like no bodies business. So lets see this, shipping sick horses across state lines, how does the vet sign off these wild horses are healthy? This it self is illegal. How do you lie on the coggins test when the health report asks are the horses healthy, good shape, well, I guess they would be healthy- there standing up, good shape, meaning they’re breathing and standing up but you never mind there sick.
Look Cook’s will deliver these to you sick and all is there trailer. Thy never clean out the trailer so the next load of livestock they put in the trailer gets infected. Now they unload that livestock, reload the trailer and now there infected. There is “not disease contamination control” on hauling livestock across state lines. I know this I have had t many loads of wild horses come to me that have gotten sick. Sorry ass Don Glenn, with his accent will tell you; “Well there your horses so you need to foot the bill or you can kill them”. If it hadn’t been such a long painful haul for the horses I would have just reloaded them and shipped them back, refusing the load. BLM would have just shot them on a private welfare ranchers land and buried them.
Thos poor old dumb adopters would believe anything we tell them and foot the bill for it so let’s ship all the sick horses even if it’s against the law. Oh wait a minute we’re the FEDS, we are the law, so screw the wild horses and their condition and screw the people because they care.
Bottom line is simple, the BLM wants a major out break like this as an excuse to kill, shoot, slaughter all the wild horses they can. It’s murder.
Our Heritage Our Legacy is trusted to morons who draw a paycheck every Friday and don’t care or have one grain of humanity. They will tell you it’s our job, well when you break the law to do your job it makes’s you a co-conspirator. Guilty, Go to jail.
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If these folks think the horses will be out of the wood in 30-45 days, they’re dreaming. Distemper at the rescue has lasted almost a year. Just when you think it’s over, another horse has lumps. Domestic adults, foals, juveniles, you name it.
As for “disinfecting”, our vet said the bacteria can live in the soil for up to a year and the best way to deal with it is not only to clean surfaces, but also REMOVE the soil from every stall and pen to a depth of 2′. We couldn’t afford the removal or replacement, which may be why it kept recurring.
Our vet also said there’s no approved vaccine and you just have to wait things out, so I don’t know what that’s about. Maybe another BLM concentration camp “experiment”.
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