Wild horse groups are outraged over plans by the BLM to euthanize thousands of wild horses that have been captured, most of them from ranges here in Nevada.
BLM says it has no choice but to put horses to death because it can no longer afford to feed the ones it already has.
Critics say the initials "B.L.M." more accurately stand for Bureau of Livestock and Mining, since those industries are so often the beneficiaries of federal land policies. Horses certainly aren't in good standing with BLM.
BLM says it has no choice but to pull the trigger on thousands of captured horses. Others say BLM created this crisis by clearing 75,000 horses off the range in the last seven years, for reasons that appear specious at best.
At a muddy depression in the Nevada desert, three healthy looking wild horses, surrounded by dozens of antelope, plop around while warily eyeing our camera.
Just down the road at the gate of the classified Tonopah Test Range, trucks are loaded with the remnants of a makeshift corral, the last vestiges of a roundup effort that carted away hundreds of other horses.
The trucks will head down the road in anticipation of the BLM's next roundup.
It's uncertain how these three horses dodged the government this time, but if you believe the BLM, the horses out here are dying of thirst or starving.
Read the full statement from Dr. Mason
"There basically is no grass. The animals are eating brush, which is not their normal food. They die of starvation on the range and there is no more inhumane death for an animal," said Don Glenn.
Glenn has spent 30 years in Washington working on wild horse issues, but seems unaware that a lack of grass on Nevada ranges isn't exactly unusual. Critics say the BLM rarely gets its story straight about reasons for roundups.
Last November, BLM's top Nevada horse official Suzie Stokke gushed about the range, "In terms of a great place for horses, as far as the habitat goes, it's a great place."
We didn't know it at the time of that interview, but Stokke had already decided to remove most of the horses on the range near Tonopah, not because they were starving, but because they might be starving some time in the future.
Read a reply statement by the Park Service
The BLM says the 1.3 million acres can support, at most, 500 horses -- one horse for every 2,600 acres. That's to protect the horses and the range.
"I don't think they use any science. It has little to do with current range conditions and a whole lot to do with we just want to get them out of there," said wild horse advocate Jerry Reynoldson.
Reynoldson has long contended that BLM simply makes it up as it goes along when it wants to justify a roundup. Former BLM Range Scientist Craig Downer says that's why he left the bureau, "It's very skewed data, very arbitrary statements. They just come out and say the wild horses are a detriment to the ecosystem without any proofs."
Read more about wild horses
It's also no accident that more than 30,000 horses are currently living in BLM pens.
Documents obtained by the I-Team show the Nevada BLM spends millions each year on roundups and on feeding horses in corrals, but only 4-percent of its budget on finding homes for the horses.
A backlog was inevitable which led Reynoldson to make this prediction more than a year ago, "At some point, somebody will say, ‘We've just got to put these horses down. It's the only answer.'"
That point is now here.
LasVegasNOW's Wild Horse and Burro Section
BLM says it needs to begin euthanizing horses soon, starting with the ones housed in holding pens like the one near Reno. No decision has been made on how many to kill but they have talked about how.
"They approve three methods: One is an overdose of barbiturates. Two is a bullet to the brain. Three is a captive bolt to the brain," said Glenn.
Drugs, bullets, or bolts -- a bolt is what is used in slaughterhouses. Slaughtering horses for meat might also be back on the table if BLM gets the okay. The bureau says no action will be taken until the GAO finishes auditing the program.
As far back as 1991, a Congressional audit found that BLM removes horses from the range without studying the land and at the urging of cattle ranchers.
BLM says it okayed this most recent gather because the drought has made it tough on horses, but there's water on the range -- enough for large alfalfa fields on BLM land and hundreds of antelope.
100 yards from a dusty water hole where three horses scrounged for a drink is a lush, green pond full of water supplied by a well and pump. But the water is fenced off so wildlife can't get to.
The sign on the door to the pump house shows that BLM knows there's water on the range, just not for horses.
Following the BLM announcement about plans to kill horses, a disturbing email was sent by Dr. Russ Mason, Chief of the Game Division of the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
According to Mason, wild horses are already being shot.
He wrote that the National Park Service is the only agency that effectively manages wild horses and burros because it shoots them, even at Lake Mead.
We investigated this allegation and while the Park Service may have killed horses in years past, it doesn't any more. A spokesman said this is categorically untrue and they have no idea how a state official could make such a statement.
From everything we've seen, the Park Service does not kill horses.
Email your comments to Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp
The BLM says the 1.3 million acres can support, at most, 500 horses -- one horse for every 2,600 acres.
Critics say the BLM rarely gets its story straight about reasons for roundups.
A backlog was inevitable.
BLM says it needs to begin euthanizing horses soon, starting with the ones housed in holding pens like the one near Reno.
No decision has been made on how many to kill but they have talked about how.
