A wild horse advocacy group says conditions at a facility near Rock Springs are inadequate.
The Bureau of Land Management removes thousands of wild horses from public lands each year. Some are placed in temporary corrals in Rock Springs, until the agency can find a permanent home for them.
Ginger Katherens with the Cloud Foundation says the corral has almost no shelter, so the horses are subjected to “bitter cold and battering wind.” She acknowledges that wild horses always live outside, but she says this is different.
“Most horses, when it gets really bad, can get in natural places that will prevent them from experiencing any winds … or very little,” Katherens said, adding that horses in the wild often take refuge behind trees or in gullies. She says they can’t do that in the corrals.
But the BLM’s Jay D’Eward says the horses are hardy, and they do just fine.
“They endure cold Wyoming winters both out on the range and in the corral situations. … And actually in the corral situation, they do much better. They’re provided with live water; they don’t have to eat snow and ice to hydrate. And they also get some high-protein hay.”
