Montana Airlift Dumps Tons Of Hay With More To Come In Rescue Effort To Save Hundreds Of Hungry Horses Abandoned At Recently Foreclosed Ranch

In Billings, Montana, ABC News reports:

• A helicopter airlifted 20 tons of hay, and deputies hauled even more to a sprawling southeastern Montana ranch where hundreds of horses are starving. The horses belong to James H. Leachman, who pleaded not guilty Friday to 10 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty in an initial court appearance in Billings. Leachman was supposed to remove the animals last July when his business, Leachman Cattle Co., lost the ranch at a federal foreclosure sale.

• Leachman said little during the hearing. But in an interview with The Associated Press, he blamed the horses' problems on the family that bought his ranch. He said the horses had survived Montana's harsh winters for years on natural forage, but this year were confined by the new landowners to areas that already were overgrazed. "There's only been one side told," Leachman said. "They put them in a pasture that had no grass."

• Justice Court Judge Larry Herman told Leachman not to enter the property to provide care for the horses without first making arrangements with authorities. Each animal cruelty count is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

• Leachman, 68, ran a horse breeding business called Hairpin Cavvy. Five of his horses have died in recent weeks, and a Montana veterinarian warned that others would start dying if they did not receive food.

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• Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office officials hauled more hay with a tractor and a flatbed to about 75 horses stuck in an isolated pasture.

For more, see Hay Dropped to Starving Horses at Montana Ranch (20 tons of hay airlifted to hundreds of horses starving at Montana ranch).

See also, The Billings Gazette: First hay drop for starving horses a success:

• An estimated 500 to 700 horses belonging to James Leachman are spread over 20 miles across a handful of ranches and Crow Reservation leases. [...] So far, 250 tons of hay have been donated for the rescue effort, dubbed Operation Home Place.