A contractor’s helicopter pursues wild horses near the trap site on the Red Desert Complex in Wyoming on Oct. 10, 2020. Photo by Meg Frederick.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will hold its annual, legally required public hearing regarding the use of motorized vehicles in the management of wild horses and burros from 1-3 p.m. MT on May 23.

The meeting will be held using Teams video conferencing.

To comment during the virtual public meeting, members of the public must register by May 5. Written comments may also be sent by 3 p.m. MT on May 6, 2025, to BLM_HQ_MotorizedVehicleHearing@blm.gov.

The BLM uses helicopters to drive and trap wild horses, trucks to move them to off-range holding facilities and adoption / sale events, as well as helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft to conduct population surveys.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) amended the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act to allow the use of helicopters and other motor vehicles for herd management. FLPMA requires that the agency conduct the annual hearing.

In its ongoing effort to reach population targets for herds that the BLM itself sets, the agency relies on capturing and removing wild horses and burros from the range.

The BLM continues to stall the use of proven, safe and humane fertility control. Fertility control could slow herd growth, without stopping it, and, if properly and robustly implemented, replace capture-and-removal as the agency’s primary management tool.

From May to September of this year, the BLM plans to capture and remove 5,414 wild horses and burros from the range while treating just 53 with fertility control.

When helicopters are used to capture wild horses and burros: the animals are extremely stressed, fearful and often driven for miles over uneven ground, standard operating procedures often go unfollowed, and mares and foals can easily become separated. Conducting them during the summer makes horses more susceptible to heat stress and dust exposure.

We continue to advocate for scaling up fertility control as any lesser removals are accomplished methodically with bait-and water-trapping techniques, in which horses or burros are lured into temporary enclosures made with livestock panels.