Horse advocates want review after 28 Nevada mustangs euthanized

RENO, Nev. – Wild horse advocates called for an investigation Wednesday into an emergency mustang roundup in Nevada where government officials say more than two dozen animals had to be euthanized due to severe starvation.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said they gathered 201 horses 30 miles west of Las Vegas last week because of extreme drought conditions and a lack of forage.

Twenty-eight were killed because of their “poor or extremely emaciated body condition” after a veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said they had a “poor prognosis for recovery,” acting BLM state director John Ruhs said.

Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs, said the roundup was “supposed to save wild horses, not kill them.”

“These federally protected wild horses were living on the range, not dropping dead,” Novak said in making a formal request for the Interior Department’s inspector general to investigate whether the mustangs were killed to save the BLM money. “Killing them without giving them a chance at recovery is a heinous use of tax dollars.”