Mares and foals are shown in this BLM photo taken at the off-range corrals in Fallon, Nev., with more crowded pens in the distance.
The Bureau of Land Management will host a public tour of the Indian Lakes Off-Rand Wild Horse and Burro Corral in Fallon, Nev., on May 13.
The privately owned and operated facility about 90 minutes east of Reno, Nev., is holding wild horses captured in Nevada and Oregon. The 320-acre corral facility is made up of 75 70,000-square-feet holding pens with what BLM says is a total capacity of up to 7,600 wild horses or burros.
The pens have automatic watering troughs and the horses are provided with mineral blocks as well as feed, according to BLM.
To register for the two-hour tour and get driving directions, contact (775) 475-2222. Just 20 people will be allowed on the tour.
The public tour will begin at 10 a.m. and will last about two hours and accommodate up to 20 people. To register for the tour and get driving directions to the facility, please contact the BLM at (775) 475-2222.
The BLM is warehousing captured 60,611 wild horses and burros, according to its February count, 21,784 in off-range corrals with the balance in leased pastures or public off-range pastures. Off-range holding cost taxpayers $72.4 million in Fiscal Year 2021, consuming 64 percent of BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program budget.
Return to Freedom advocates for the use of proven, safe and humane fertility control as a key tool for ending removals and the phasing out of off-range holding facilities.
The BLM has announced that it will remove “at least” a record 19,000 wild horses and burros from their home ranges this fiscal year while only treating about 2,300 with unspecified fertility control.
As of the beginning of March, the BLM estimated there were 82,384 wild horses and burros on the range, more than three times the agency’s arbitrarily low population target. The agency-set “Appropriate Management Level” totals 26,785 wild horses and burros across 177 Herd Management Areas on BLM-managed public lands in 10 Western states.
In addition to focusing its efforts on ramping up a real fertility control program, we believe that the agency should also immediately begin moving wild horses and burros languishing in corrals to more natural and cost-effective pastures.