The Palomino Valley Wild Horse and Burro Center. BLM file photo.

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Another 114 wild horses were captured on Sunday during the ongoing helicopter roundup at the Owyhee Complex in Northern Nevada, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Forty-eight stallions, 50 mares and 16 foals were captured on Sunday, bringing the five-day total to 405. Three have died.

Also on Saturday, 30 foals, 21 mares and 15 studs were transported to the Palomino Valley Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Center near Reno, Nevada, where they will be prepared for the BLM adoption program. Those not adopted will later be taken to off-range pastures.

The BLM plans to capture 680 wild horses in and around the Elko District’s Rock Creek and Owyhee Horse Management Areas. Of those, about 450 will be removed from the range.

A second phase of the roundup is scheduled to be held after Thanksgiving on the Winnemucca District’s Little Owyhee Horse Management Area. There, 920 wild horses are the be captured and 650 removed from the range.

Mares that are not transported will be treated with PZP-22 fertility control vaccine before release. So far, 10 horses have been returned to the range, according to the BLM.

The agency justifies the roundup as an effort to “remove excess wild horses in order to prevent further deterioration of Greater Sage grouse habitat within the Sagebrush Focal Area (in northern Elko and Humboldt Counties. Overpopulation of wild horses leads to the degradation of rangeland resources, which adversely impacts habitat for other species as well as the horses themselves.”