Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Jackson Mountain Wild Horse Roundup Over, but Debate Continues

Straight from the Horse's Heart

Posted: July 11, 2012 by R.T. Fitch
By   in Featured, News
“The gather was none too soon…?”
The federal roundup of wild horses from Nevada’s Jackson Mountain herd area is over, with the Bureau of Land Management at odds with well-known horse advocate Laura Leigh over the need to take even more horses.
The bureau started the roundup a month earlier than anticipated after deciding the the lack of water and forage on the range amounted to an emergency.
The June 8 start meant the roundup fell within the breeding season, and wild horse advocates voiced concern over the risk involved in running young foals and heavily pregnant mares.
Leigh challenged the bureau in court over its plans to conduct the roundup over the entire range, comprising 283,000 acres, when the emergency existed only in the southern portion. A judge ruled the bureau could muster only in the southern portion under the emergency conditions, and had to delay the start of roundup operations further north.
The bureau had gathered 424 wild horses from the southern portion, which concluded on June 22 with US District Court Judge Howard McKibben’s ruling,  which stopped the agency from gathering excess wild horses from the northern area of the area by helicopter before July 1.
The foaling season officially concluded on June 30.
In all, the bureau gathered 647 wild horses from the herd area, about 60 miles northwest of Winnemucca,  in Humboldt and Pershing counties.
The primary gather area ultimately covered about 775,000 acres to encompass wild horses residing in non-HMA areas in their search for water, forage and space.
Click (HERE) to read the story in it’s entirity at Horse Talk

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