Media Contacts: 
Anne Novak
Tel: 415-531-8454                 
Makendra Silverman 
Tel: 719-351-8187
For Immediate Release
 
Renewed Motion Filed to Stop Rock Creek Wild Horse Roundup in NV
Herd Watch Director Continues Fight for First Amendment Rights
Reno NV (July 23, 2010)—Laura Leigh, Herd-Watch Director for the Cloud Foundation and journalist, filed a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in Nevada Federal District Court today to halt the Rock Creek Roundup and prevent a repeat fatal summer roundup and the shutting out of the public and plaintiff from observing wild horse roundups.
Nevada,
“We’re talking about a matter of public interest,” explained Leigh’s attorney Gordon Cowan. “This is a hot button issue here in Nevada. To prevent the public and press from observing the government in action on public lands is shameful.”
Leigh is asking the court for the following:
1.) Immediate cessation of all horse gather activity in the Rock Creek and 
Little Humboldt Horse Management Areas in northwestern Elko County, to 
maintain the status quo until the matter may be heard by the court.  There 
is no purported emergency or pressing urgency to remove horses from 
purported drought conditions as was contended by Defendants, in 
Owyhee:
 
2.) A Temporary Restraining Order enjoining the government Defendants 
from conducting helicopter wild horse gathers during summer months and 
so close to the foaling season.  There are many foals three months in age 
or less, running alongside the hips of their moms.  If removal of some of 
these horses is necessary, in that event the Defendants can reschedule 
and complete this process in the Fall season or at the end of Summer 
when temperatures are more mild and foals are more mature and better 
adept at withstand the gather.  To gather at this date is inhumane and 
directly contradictory to provisions of the Free Roaming Wild Horse and 
Burro Act of 1971; 
3.) A Temporary Restraining Order that at this point requires the Defendants in no uncertain terms to include and accommodate members of the public, the press and journalists including Ms. Leigh and others who are not hand-picked by the Defendants, to view every step of the process of 
gathering horses from public lands, such that the Defendants’ gather 
method and process becomes open and transparent from beginning to 
end, rather than secretive and hidden from the public as it is currently; and 
such that the method of protecting the health and safety of the public 
during these gathers is not used as the excuse to restrict, limit or 
otherwise offend First Amendment speech and press concerns but 
instead, ensures independence in observing and reporting the 
Defendants’ gather activities in a method encouraging liberal access and 
safe accommodation to the public including Ms. Leigh, to observe and 
record these gathers; 
4.) To require the Defendants to conduct such gathers on public lands should private land owners not be willing or able to accommodate members of the public, the press, journalists or other interested persons including Ms. Leigh, in their observation of these gathers. 
In his decision issued on July 16, Nevada District court Judge Larry Hicks recognized that the Owyhee complex roundups consist of three distinct and separate actions. Although BLM presented to the court claims that an unexpected and unprecedented emergency existed in the Owyhee herd management area, no emergency either claimed or proven exists in Rock Creek were BLM is currently rounding up horses. The public was permitted to observe the roundup for a short time only today. 
“We hope the TRO will be granted and the case can be heard before all the horses are gone from Rock Creek and Little Humboldt herd management areas,” stated Leigh.
According to the TRO the BLM used the “private property” tactic to strike fear among those seeking to observe the Defendants’ gather operation.  Members of the public were threatened with immediate, on-the-spot arrest should they “trespass,” intentionally or not, onto the very land the Defendants chose to set their horse traps to complete the Owyhee gather.
Nearly two-dozen wild horses, including many foals, have already died as a result of the BLM’s Tuscarora roundups from which the agency plans to remove 1,100 wild horses and leave only 440. 
Contrary to the BLM’s spin that the Owyhee horses were dying due to lack of water in their environment—a so called “emergency”, veterinarian Nina Windand goes on the record to explain the wild horses died due to the lack of proper care after being rounded up and stressed in desert heat.
“The lack of controlled reintroduction of water to these dehydrated, overheated recently stressed horses and the failure to use commonsense horsemanship by letting them drink ad lib under these conditioned caused unnecessary deaths by water intoxication,” states Nina Windand, DVM. “It is my opinion that this constitutes negligent management and that had expert or even common sense management prevailed a plan for gradual rehydration would have been instituted before the gather was in progress, not after the initial wave of deaths.  I further believe that leaving animals in this condition without overnight monitoring was a lapse of professional judgment.” 
Dr. Windand condemns the Owyhee roundup saying, “The uncontroverted fact remains that nearly all horses who reportedly perished, did so during the process of gather itself or immediately thereafter while the horses were in the custody of the BLM, but not before”.
BLM continues to ignore both the public’s first amendment rights and wild horse welfare.  Advocates are outraged that BLM continues forward, at rapid speed, with their multi-million dollar roundups as the agency strives to remove more than 6,000 wild horses and burros in the next three months.
Donations to Leigh’s legal fund may be made to www.GrassRootsHorse.com
Donations to Herd-Watch may be made to www.TheCloudFoundation.org
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Links of interest:

Judge’s motion for response Monday: http://bit.ly/July23order

All court documents filed today: http://bit.ly/July23LLvSalazar

George Knapp/KLAS reports & helicopter ride w/ Leigh: http://bit.ly/iteamOwyhee

George Knapp’s column on BLM secrecy: http://bit.ly/GKnapp

CNN Tuscarora/Ruby Pipeline Coverage: http://bit.ly/CNNnvmustangs

BLM daily reports on Tuscarora roundups: http://bit.ly/Tuscarora

Court Order Granting Injunction 7/14 http://bit.ly/doc10LeighvSalazar

‘Herd-Watch: Public Eyes for Public Horses’ http://bit.ly/9Wvh58

Restraining order sought – AP article http://bit.ly/TROsought

Tuscarora Mustangs fenced out of water http://bit.ly/Livestockfences

Roundup Schedule- updated July 12, 2010 http://bit.ly/roundupschedule

Disappointment Valley… A Modern Day Western Trailer- excellent sample of interviews regarding the issues http://bit.ly/awFbwm

Fact Sheet on Wild Herds & The Salazar Plan http://bit.ly/bfdX1y

Wild Horse and Burro Act http://bit.ly/a7hOeS

Link to this press release online http://bit.ly/LLvSalazarJuly23PR
 
Past Cloud Foundation press releases http://bit.ly/TCFpress

Photos, video and interviews available from:

The Cloud Foundation ~ Makendra@TheCloudFoundation.org  

The Cloud Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and protection of wild horses and burros on our Western public lands with a focus on protecting Cloud’s herd in the Pryor Mountains of Montana.

107 S. 7th St. – Colorado Springs, CO 80905 – 719-633-3842- www.thecloudfoundation.org