The Bureau of Land Management is at it again, planning archaic and dangerous surgical sterilization experiments on wild mares in Oregon. Worse, the agency is effectively giving the public LESS THAN A WEEK to comment on the barbaric plan!
In the proposed “ovariectomy via colpotomy,” procedure, a veterinarian makes an incision in the mare’s vagina, inserts his arm into the vaginal cavity, manually locates the ovaries and rips them out using an “ecraseur,” a rod-like device with a chain on the end.
The painful procedure will subject mares to the risk of infection, hemorrhage and evisceration (intestines coming through the incision) and cause abortions for mares in the early to mid-stages of pregnancy.
The procedure is so dangerous that in 2013, the National Academy of Sciences advised that “The possibility that ovariectomy may be followed by prolonged bleeding or peritoneal infection makes it inadvisable for field application.”
In 2016, the BLM cancelled the same proposed experiment after AWHC and The Cloud Foundation filed a lawsuit. The agency has now expanded the scope of the experiment from a trial on captive mares to a plan to return any mares who survive the procedure to the range.
Please take a stand against these dangerous and costly BLM wild horse experiments today. We need to show the agency just how many citizens and taxpayers oppose these dangerous and costly experiments on our wild mares.