Animal Rights Group Admits Setting Corral Fire

An animal rights group has claimed responsibility for a fire that destroyed horse pens and chutes last month at an eastern Oregon corral holding wild horses and burros.

The Portland-based Liberation Collective said Animal Liberation Front, for which it distributes statements, and the Earth Liberation Front had taken responsibility for the blaze.

The Bureau of Land Management was holding 500 wild horses and 40 burros at the corrals. The federal agency said none of the animals was injured in the Nov. 29 fire. Most of the dozen horses that escaped were recaptured.

The statement from the two groups said they were trying “to help halt the BLM’s illegal and immoral business of rounding up wild horses from public lands and funneling them to slaughter.”

The Associated Press reported in January that the BLM wild horse adoption program had allowed thousands of wild horses and burros to be slaughtered. The BLM has disputed the AP’s findings.