South Steens HMA (Ore.) ends with 218 wild horses removed from home range

/ In The News, News, Roundups
A wild horse grazing on the South Steens Herd Management Area in 2019. BLM file photo.

The Bureau of Land Management captured 218 wild horses over eight days in a helicopter roundup on private property inside and outside the South Steens Herd Management Area in Oregon. 

No deaths were reported among the 62 studs, 103 mares and 53 foals captured.

The BLM’s goal was to capture and remove 200 wild horses from their home range that the agency says have strayed onto private property within and outside the HMA’s southern boundary. 

During the roundup, BLM did not apply safe, proven and humane fertility control to additional mares that would allow for the phase-out of capture-and-removal as its primary tool on the HMA.

The BLM-set Appropriate Management Level for the South Steens HMA, which includes 134,000 acres of mixed public and private land is 159-304 wild horses, or as low as one horse for every 843 acres.

By comparison, BLM allocates 13,136 Animal Unit Months for private livestock grazing on the HMA. An AUM is defined as the forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.

Wild horses captured and removed from their home range were transported to Oregon’s Wild Horse Corral Facility in Hines, Ore., to be prepared for adoption.

Click to read BLM’s planning documents.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress that BLM must immediately increase fertility control for wild horses, burros