Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation (RTF) filed suit in federal court in California to halt a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to sterilize wild mares surgically.
Neda DeMayo, founder and president of RTF, said in a statement BLM’s plans violate the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which states the agency must protect wild horses “from capture, branding, harassment or death.”
Alleging the agency is “throwing good money after bad,” the RTF statement notes BLM commissioned a report from the National Academy of Sciences advising against the use of sterilization on wild mares. RTF states the procedure, ovariectomy via colpotomy, is “dangerous, inhumane, and an unnecessary risk, especially when proven, well-studied and previously utilized modes of alternative fertility control exist.”
DeMayo states the agency has used the contraceptive control PZP successfully, and there are other long-acting control vaccines “receiving further attention and study.”
