BLM captures 188 wild horses, kills 1 on Four Mile HMA (Idaho)

/ In The News, News, Roundups

A contractor’s helicopter drives wild horses toward the trap site on the Four Mile Herd Management Area. on Tuesday. BLM photo.

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday captured 188 wild horses on the first day of a helicopter roundup on the Four Mile Herd Management Area, located north of Emmett, Idaho. One stallion was put down after suffering a broken neck.

The agency set out to capture 189 wild horses, permanently removing 173 and returning eight mares treated with fertility control and eight studs to the range. Though BLM hit nearly its removal goal on the first day, the agency planned to continue rounding up horses in and around the Herd Management Area on Wednesday.

BLM’s stated reason for the roundup is that the estimated population of 210 wild horses, including foals, exceeds the agency-set “Appropriate Management Level” of 37-60 wild horses on the 18,800-acre Herd Management Area.

By comparison, BLM allows up to 4,449 Animal Unit Months of seasonal private livestock grazing (the equivalent of 371 cow-calf pairs annually) on an allotment, 53 percent of which overlaps the Herd Management Area (one Animal Unit Month is the amount of forage needed to feed one cow-calf pair, one horse or five sheep for a month). No livestock grazing is allowed between Aug. 16 and Oct. 31 of each year, according to February 2020 planning documents.

Captured wild horses will be transported to the Boise, Idaho, BLM Wild Horse and Burro Facility to be readied for adoption or sale.

In 2003, removed 37 wild horses from Four Mile and returned 20 mares to the range treated with the safe, proven and humane fertility control vaccine PZP-22. In 2009, 112 wild horses were removed and 11 mares were treated with PZP-22.

In 2021, BLM plans to use the fertility control vaccine GonaCon.

RTF strongly supports the use of safe, proven and humane fertility control to eliminate future roundups; however, because GonaCon affects the hormone system, it may cause other behavioral changes that would alter herd dynamics, so RTF believes more studies are needed to ensure that GonaCon meets the parameters of ethical and thoughtful wildlife fertility control.

To read BLM’s planning documents, click here.

To see BLM’s tentative roundup calendar, click here.

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