A group of wild horse advocates hope a federal judge will stop the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from carrying out a plan to surgically spay wild mares at the agency’s Wild Horse Corrals, in Hines, Oregon, on grounds that the procedures are experimental and dangerous.

Earlier this month, The Cloud Foundation, Ginger Kathrens, the American Wild Horse Campaign, and others filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Oregon seeking an injunction to prevent the BLM from performing ovariectomies on 100 wild mares on grounds that the procedures carry a high risk of mortality from bleeding, infection, and evisceration, as well as a potentially fatal protrusion of bowel through the surgical incision. The groups also claim spaying will subject pregnant mares to risk of miscarriage and associated complications.

“This is a rare, last ditch operation in the world of domestic mares,” said Kathrens, the Cloud Foundation’s executive director and a humane advisor on the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board. “I would hope we, as a society, are beyond this kind of cruelty.”

The BLM declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

Orignally posted by The Horse