A mare and foal on the Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area. Photo by Meg Frederick.

The Bureau of Land Management is again attempting to place surgical sterilization of wild horses back on the table.

We strongly oppose sterilization surgeries — especially for wild mares — because they are dangerous, unproven, costly, and unnecessary.

This week, the BLM approved a plan for the Jackson Mountains Herd Management Area (HMA) in Nevada that includes managing up to 1/3 of the herd as a “permanently non-breeding population.”

The BLM’s wrong-headed pursuit of surgical sterilization has only led to litigation — not progress toward more humane and sustainable on-range herd management.

The BLM should be scaling up its use of safe, proven fertility control.

We have long supported fertility control as a humane and practical tool to slow herd growth and finally phase out BLM’s failed, decades-long practice of capturing and removing wild horses and burros from their home ranges.

For Jackson Mountains, the BLM includes as a sterilization option the procedure known as ovariectomy via colpotomy: the surgical removal of both ovaries through an incision in the vaginal canal.

This procedure requires post-surgical pain management and rest, standards of care difficult to achieve for a wild mare. It includes risks of infection, bleeding, and death.

BLM’s attempts to sterilize wild horses have been halted by litigation and public opposition. Most recently, in 2021, the agency abandoned a plan to use ovariectomy via colpotomy on captured mares after we and others sued.

In 2017, we prevailed in a federal lawsuit challenging BLM’s efforts to permanently sterilize an entire Idaho herd of horses. The court found that sterilizing wild horses impacts the herd’s social structure, the wild horses’ behavior, and the public’s interest in preserving and observing natural instincts and behaviors.

Last spring, the BLM estimated there were 679 wild horses at Jackson Mountains. The BLM’s “Appropriate Management Level” for the 265,000-acre Herd Management Area is 130 to 217.

Under the plan, then, about 43 of the horses would be non-reproducing if the low end of the population target is achieved.