Cloud and the wild horses of Montana's Pryor Mountains are world famous but fame it appears is not going to protect the herd from a drastic government round up planned to begin September 1st in their spectacular wilderness home.
There are currently only 190 wild horses (one year and older) living in the Pryor Mountains. The BLM plans to remove 70 of them, plus foals. According to the foremost equine geneticist, Dr. Gus Cothran, 150-200 adult horses are needed in the herd to ensure their genetic diversity, which is vital to their long term survival.
These 70 horses would be placed in jeopardy. Any horses over 10 years of age can be bought directly by killer buyers and transported over the Northern border to Canadian slaughterhouses or south into Mexico. Younger horses not adopted would be put into government holding with 33,000 others that the BLM has removed from the wild and has proposed killing because they can no longer afford to feed them.
BLM cites poor range condition as the reason to remove the horses but abundant snow and rain for the past two and a half years has produced wonderful range conditions according to all who have visited Cloud and his herd. The unique Pryor Mountain wild horses are descendents of the Lewis and Clark horses who were stolen by the Crow Indians in the early 1800's. They can be traced further back to the horses brought over with the Spanish Conquistadors in 1500.
http://www.care2.com/causes/animal-welfare/blog/cloud-s-herd-is-in-danger-of-blm-roundup/Petition here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/stop-the-massive-removal-of-cloud39s-wild-horse-herd
