by Carol Walker

Young mare Thalia and foal
Mare Thalia and her foal

Tonight my heart is very heavy because the wild horses I have grown to know over the last 4 years are on the brink of being chased by helicopters and removed from their homes and their families forever.

During a pandemic, the Bureau of Land Management is continuing an aggressive, punishing and devastating schedule of rounding up and removing wild horses off of our public lands. This roundup is going to be the largest in recent memory, with over 2400 wild horses scheduled to be removed. The Red Desert Complex is 5 Herd Management Areas that are contiguous: Green Mountain, Lost Creek, Crooks Mountain, Stewart Creek and Antelope Hills. In the middle is a Herd Area, Arapahoe Creek that is no longer managed for wild horses, which is ridiculous and inexplicable because the horses move though the area.

Two Medicine Hat youngsters, yearling filly Buyana and her younger brother

This roundup began in 2018, with 2670 wild horses targeted to be removed. However, after three weeks, removing 1444 horses, killing 10 and returning 25, the Bureau of Land Management stopped their roundup because they did not have any more holding facilities to put the horses in. Now, 7 new facilities have been approved and three have been expanded, so they have room for the horses.

Read the rest of this article here:

https://www.wildhoofbeats.com/blog/on-the-eve-of-the-red-desert-complex-wild-horse-roundup