Wild Horses Sold by BLM May Have Gone to N.M. 'Kill Buyer'

Some of the nearly 1,800 wild horses a Colorado rancher bought from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and sold for slaughter — contrary to federal law — may have gone through a New Mexico livestock broker in Los Lunas who already has been in legal trouble for violating state livestock rules.

An Oct. 23 Department of the Interior report by the Office of Inspector General found thousands of horses were shipped by Southwest Livestock Auction in Los Lunas to slaughterhouses in Mexico. Some of those horses might have been BLM wild horses sold for $10 each to a La Jara, Colo., rancher named Tom Davis.

According to the federal investigation, first reported last week by The Washington Post, Davis purchased 1,794 BLM horses between 2008 and 2012. He told investigators recently that he was sure most of those animals went to slaughter, though it is illegal under a federal law to sell wild horses for meat.

Davis told investigators he was friends with a “kill buyer” — Dennis V. Chavez, who has owned Southwest Livestock for 20 years. Chavez faced state charges in 2013 for what appeared to be poor conditions of some horses found at his facility.

His operation — and potential lapses in state livestock inspection procedures — could face new scrutiny due to issues that have come to light during the federal probe.

A New Mexico livestock brand inspector admitted to federal investigators that he did not visually inspect the brands on Southwest Livestock horses before they were shipped to Mexico, which might have revealed some were BLM mustangs marked with the agency’s freeze brand. Instead, the inspector relied on brand reports from Southwest Livestock, according to the federal report.

In addition, a veterinarian certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who was responsible for issuing international health certificates for the horses before they were shipped to Mexico, told investigators that Southwest Livestock had filled out the documents. The veterinarian did not actually inspect the horses and did not know if any were BLM freeze-branded horses, according to the inspector general’s report.

William Bunce, director of the New Mexico Livestock Board, said he has requested a copy of the investigators’ interview with the brand inspector. Except for horses transported within a state livestock district, he said, state law requires all livestock to be visually inspected for brands at some point during transport across district or state lines.

Bunce said a USDA-certified veterinarian also is required to submit to the state copies of health certificates for all horses sold at the Southwest Livestock Auction.

The federal inspectors alerted the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in New Mexico about the USDA-certified veterinarian signing horse health certificates without visually inspecting the animals, potentially a violation for making false statements.

Chavez did not respond to multiple messages left at his business seeking comment.

In 2013, he pleaded guilty to four of 12 misdemeanor charges brought against him by the Valencia County District Attorney’s Office as a result of a video showing what appeared to be some horses at his livestock facility dehydrated, emaciated and injured. In a plea deal, Chavez pleaded guilty to taking four horses without proper bills of sale, but avoided the more serious charges, such as cruelty to animals.

Chavez’s attorney at the time said people sometimes left horses at the auction facility because they couldn’t take care of them.

Drought, the high cost of feed and the 2008 economic crash strained horse owners nationwide, leading many to give up their animals — and leading fewer people to adopt the BLM’s wild mustangs.

An estimated 58,000 horses roam wild in protected areas of the nation — mostly in the West — and the BLM keeps another 46,000 in long-term pastures and pens. The agency estimates that the population roaming on the range grows 20 percent a year, and the annual cost of caring for the unadopted captured horses runs in the millions of dollars.

Western range lands can only feed so many horses, along with other wildlife and livestock. The BLM is required to establish the number of horses the land can “carry” and remove the rest.

The 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act protects the animals and prohibits the BLM, which manages the herds, from selling the horses for commercial slaughter. The act allows the agency “to destroy excess horses in the most humane way possible to maintain and restore a thriving ecological balance.”

But shooting horses isn’t good politics. A horse-loving public has fought any policy to kill excess mustangs and has fought against some of the agency’s methods for gathering and removing wild horses from the range.

BLM officials told the federal investigators that “not destroying horses has contributed to an unmanageable number of horses.” The agency was also restricted in the number of horses it could sell at one time to a buyer.

In 2005, the agency increased the number of horses individuals could buy at one sale — and Davis became one of the big buyers.

Davis, a native of Albuquerque who served as a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam, has worked as a blacksmith and trained racehorses. He self-published a book in 1984, Be Tough or Be Gone: The Adventures of a Modern Day Cowboy, about his 4,500-mile pack trip with horses from El Paso to Alaska.

The horseman also is a longtime livestock hauler who has been in the news off and on for his purchase of wild horses. ProPublica, an online investigative media group, published an in-depth story in 2012 questioning the fate of hundreds of horses the BLM had sold to Davis, all bought sight unseen, with the applications filled out over the phone.

According to the federal investigation, Davis purchased anywhere from 35 to 240 mustangs at a time — for about $10 per horse — between 2008 and 2012, and the BLM spent more than $140,000 hauling the horses to him. Davis told investigators the demand for horse meat was high, and he made a profit of $2,500 to $3,000 per truckload when he sold the BLM horses.

Davis told a BLM worker who filled out paperwork on the sales that the horses would go to good homes — and not to slaughter. He told BLM law enforcement officers the same thing in 2012, according to the federal report. But Davis later told federal investigators that he thought most of the horses he had sold went to slaughter facilities in Mexico.

Investigators found the BLM had violated its own policies on limiting the number of horses adopted by an individual and ensuring the horses go to good homes. BLM officials said in a written response to federal investigators that since December 2012, no more than four horses every six months can be adopted by an individual. BLM also said it no longer has a business relationship with Davis “and will not in the future.”

Investigators established the relationship between Davis and Chavez through phone records and sales invoices, but could not prove, by brand evidence, that any of the horses shipped to Mexico from Southwest Livestock were those bought from the BLM. In one case, Davis bought 36 mustangs from the BLM in Colorado on Feb. 16, 2012. Davis then sold 39 horses to Southwest Livestock on Feb. 18, according to the federal report.

There was no answering machine for two numbers for Davis in La Jara.

Federal investigators said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado and the Conejos County District Attorney’s Office in Colorado have declined to file charges against Davis.

Two men in Utah investigated by the BLM for selling wild horses for slaughter at about the same time Davis was under investigation were indicted by the U.S. District Court in Utah and pleaded guilty, according to the report.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @StaciMatlock.

Originally posted at: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/wild-horses-sold-by-blm-may-have-gone-to-n/article_8912fc41-2947-552b-83ea-2f642db9e0e7.html