BLM seeks comment on plan to remove all wild horses from Moriah Herd Area (Nev.)

/ In The News, News, Roundups
Mares, right, and weanlings in temporary holding pens after being captured during a roundup on the Eagle Herd Management Area in Nevada in 2019. BLM file photo.

The Bureau of Land Management is seeking public comment on an  for a plan that would see the agency capture and remove the remaining 714 wild horses from the Moriah Herd Area in White Pine County, Nevada.

The 55,300-acre Moriah Herd Management Area was demoted to Herd Area status in 2007 because BLM deemed it deficient for one of five essential components: forage, water, cover, space and reproductive viability and set the Appropriate Management Level at 0 horses.

Of the estimated 714 wild horses that still live on the range there, about half regularly leave the Herd Area in search of forage and water, according to the agency.

Under its plan, BLM would set out to capture as many of the horses as possible through a helicopter roundup and return periodically over the next decade to zero out the Herd Area. Captured wild horses would be offered for adoption or sale.

BLM’s assessment rejects raising AML, because its regional plan does not include horses on the Herd Area, using a bait-and-water trap as a primary means of capturing wild horses, because they have access to water outside of the Herd Area, and the use of fertility control via darting to reduce herd numbers, because it would take “decades” to zero out the herd and because much of the Herd Area is inaccessible with no roads.

Reversion of HMAs to HAs with objectives to zero-out wild horses from these areas while providing no alternative lands for those horses results in a net loss of resources for wild horses overall and a disproportionate gain for other uses. 

RTF recommends a slower and multi-faceted approach including the implementation of well-executed fertility control program that would include some on-range fertility control (via remote darting) and some gather-administer-release fertility control. This is more effective at creating and maintaining sustainable wild horse management with less dependence on transportation and short-term holding, where a majority of the program budget is spent.

The BLM did not analyze a reduction of privately-owned cattle or sheep on the Herd Area. The agency has allocated 17,346 Animal Unit Months (one AUM equals enough forage for one cow-calf pair, one horse or five sheep). Actual use on the five allotments varied from 24-96% over the previous 10 years.

To submit a comment before the 4:30 p.m. (PST) deadline on July 24, write to: blm_nv_eydo_moriah_ha_gather_ea@blm.gov or mail your comment to: Bureau of Land Management Ely District Office, 702 N. Industrial Way, Ely, NV 89301 Attn: Ben Noyes, Wild Horse and Burro Specialist. 

Send a message to your members of Congress urging them to press BLM on the implementation of safe, proven and humane fertility control.

Sign our petition telling Congress to analyze all public land use impacts, allocate an equitable share to wild horses and burros.