Burros at RTF’s San Luis Obispo satellite sanctuary. Photo by Deb Hofstetter.
The Bureau of Land Management recently completed a bait-and-trap roundup in which 425 burros and 97 wild horses were captured and removed from the Spring Mountains Complex, about 60 miles from Las Vegas.
One burro, a 13-year-old jenny, died from a broken neck during the three-month roundup, which ended June 19. Temporary traps made of livestock panels and baited with feed or water were used instead of helicopters.
The BLM’s stated reasons for the roundup included reducing the wild horse and burro population, in part due to a lack of water, and to reduce collisions on surrounding highways.
The captured burros and horses were shipped to the Palomino Valley Off-Range Corrals in Reno, Nev.
The 616,912-acre Spring Mountains Complex encompasses three federally designated Herd Management Areas with a combined BLM-set “Appropriate Management Level” of no more than 285 wild burros and horses.
Before the roundup, the BLM estimated that there were 749 wild horses and 1,046 burros in the complex, not counting this year’s foals.
There are no active livestock grazing permits in the complex, according to the agency.
The BLM again opted not to treat and release any jennies or mares treated with proven, safe and humane fertility control, perpetuating the agency’s failed management by capture and removal.
We strongly support the use of fertility control as a key tool to reduce the frequency and size of removals and replace them with minimally intrusive, on-range management.
Our sanctuary is home to 17 total bonded wild horses from the Wheeler Pass Herd Management Area, part of the Spring Mountains Complex, which we call our Cold Creek herd.
We were able to relocate them in bonded groups in 2015 and 2019, even as we continued to call on the BLM to implement fertility control that could prevent future roundups there.