Celeste Carlisle,  RTF biologist.

By Celeste Carlisle

The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting in January was an example of how and why we work to develop real relationships that help mitigate the boundaries between politics or ideologies.

The people at these meetings – the other board members, agency personnel, partners in collaborative networks, and the public — are people whom I as advisory board chair turn to for information about stakeholders’ concerns and to understand the complexity of ecological issues on public lands where multiple-use is mandated by law.

We’d rather work with our eyes wide open and partners who think a little differently than we do, otherwise we will miss out on collaboration that could have positive consequences for wild horses and burros.

Because we trust others and they trust us, the conversation about how fertility control can actually be an equal and effective management tool has become a lot more mainstream.

Three recommendations made at the advisory board meeting last month had to do with fertility control:

• The Board recommends in 2025 that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) create detailed, measurable 5-year plans describing how they will incrementally reduce population size and growth in order to ultimately achieve range-wide Appropriate Management Level (AML). The plans should prioritize application of fertility control, administered remotely and/or in concert with gather-removals.
• The Board recommends that in 2025, and going forward, even if removals are constrained by availability of off-range holding space, application of fertility control should be prioritized as a tool to stabilize population growth in every Herd Management Area (BLM) or Wild Horse Territory (USFS). This should include HMAs or WHTs where AML has not been achieved, and should be applied by gather, hold, release and/or by remote darting.
• The Board recommends that the BLM acquire a contractor for developing an immediately implementable, 2025-onward fertility control management protocol framework to maintain AML at the 45 HMAs currently at or near AML.

We couldn’t be more thrilled that stakeholders across the spectrum are advocating with us for increasing use of fertility control by the agencies managing wild horses and burros.

The work is far from over, but, as ever, we’re here for it.