Nearly $3,000 Bid for Battered Old Horse in BLM Auction
A wild horse named Sarge, known for his resilience and tumultuous past, is currently up for auction by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Despite his age and injuries, Sarge has captured the attention of many, with bids reaching nearly $3,000. This interest is largely due to his notoriety in wild horse advocacy and ranching circles.
A battered and scarred wild horse named Sarge, who has been rounded up twice off the Nevada range, is up for auction by the BLM. Ann Marie Yow has started a crowdfunding page because she fears he will go to a buyer who will not care for him well or maybe even sell him for slaughter.
The Carson City woman writes on her GoFundMe page: “Sarge is a 15-year-old palomino stallion who was found starving with barbed wire cuts all over his body and possibly a gunshot wound to his nose in the Fish Creek HMA (horse management area) in Eureka NV a few months back.”
She says she visits Sarge regularly at the Bureau of Land Management’s Palomino Valley holding facility just north of Reno, on this side of Pyramid Lake.
Even though Sarge is relatively old and pretty beat up, the BLM’s adoption site already has 238 bids for him, with a current high bid of $2,580. The interest likely stems from his notoriety in wild horse advocacy and ranching circles.
According to HorsesInCrisis.com, Sarge was rounded up in February, but after protests by wild horse advocates, he and almost 200 others were released back onto the range.
“In late July, Sarge was found near death, desperately seeking water with a handful of other horses near the fence between two ranchers’ allotments,” HorsesInCrisis reported. “He was so thin, so battered, that if not for his unique coloring, he would have been unrecognizable.”
A rancher brought water to Sarge and the other horses he was with. The BLM reportedly told the rancher not to interfere with the horses, and Sarge was picked up again last month.
Yow emailed multiple photos showing scars all over Sarge’s body. She says her plan is to place him in a sanctuary if she’s able to win the auction.
“I need help from fellow advocates statewide to help me win this bid and make sure he is forever safe,” she said.
She’s trying to raise $5,000 by Nov. 2. You can find her fundraising page at gofundme.com/p36srh88.