SALT LAKE CITY -- Thursday, June 25, 1998

For the second time this month, a federal judge saved wild foals in Utah from execution Wednesday, giving the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) a few more weeks to find them a home.

The BLM is negotiating with universities in two states to take the foals for research. The BLM has rounded up about 440 horses from three herds on its lands in eastern Utah since May and tested them for equine infectious anemia -- a deadly disease similar to the human immunodeficiency virus. About 60 tested positive, and 36 were euthanized. The others, 12 mares and their 12 foals, are being quarantined in the western Bonanza Draw near the Ute Indian Reservation. About 50 other horses that tested negative but were rounded up with horses that tested positive also are being kept. Those horses will be set free if they test negative again in July.

Under the orders from the state veterinarian, the mares and their foals were to be euthanized immediately. But animal rights groups led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) successfully argued for a federal reprieve. Research suggests the blood tests for the foals are positive because the foals carry antibodies from their infected mothers, not because they have the virus.

Animal rights groups want the state to retest the animals in six to eight months. "There's a very strong likelihood that these foals would be negative once they're weaned," said Patricia Lane, an attorney for the Humane Society of the United States. Lane said when the mares are asymptomatic like those in Utah, there is a 1 in 6 million chance a mother will pass the disease on to the foal.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered Utah not to euthanize or otherwise harm the foals until June 23. On Wednesday she extended that order to July 20. 'We need the judge to keep issuing these orders so these wild horse foals won't be killed," said ALDF spokeswoman Jeanne Stuart Mcvey.

The state veterinarian will not allow the horses to stay in Utah for the long term. Glenn Foreman, a spokesman for the BLM in Utah, said the BLM hopes to save the foals by sending them to a state willing to quarantine them.

The BLM had wanted to send the foals to Colorado, but that state's veterinarian refused them. Foreman said two other states have shown an interest in taking the wild horses to research how the virus is transferred from the mares to the foals. It is unclear if the mares will be a part of the research.

The agreement should be finalized by the beginning of July. Foreman would not disclose which states he is working with because he said the negotiations are politically sensitive. He fears people in those states who do not understand the disease and the research will thwart the BLM's efforts. "We're getting real close to having to put those babies down because we can't find them a home," said Foreman.

One of the Utah foals has been put down since the roundup began. It had sustained neck injuries before helicopters began corralling the wild horses, Foreman said. Three other horses also have died -- two mares broke their necks trying to escape the corrals, and one stallion died of a heart attack.