Death Toll Nears 100 Wild Horses at Federal Holding Facility in Colorado
BLM Cites Equine Influenza Virus, Releases Preliminary Vet Report
Response from American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign)
Cañon City, Colorado (April 29, 2022) — In a press release issued late Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claimed that a respiratory illness likely caused the deaths of at least 95 captured wild horses at the taxpayer-funded Cañon City holding corrals since Saturday. The agency is pointing to Equine Influenza Virus H3N8, a strain commonly found in wild and domestic horses.
According to the BLM, the horses most impacted by the virus were captured from the West Douglas Herd Area, five miles south of Rangely, Colo. The agency charged that the horses were likely compromised by smoke from the Oil Springs wildfire that burned most of the herd’s summer range in June, 2021. The accompanying report, issued and signed by USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service veterinarian Dr. Albert Kane, is less definitive.
According to his site visit report which was conducted on April 26, Dr. Kane stated that the underlying reasons were still uncertain but could also include the mustangs’ unvaccinated or partially vaccinated status.
According to BLM protocol, all adult horses must be vaccinated “as soon as possible” after capture citing a “race against time to build immunity by vaccination while the animals are increasingly exposed to viruses and bacteria in their new environment.” The West Douglas horses were rounded up in July/August, 2021.
As animal confinement-borne viruses continue to sweep the globe, the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) (AWHC) questions why these horses still had not been vaccinated, nine months later.
“Outbreaks of contagious diseases and infections are the direct result of the BLM's inhumane mass roundups, as once formerly wild horses are confined with thousands of others in holding pens,” said American Wild Horse Conservation Executive Director, Suzanne Roy. “Taking horses out of the wild and into a domestic environment requires vaccinations; it appears that the BLM fell short in its care of and responsibility for these federally-protected animals.”
Dr. Kane’s veterinary report stated that before his first visit, only a single loader was being used for both feeding and removing carcasses with bleaching in between activities. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by AWHC further show that the BLM only requires Cañon City to be cleaned twice a year.
“The situation at Cañon City is shining a light on the unsanitary and inhumane conditions that America’s wild horses are being forced to live in after being ripped from a life free on western public lands,” concluded Roy.
According to AWHC, this is the second government holding facility in recent weeks that has reported outbreaks resulting from confinement of the wild animals, proving the Cañon City tragedy is not an isolated incident.
The BLM currently warehouses 59,749 wild horses and 862 wild burros in off-range holding facilities and has plans to capture and remove 19,000 more wild horses and burros from public lands this fiscal year. The agency spends 75% of its annual operating budget on roundups and stockpiling of horses in government facilities and less than 1% on proven effective fertility control vaccines recommended by the National Academy of Sciences, which provided direction for the BLM management of the West’s wild herds.
AWHC is calling on Governor Polis, First Gentleman Reis, and state and federal policymakers in Colorado to push Congress to officially halt all wild horse roundups until the Cañon City investigation is officially complete and the necessary preventive measures have been implemented, ensuring no more wild horses needlessly and carelessly perish. The suspension of roundups is imperative as a roundup is scheduled this summer for the Piceance-East Douglas herd, outside of Meeker, Colo.
About the American Wild Horse Conservation
The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) (AWHC) is the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, with more than 700,000 supporters and followers nationwide. AWHC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse and burros in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage.
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