Return to Freedom wins control of 8 wild stallions from BLM Calico Roundup

From American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

Pioneering approach seeks to re-establish family bands shattered in BLM roundup

Eight wild stallions captured this year in a Bureau of Land Management roundup in Nevada’s Calico Mountains have been rescued by Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary near Lompoc, CA.

Return to Freedom placed the winning bids for the horses in an online BLM auction this week, said Neda DeMayo, founder and CEO.
“These elder stallions represent leadership and wisdom for the Calico herds,” said DeMayo. “These noble horses, once free on the range and now held captive, symbolize the tragedy of the federal wild horse program.”

Return to Freedom will try to reunite the stallions with their mares and restore, if possible, some of the family bands that were destroyed in the BLM helicopter stampede, she said.

“This rescue is a gesture of restitution for what has been taken from these horses and an affirmation of our commitment to fundamental change in the BLM wild horse program,” DeMayo said.

Between Dec. 28, 2009, and Feb. 4, BLM captured 1,922 horses from five Herd Management Areas (HMAs) in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada. More than 140 horses died as a result of the roundup and an additional 40 heavily pregnant mares spontaneously aborted, according to DeMayo.

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