Box Elder authorities looking for owner of emaciated horse

BOX ELDER COUNTY — An emaciated mare and its foal that an Ogden man happened on near the Great Salt Lake earlier this week were moved to a safe location while authorities try figure out if they were abandoned.

Kevin Blanch, a plaster contractor and prolific video blogger, was between the Spiral Jetty and the Golden Spike National Historic Site about 45 miles west of Brigham City with his camera on Wednesday when he came across two horses lying on the ground. He noticed the mare's ribs sticking out and thought it was dead, but both horses stood up as he drew closer. The mare also has a floppy right front hoof.

"I've never seen a horse so skinny and frail in all my life. This is something that had to take a great deal of time," he said, adding he's been around horses his entire life. "To let any animal suffer like that, or a human being, is appalling. It's absolutely appalling."

Fearing the horse might die due to starvation or lack of water, Blanch contacted the Humane Society of Utah. He also posted his video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQNfJjNmLZI) on YouTube with the title "Animal Cruelty Utah Horses." The Humane Society called the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office.

Chief deputy sheriff Kevin Potter asked a nearby rancher, Rick Ellis, to look after the horses until officials can locate their owner. Ellis moved them Friday morning to a 5,000-acre pasture with water.

"There's no animal cruelty here. The mare hasn't been starved to death," Ellis said.

The horse is old and doesn't look as good as she should but has worked hard to raise her foal, he said. As for her bent front foot, Ellis said it appears she sustained an injury, possibly from a wire fence, that affected its growth long ago.

"It's my impression that somebody may have been trying to get the colt raised before she is euthanized," he said. "The colt is in tremendous condition and that tells me a lot."

Abandoned horses are recurring problem given the state of the horse industry right now, Ellis said, making it clear he doesn't know if that happened in this case. "A lot of folks with the economy just can't care for them," he said.

Potter said the area where Blanch saw the horses is a checkerboard of federal, state and private land that border several ranches and thousands of cows and hundreds of horses graze there.

There are no wild horses or mustangs in that locale, said Gus Warr, Utah's wild horse and burro manager for the Bureau of Land Management.

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