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Monday, Jan 7, 2013 10:15 PM UTC

Judge halts horse roundup amid abuse allegations

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Topics: From the Wires,

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Bureau of Land Management from rounding up wild mustangs in Nevada after horse protection advocates presented video footage that they say shows wranglers repeatedly abusing mustangs with electric prods in violation of agency policy.

The group that won the emergency restraining order, Wild Horse Education, is the same one that persuaded a different judge in August 2011 to shut down the Triple B roundup in Nevada. In that case, the group presented footage that it said depicted an inhumane gather, including a helicopter skid bumping an uncooperative horse.

Now, the group is accusing the BLM and its contractors of treating of dozens of horses inhumanely since the Owyhee roundup began in November near the Idaho line about 70 miles northwest of Elko.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du issued the restraining order late Friday, effective until she sets a hearing later this week for both sides to present their arguments. She said halting the roundup in the meantime was warranted given the evidence she’s seen so far, including video shot by Laura Leigh, president of Wild Horse Education.

Leigh has shown “serious questions going to the merits of her claims” that the mustangs being rounded up in the Owyhee horse management area are suffering inhumane treatment, Du wrote.

Gordon Cowan, a Reno lawyer for the advocacy group, said Du’s order makes it clear that protecting America’s wild horses from inhumane conduct “represents significant public interest.”

According the group, the three-plus minute video that it presented to Du depicts BLM contractors using electric prods, or “hot shots,” to jolt mustangs into moving through loading chutes.

“It’s a hot-shot fest,” said Leigh, who posted the footage on YouTube . “Over and over and over again, the horses are hot shot.”

BLM officials in Washington, D.C., and Reno did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

However, the agency said in an earlier statement on its website that electric prods were used in the roundup Nov. 30 as a last resort, and that their use was “within pre-established guidelines of the gather.”

“The contractor had made many attempts to load the wild horses that day using voice commands, body position, sounds and flags, to no avail,” the statement said. “Per procedures and to avoid human injury, electric prods were used as a last resort once other handling aids did not work.”

Similar footage at a different Nevada roundup near the Utah line in summer 2011 prompted BLM Director Bob Abbey late that year to order additional training for roundup workers and contractors.

“Aggressive and rough handling of wild horses is not acceptable, and we are actively taking steps to ensure that such behavior is not repeated,” Abbey said at the time.

Abbey also issued a report outlining a number of new safeguards. The report said animal welfare experts told BLM officials during an investigation of the incident that electrical prods should be used only as a last resort when human or animal safety is in jeopardy. They said the prods should never be used on a horse’s head.

In addition to inhumane treatment, Leigh argues the BLM is violating the Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act by failing to prove there are too many horses in the area for the land to sustain without suffering ecological damage.

“It really does seem insane to have to fight for a humane-care standard with an agency tasked by Congress to manage animals humanely,” Leigh said in a telephone interview Monday.

More By Scott Sonner.

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