What more will it take for BLM to admit the cruelty of wild horse roundups?

Cross-posted from Equine Advocacy Examiner

Written by MAUREEN HARMONAY

The video of the Sun J pilot mercilessly forcing an old mustang mare to her knees is difficult to watch, let alone understand. And rather than taking steps to curtail the cruelty of the contractor who did this to her, the BLM’s Alan Shepard excused him.

But the previous photographs and videos of horses terrorized during the ongoing Antelope Complex roundup in Nevada pale in comparison to today’s grim news: a wild mare chased over untold miles to her eventual capture yesterday had already been shot in her left shoulder before she was forced to run for her life. The pain she must have suffered is unimaginable. And so is her courage.

Today, that mare “spun around in the corral and broke her left front leg,” according to the BLM’s newsroom. It was only after the onsite veterinarian had euthanized her that he noticed that the “puncture wound” he’d observed in the mare’s shoulder was actually a bullet hole, which he acknowledged was a “major contributing factor to the break.” Continue reading >>