SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A wild-horse advocacy group is calling for an investigation after photos showed a horse hitting a barbed-wire fence during a roundup in Utah.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports photographer Steve Paige, an observer affiliated with the American Wild Horse Campaign, says photos he shot Monday depict one horse tumbling hard, hooves in the air, after striking a fence as a chopper hazed a band toward a trap.
American Wild Horse Campaign Executive Director Suzanne Roy says the group is calling on the Bureau of Land Management to “suspend the roundup … while an investigation is undertaken of the animal welfare violations documented by our observer.”
The complaint targets the practices of Bureau of Land Management contractor Sampson Livestock.
The Bureau of Land Management acknowledged that horses hit the fence while a helicopter pursued them.
