Plenty of Water at Nevada Roundup – and Dead Horses Too? Part II

By Steven Long, Photos by Katie Fite

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – Tucked away in court documents relating to a lawsuit filed by journalist and artist Laura Leigh is a telling photograph by Western Watershed Biodiversity Director, Katie Fite. The photo is of a peaceful desert scene.

The photo shows a river about 60 feet wide with abundant still and white water. It also shows horses on a gently sloping trail advancing to the riparian banks for a drink. The horses clearly know where the life giving water is located as they walk single file to it. Other photos show more horses heading toward a trail leading to the river‘s flat beaches. It is a place where campers might spend the night and fish.

In a Horseback Magazine interview Tuesday, BLM chase contractor Sue Cattoor said the trail was one of several that lead to the river. The government contractor said this trail was the only one the horses use. Cattoor also said it is steep. The photos tell a different story.

The picture is of Nevada’s Owyhee River on the border of a the Tuscarora federal Bureau of Land Management “gather” area – an area where government lawyers told a federal judge horses would die of thirst if an emergency roundup didn’t take place immediately.

The judge lifted his previous temporary restraining order which had stopped the mid-summer roundup for humanitarian reasons.

The lawyers clearly mislead the judge.

The horses had been kept by BLM in drought condition on three pastures miles away from the river while they awaited capture as the waters flowed freely within driving distance. Leigh says the horses were likely driven there for holding to await their “gather.”

After the TRO was lifted, BLM wasted no time in capturing the horses. They were stampeded by helicopter into traps on private land and hidden from press and public by armed guards.

After the first day, 12 horses died immediately following being run eight miles in searing mid-summer heat. Nine more would die after subsequent stampedes.

Two were found by contractor Dave Cattoor and a BLM official suffering from terrible injuries . They were shot on site from a roaring helicopter.

But the BLM has another version of the story which the agency published today in an online press release.

Horseback Magazine consulted former veterinary columnist Dr. Angela Chenault to assess the severe injuries of a Palomino mare in a photo supplied to the magazine by Sue Cattoor prior to publishing the Tuesday’s story. She said the injuries were at least 24 hours old, and maybe older than that.

A foal in the same area had broken legs and was dispatched as well. There is no way at this point of determining whether the two horses were a young horse and its mother.

The BLM press release reads:

A news article published today provided inaccurate information alleging that a dead horse observed on the range had been “driven” to its death during gather operations. The BLM is addressing this report here because it was not based on any first-hand knowledge of the events, and was founded instead on speculation that provides an inaccurate record.

The facts surrounding the mortality addressed in the news article are that on July 11, when there were no gather operations taking place, the contractor and the BLM Nevada Chief Ranger found a severely injured mare and a young foal with broken front legs on the side of a steep canyon wall. Both animals were humanely euthanized and their remains left on-site. The BLM did not “drive” horses to their death in the rocks – as speculated in the news article, given that these wild horses were more than five miles from the area gathered on July 10, and no gathers occurred on July 11.

BLM did not report these two deaths as part of its daily mortality log, because that log documents mortalities for wild horses that are gathered. The BLM was not conducting operations to gather this horse or any excess wild horses within this area either prior to or at the time when these horses were found, therefore the two wild horse deaths were not associated with gather operations. BLM Nevada is examining its reporting methods to better document all wild horse deaths that occur or are found during gather.

Tags: BLM, cattoor, dead horses, helicopter, Judge Larry Hicks, Stampede, water