Critic wants FBI probe of roundups

RENO - A horse protection advocate is asking the FBI to step in to prevent the sale or transport of nearly 2,000 mustangs the government removed from Nevada rangeland until federal managers verify enough were left behind to sustain the wild herd.

Critics of the roundup say recent independent observations in northwest Nevada's Calico mountains suggest there remain nowhere near the 600 to 900 horses the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it intended to leave there about 200 miles north of Reno.

They suspect the BLM overestimated the size of the original herd to be in excess of 3,000 before it captured horses from December 2009 to February 2010. The critics said that means it is likely many of those animals were not excess and should have been left on the range.

"These animals are protected by law and are the property of the United States and its citizens as well as the state of Nevada," Cindy MacDonald of Las Vegas said in a formal request for an investigation she hand-delivered to the FBI on Monday.

"The unauthorized taking of these animals is now in question and requires an investigation to determine if there had been an abuse of authority, discretion or violations of both state and federal laws set forth to ensure their protection, preservation and maintenance as integral components of the natural system of public lands," she wrote.

FBI Special Agent Joseph Dickey said in an e-mail to The Associated Press Tuesday afternoon he was attempting to confirm the agency had received the request from MacDonald, a researcher affiliated with a number of advocacy groups including the Cloud Foundation, American Herds and the Equine Welfare Alliance.

Officials for the Colorado-based Cloud Foundation said they were circulating MacDonald's complaint among several congressional offices on Tuesday.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said the agency was confident it was in compliance with the law.

"If the FBI wants to contact us to discuss the gather or the current situation with regard to the animals in holding, we will be happy to do so," Gorey told AP from Washington.

The BLM estimates there are 38,400 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states, about half in Nevada. That's about 12,000 more than the legally "appropriate management level," Gorey said.

Failure to remove horses from the range "will not only be to the detriment of the horses but also to the detriment of wildlife and the range conditions," he said.

A number of advocacy groups have filed lawsuits in the past to try to block roundups. In Defense of Animals lost a legal bid to block the Calico roundup in federal court earlier this year and lawyers for that group said in a statement on Tuesday they intend to sue over an upcoming roundup of about 2,000 horses and burros planned later this summer in the Twin Peaks area of northeast California.

But Cloud Foundation spokeswoman Anne Novak said she had never heard of anyone asking the FBI directly to get involved.

"This is brand new," she said.

Horse advocates argue BLM underestimates the horses the range can support, partly to defend policies that allow private ranchers to graze large numbers of livestock on the same lands.

"The numbers they say are the appropriate population level already are suspect," MacDonald said Tuesday, "but the possibility they didn't even leave the paltry 600 horses there, I just can't believe they could get away with that."

Craig Downer, a longtime wildlife ecologist who lives in Minden and works with the Cloud Foundation and others, told the BLM that he spotted only 31 wild horses when he flew over the area in early June.

Robert Bauer, who serves as an independent wild horse observer during roundups, said he only found nine during a ground survey over a portion of the management area within the past month.

"There's a vast difference between less than 50 and 600-900 wild horses," MacDonald told AP on Tuesday. "The public needs to be sure the BLM followed the law before those horses are shipped out."

The critics predict the BLM will confirm the smaller numbers in the Calico range when it completes a new aerial census next week. The count began Monday in concert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, covering about 4 million acres including the Calico management area and two national wildlife refuges along the Nevada-Oregon line.

BLM spokeswoman Heather Emmons said preliminary indications were the numbers were consistent with past estimates.