Wild horse advocates bid high to save horses

Nevada Department of Ag should be investigating the shenanigans of this auction house---but wait a minute---they are making big bucks and the auction house is getting a bigger commission. What a bunch of crooks! There is no "market fluctuation" to justify what they did. I hope attendees will document with plenty of video all the people bidding and publish it. Maybe the advocates need to find a "good old dealer" to do the bidding for them?

I hope that KRNV will have a reporter at the auction house on the 26th! would that livestock auction owner have the brass to pull that in front of the TV cameras?

This is insane that you let the people of the auction bid on the horses in the first place to rid this situation from happening again. These horses need the help of the advocates and the slaughter house does not need to be bothered with these horses in the first place. as they are Americas icon, the wild mustang, GET A GRIP guys, do the right thing , these horses depend on it. They surely dont deserve to die. Change that rule , no one who has anything to do with the sale should be able to bid. get it right, arggggggg, this really makes me livid

This has gone too far! Everything is the fault of the advocates? Give me a break. A couple of weeks ago I received a long explanation from Ag Dept's spokesperson as to why they decided to sell horses at auction. I pointed out to him that his statement was illogical and why, but he insisted he was right and that the information I gave him was wrong. He called back 10-15 minutes later and gave a totally different reason for the horses going to auction. Now they say that advocates put horses they had purchased back on the range. Wrong again. The horses in question were placed on private land, land on which the Ag. Dept. themselves turned out 50 some odd horses a few years back. To top it off, several folks that are named as suspects in the bogus animal cruelty charges against advocates are said to have been at the sale in which the horses at issue were purchased. They weren't there. The list of suspects includes just about anyone who has ever spoken out against the department in the past. Accusations and formal charges were released to the media and to private individuals days before those were named were made aware . Mr. Barbee's statement regarding price fluctuation at livestock auctions is ludicrous. At the auction in question, they offered a group of non-Virginia Range horses for bid in between two batches of Virginia Range horses. Oddly enough, those non-virginia Ranges horses went out at around $150 each, an average sale price. Only the Virginia Range horses had the bids driven to more than three times the average by a person said to be with the auction house. Sure sounds like a suspicious fluctuation to me. If you want to know what's really going on here, you need to know what questions to ask. Most reporters would not have the knowledge base to know those questions and aren't given the time to fully investigate. Thank you for covering the story. Sure hope you will be given the time needed to cover the whole story.

funny how the market price for all of the ill-fated stock horses was $50-100, it was just 3-4 times for the wild horses! this was totally an "up-yours" to the advocates! what a horrible abuse of power and what a grand show of "GOB"s.

Barbee's statement regarding the price of horses, was quite ignorant. They have been very low for some time now, a combination of high hay prices and the economy in general. It's obvious that the sale yard owner was either bidding for the kill buyer, or simply recognized that people cared so much about these horses, they were willing to pay 3-4 times over the going rate. This does not speak well of either the sale yard owner, or Barbee - he should be more involved in the protection of his states national treasurers. It's the horses that need the protection, not the kill buyers.