Distemper outbreak in Utah

Distemper outbreak kills wild horses at Herriman center By brandon loomis

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Oct 19, 2010 07:07PM
Updated 3 minutes ago Updated Oct 19, 2010 07:58PM Federal wild-horse managers are suspending adoptions from their Herriman center and placing a quarantine on about 500 horses because of an equine-distemper outbreak.

Eleven horses have died — some on their own and some from euthanasia after being badly stricken — and two or three dozen more show signs of the upper-respiratory infection, said Gus Warr, head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Utah wild-horse and burro program.

An outbreak happens about every year, Warr said Tuesday, but this one is unusual in the number of animals it is sickening at once. The BLM is separating the sick horses and working to disinfect their areas, he said. The agency plans to monitor all of the horses for 30 to 45 days to see if the outbreak is over before resuming adoptions.

“We’re just asking that the public be patient with us,” he said, noting that some probably already have picked out horses. “We have a lot of horses we’d love to get adopted, but they’ll have to wait a month or so.”

State Veterinarian Bruce King said equine distemper is common, and he sees no reason for south-valley horse owners to be alarmed. Most domestic horses have exposure to the bacteria when young and gain antibodies from their mothers’ milk, he said, but the wild horses, which the BLM rounds up from its ranges, lack immunity.

“Here you’ve got horses on the desert, spread out, not much contact with each other, and you bring them in and congregate them together [where] there may have been some other horses that had this infection,” he said. “You bring this [unexposed] population in, and they get infected.”

The infection causes lymph node swelling under the jaw. King said it can debilitate some horses, forcing them to the ground. If they remain off their feet for hours or overnight, they suffer muscle damage caused by their own weight, he said, and euthanasia becomes necessary.

King recommended the quarantine to the BLM. He said privately owned horses that don’t have close contact should not face a heightened threat. Some horses are vaccinated against distemper, he said, although there is no requirement for it.

The wild horses are vaccinated before adoption, but about 200 have arrived from roundups in the past month and were not yet immunized, Warr said. That may have been a good thing for some of them, he said, because the vaccine does not become effective immediately. The stress from going through the chutes and receiving the vaccine could have contributed to more deaths among those infected.

The quarantine also may affect the next round of horses scheduled to arrive at Herriman. If the outbreak persists into December, Warr said, the BLM will send horses from a southern Utah roundup to another state instead.

A Victory

As of today the large, flashing electrical warnings signs for wild horses are back up in the  Mound House - Centenial Park area!  Good job everyone!