A Nevada wild horse protection organization calls on the Bureau of Land Management to stop large-scale round-ups, saying it is an unsustainable practice.
This comes in light of the recent release of the BLM’s Tentative Wild Horse and Burro Gather and Fertility Control Schedule for the year. The department expects to gather 7,000 wild horses and burros and permanently remove nearly 6,000 from federal lands beginning in July. In the BLM’s congressional analysis report from 2020, The BLM said it is expected to take up to 20 years to reach the acceptable management level of 27,000 wild horses and burros on the range across the West, with the annual removal of 18 to – 20,000 animals.
Suzanne Roy, executive director for The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) argues, “The BLM has created [a] crisis by catering to private interests, removing thousands more wild horses than could be placed into private care. Adding that “It is now more important than ever that the BLM utilize the readily available humane fertility control at a meaningful scale.”
In December, Congress just included a bipartisan wild horse protection measure requiring the BLM’s Program to utilize up to $11 million for reversible fertility control to manage wild horses and burros sustainably.
Though the American Wild Horse Campaign is charging the BLM with not following this directive, saying only a fraction was spent on humane fertility control to manage herds on the range.
Roy concluded by stating, “It’s beyond time for the BLM to implement humane fertility control at the scale necessary to stabilize populations over the long term as an alternative to the current costly and cruel roundup approach,” but the AAWHS remains hopeful fertility grant awards from last year will soon allow the BLM to increase treatment goals.
The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) is a wild horse protection organization dedicated to preserving the American wild horse and burros and implements the largest wild horse fertility control program in the world through a partnership with the State of Nevada for wild horses that live in the Virginia Range near Reno.
