Sand Wash Basin (Colo.) update: BLM captures 18 wild horses

/ In The News, News, Roundups

A contractor’s helicopter drives wild horses into the trap on Friday. All photos by Meg Frederick.

Click here to read RTF’s full statement on the Sand Wash Basin roundup.

The Bureau of Land Management captured 18 wild horses on Friday, the 10th day of a planned 783-horse “emergency” helicopter roundup on and around Colorado’s Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area.

The BLM completed its roundup on the Herd Management Area on Wednesday but has continued rounding up wild horses on private and other public lands outside the HMA’s borders. On Friday, two bands were driven to the trap site.

A total of 649 wild horses have been captured, so far. That includes 608 from inside the Herd Management Area. Before the roundup, BLM estimated the population of wild horses on the HMA at 896 wild horses.

One adult wild horse and one foal have been confirmed as dead since the start of the roundup, euthanized for what BLM described as pre-existing conditions but which observers believe were injuries caused by the roundup. Emotions have also run high because citizens attending have not seen enough diligence on the part of the agency in searching for missing foals and adult horses.

Today, Saturday, BLM is set to release 50 wild horses back onto the HMA: 25 mares treated with fertility control and 25 studs. The BLM worked with local volunteers on the Sand Wash Basin Advocacy Team to select the horses to be released. RTF strongly supports the use of safe, proven and humane fertility control to slow reproduction and halt future roundups.

The BLM’s justification for the roundup is the number of “excess” wild horses on the Herd Management Area. The roundup was prioritized then as an emergency because of a lack of forage, especially at lower evaluations, with winter coming, according to BLM.

Prior to the roundup, BLM estimated the number of wild horses on Sand Wash at about 896 wild horses. The BLM-set “Appropriate Management Level” for the 157,730-acre Herd Management Area is 163-363, or as low as one horse for every 968 acres.

By comparison, BLM allows up to 19,758 Animal Unit Months of private cattle and sheep grazing on four allotments overlapping the Herd Management Area, or the equivalent of 1,647 cow-calf pairs annually. (One AUM equals monthly forage for one cow-calf pair, one horse or five sheep.) While wild horses are free-roaming all year long, seasons of use for livestock vary by allotment, with cattle use ranging from as low as two to as many as three months and sheep use ranging from as low as six to as many as eight months.

Actual livestock use on three of the allotments averaged 14-52% of maximum livestock use from 2008-20, according to planning documents. On the fourth allotment, there has been no livestock use since before 2000 due to wild horse use and limited acreage and lack of AUMs for cattle, according to planning documents.

No cattle were grazed on the Herd Management Area in 2020-21, according to BLM, while 2,161 AUMs were allocated for sheep in 2020. Use varied by allotment with sheep allowed to graze as early as September and as late as May, according to planning documents.

In 2021, the trailing of sheep through the Herd Management Area has been the only livestock use. An active grazing period was not used, Leonard said, and an exact number of days has not yet been calculated.

Captured horses are to be transported to the BLM facility in Canon City for adoption or sale.

Last year, 300 mares on the Herd Management Area were treated with fertility control, in cooperation with advocates. Advocates will also provide input into which captured horses are released, BLM said.

The roundup is part of a plan to remove 6,000 additional wild horses from the range because of drought conditions by the end of September.

Return to Freedom believes that we are in this tragic position because of the BLM’s failure to implement solutions that have been available for over 20 years For nearly 50 years, these horses have had to suffer this management program and the Americans who love them suffer with them.

This is even more tragic because other solutions exist now. The agency has resisted creating an infrastructure and a culture that could have made a sustainable and effective fertility control program possible. It has rounded up horses year after year while waiting for longer-acting vaccines instead of using the safe, proven and humane fertility control that’s available right now. These sensitive habitats are vulnerable to drought and, knowing this, a national land management agency tasked with the preservation and protection of our wild horses should have been prepared long ago and in a much better position today.

Take action: Send a message to Congress in support of safe, proven and humane fertility control

See BLM’s planning documents here.

See BLM’s tentative roundup schedule here.

Viewing the roundup

The BLM has established a Sand Wash Basin HMA Information Line for viewing opportunities at 970-673-7768. You must call ahead by 8 p.m. Mountain Time the previous day to let us know of your planned attendance.