At least 95 wild horses die in 10 days during outbreak in Colorado, officials say

UPDATE: At least 95 horses have died from the outbreak since April 23, the Bureau of Land Management said. As of Tuesday, May 3, an equine influenza was “suspected to be the cause.”

An outbreak of a mystery disease has killed 57 wild horses in just two days in Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management said.

Thousands of horses at the wild horse facility in Canon City are being quarantined after the outbreak, officials said.

“Wild horses at the Wild Horse facility in Canon City have been infected with an unknown yet highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease,” officials said in a Monday, April 25, news release. “The BLM is working with local, state and federal officials to determine the exact cause of death.”

The outbreak began Saturday, April 23, according to the bureau. Since then, at least 57 horses have died from the mystery disease.

There are 2,550 horses at the facility, officials said. It’s under a voluntary quarantine.

“We are working with local, state and federal officials to determine what is impacting horses in the facility and how we can respond as effectively as possible,” Stephen Leonard, BLM Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Program Manager, said in the news release.

There was no additional information on the outbreak as of Tuesday, April 26, but officials said they will continue to post updates.

Animal activist groups are calling on the Bureau of Land Management to suspend its wild horse gathering operations after the outbreak.

Animal Wellness Action, a group working to prevent animal cruelty, said it has “decried the cramped, crowded, and stressful conditions the formerly wild animals are forced to live in at the facilities” after photos show the horses packed together in pens.

“It is unacceptable that the agency charged by federal law to protect and care for these animals can’t even keep them healthy,” Scott Beckstead, director of campaigns for the Center for a Humane Economy, said in the statement. “And it points to the larger problem of this agency’s focus on mass roundups to accommodate more commercial livestock, rather than being responsible stewards of our wild herds and the lands they live on.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 1:20 PM with the headline "At least 95 wild horses die in 10 days during outbreak in Colorado, officials say."