Equine Voices Rescues Foals from Wild Horse Roundup

TUCSON- While horse meat is not eaten by people here in the U.S., the federal government actually conducts roundups of wild horses that are then sent to slaughterhouses outside of the country. That meat eventually ends up on dinner tables overseas.

But one animal rescue organization is fighting to end the roundups and save as many horses as they can during the process.

Wild horse roundups funded by the Bureau of Land Management on Navajo land have supposedly been suspended, but not soon enough for four foals now in the caring hands of Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary.

The four baby horses are called Catori, Dakota, Shikoba, and Nitiksa and range in ages from four to nine months. Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary President, Karen Pomroy, says the foals are safe, but are sick and still bearing the scars of being hunted down, "Wild horses have been rounded up since October and shipped directly to slaughter, the four babies that we have here are orphans because their moms were rounded up and sent to the slaughterhouse."

Pomroy and her staff are nursing the foals back to health, but the organization's mission is to stop the roundups so they won't have to save more horses. The government has funded the roundups in an effort to keep the growing population of wild horses down.

Pomroy says a big part of the problem here in Arizona is the Navajo Nation not taking responsibility for the animals, "The people on the reservation are not being custodians to these animals, allowing them to breed and breed and breed and they do make money off of sending them to the slaughterhouses. Even if it's $50 a piece multiply that by 1600 and it adds up."

Pomroy says the majority of Navajo people are against the roundups and the Navajo Nation's elders pushed hard to get them shut down. She says along with the Navajo, all Americans should care about what is happening to these animals, "Horses have done for us more than any other animal out there and for us to allow this to happen, it's really a disgrace."

Karen Pomroy says the answer to keeping the wild horse population down is in birth control efforts and not sending them to slaughter.

Originally Posted By KVOA