BLM to hire fertility control coordinator

/ In The News, News

Photo taken at the Salt Wells Herd Management Area in Wyoming by Meg Frederick.

The Bureau of Land Management has begun the process of hiring a fertility control coordinator for its Wild Horse and Burro Program — a step we are pleased to see.

We strongly support the use of proven, safe and humane fertility control to slow wild horse and burro population growth so that decades of failed capture-and-removal-only management can be brought to an end.

To be clear: This new position must be more than window dressing.

It must be part of a transition to meaningful implementation of fertility control as a real management tool.

Congress has begun providing additional funding for fertility control, and its use has gained both strong public and broad stakeholder support.

Population modeling shows that the BLM must immediately implement fertility control if it is to stabilize herd growth.

The BLM maintains it will use fertility control — but only after it reaches its arbitrary “Appropriate Management Levels” — 26,785 total wild horses and burros across 10 Western states.

From 2019-23, the BLM removed 57,997 wild horses and burros from the range and applied only 4,936 fertility control treatments.

The agency estimates there are 73,520 wild horses and burros roaming public lands that it oversees.

Meanwhile, the number in off-range holding facilities has climbed to more than 66,000. The agency spends more than $109 million annually (69% of its program budget) on holding.

The exploding cost of warehousing captured horses has stymied progress toward more humane and sustainable herd management on-range.

After long promising to create such a position, the BLM posted the opening on Thursday with an application period ending on Oct. 31 — only 15 days.

We urge the BLM to conduct a thorough search and hire a knowledgeable and motivated fertility control coordinator.