BLM Calls Death Stampede at Calico “Humane”

Horseback Magazine

By Steven Long

The federal Bureau of Land Management has challenged Horseback’s terminology calling a Northern Nevada Calico roundup “ill fated.”

“The Calico gather wasn't "ill fated." It was conducted in a professional and humane manner and achieved the goal of bringing an
overpopulation of wild horses in the Calico Complex within the established appropriate management levels,” spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said in a note to the magazine.

The note failed to mention well over 100 deaths and miscarriages, protests from London to San Francisco, and calls in Congress for the Will Horse and Burro Program be stripped from the BLM due to gross mismanagement.

The horse deaths at Calico and Fallon, allegedly a result of helicopter driven stampedes, equal all of the 2009 fatalities during the bureau’s roundups.

Worley also acknowledged that Winnemucca District Manager Gene Seidlitz signed the Calico environmental assessment decision record finding of no significant impact.

Two vets have worked the “gather” and holding facility at Fallon since late December. Neither has professional vitae on file with the bureau, and one does not hold a veterinary license in that state.