Silver Springs, Nevada (CNN) -- The helicopter is on the chase. At first, you can only hear it. Then, from behind the hillside, you see a herd of wild horses running for their freedom, with the helicopter close behind. One escapes the trap, barely. The crowd cheers. This is the scene at the Lahontan wild horse roundup in Silver Springs, Nevada. The helicopter pilot works for the federal government. The crowd is composed mainly of activists opposed to the roundups. More and more, the roundups are becoming showdowns between protesters and the Bureau of Land Management. "They are by law supposed to protect these horses, and in fact they are doing the exact opposite -- they are exterminating them," says Simone Netherlands, founder of the advocacy group Respect 4 Horses. "They are managing them to extinction."
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The U.S. government rounds up wild horses and burros in the West, using helicopters
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The government says the program controls the population
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Protests increased after 100 horses died in a helicopter roundup
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Government officials say less than 1% of wild horses die in these roundups
The study determining the number of horses that will remain in the @placeholder management area was done in the mid-1990s.