WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management say it is ending a controversial gather of mustangs in northeastern Nevada.
A day after it announced it would scale back the wild horse roundups across the West, the bureau abruptly halted the Nevada operation short of its goal of collecting 2,000 mustangs there, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
The roundup ended Friday with 1,368 horses having been removed from the 1.3 million acre Antelope Complex about 60 miles south of Wells, Nev., BLM spokeswoman Heather Jasinski said.
The halt to the roundup had nothing to do with BLM Director Bob Abbey's announcement Thursday the agency would reduce the number of wild horses removed from the range by about one-quarter, she said, nor did it result from a Feb. 16 House of Representatives vote in favor of an amendment to cut the agency's budget by $2 million to protest the roundups.
High winds that frequently grounded a helicopter used in herding horses, and the dispersal of mustangs into smaller groups that made them more difficult to gather, were the reasons, she said.
"That's all it was -- a combination of those factors made it harder to gather horses in this area," she said. "It's been a successful gather."
Animal rights activists say the roundups are inhumane because some animals are traumatized, injured or killed. BLM officials counter that they have a mandate under federal law to remove "excess" horses to sustain the health of herds, range lands and wildlife.
About 33,700 wild horses roam freely in 10 Western states, with about half the animals in Nevada, the Times said.