A contractor’s helicopter drives wild horses toward the trap site on the Salt Wells Creek Herd Management Area. Photo by Lynn Walleen.
TAKE ACTION: Oppose the Wyoming wild horse wipeout.
The Bureau of Land Management on Monday released seven mares with intrauterine devices onto the Salt Wells Herd Management Area in southwestern Wyoming as part of the agency’s largest-ever roundup.
Return to Freedom opposes the use of IUDs based on past studies. While the IUDs are described as a newer technology made of soft, anchor-shaped silicone, RTF remains opposed to their use until they are shown to be safe, humane and effective. BLM expects that the IUDs will eventually fall out.
The agency plans to release additional horses onto the Adobe Town Herd Management Area on Wednesday and Friday. The agency has not said how many horses or what gender they will be. BLM has previously said that it plans to release 204 mares (173 treated with the fertility control vaccine PZP and 31 with IUDs) onto Adobe Town by the end of December.
The removal of wild horses was paused on Dec. 6 after BLM completed removals from the Great Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells Herd Management Areas by Dec. 6. The roundup is set to resume in January on the White Mountain and Little Colorado Herd Management Areas.
The BLM plans to capture 4,300 wild horses from five Herd Management Areas in southwestern Wyoming. The agency plans to permanently remove 3,500 wild horses and to return 800 wild horses to the range, treating all released mares with fertility control.
Totals so far:
–3,121 wild horses have been captured, so far, according to BLM’s report.
–16 wild horses have been killed since the roundup began, eight for “chronic / pre-existing” conditions that have included things like club feet while eight have been killed for “sudden/acute” injuries that have included broken necks and legs as a result of the roundup.
–181 wild horses have been released. On Dec. 7, BLM released 35 stallions onto Salt Wells. On Dec. 5, BLM released 97 stallions onto Adobe Town and 38 mares treated with the fertility control vaccine PZP onto the Salt Wells Creek HMA. On Nov. 26, 45 stallions were released by BLM onto Salt Wells Creek on Nov. 26 and, early in the roundup, one horse jumped over the panels in temporary holding pens and escaped.
The BLM contends that the helicopter roundup is needed to return the Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, White Mountain and Little Colorado Herd Management Areas to their “Appropriate Management Levels.” The Herd Management Areas are made up of 3.4 million acres of public, State and private lands in Carbon, Fremont, Lincoln, Sublette, and Sweetwater counties in southwest Wyoming.
“The gather is being conducted to address the overpopulation on the HMAs, prevent deterioration of the rangeland due to the overpopulation, remove horses from private lands and areas not designated for their long-term use, and comply with the 2013 Consent Decree between the Rock Springs Grazing Association and the BLM,” the agency said in a press release.
Prior to the roundup, the BLM estimated that there were 5,105 wild horses, not including foals, on the five HMAs, which have a combined Appropriate Management Level of 1,550-2,145 horses.
By comparison, the roundup area overlaps 32 livestock allotments for seasonal grazing with a total permitted use of 191,791 Animal Unit Months, the equlivalent of 15,983 cow-calf pairs annually. One AUM equals the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow-calf pair, one horse or five sheep for one month. Actual livestock use amounted to about half that maximum between 2010-20, according to BLM.
Captured wild horses will be transported to holding facilities in Rock Springs and Wheatland, Wyo., and “other locations to be determined” to be readied for sale or adoption. Some of the horses may also be taken to the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton, Wyo., or the Mantle Adoption and Training Facility in Wheatland for gentling before being made available for adoption.
To read BLM’s planning documents for the roundup, click here.
In 2017, BLM captured 1,968 wild horses from the Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and Adobe Town HMAs. Fifteen wild horses died. No mares were treated with safe, proven and humane fertility control, which could have delayed or halted future roundups.
The roundup takes place against the backdrop of a separate planning process for the same HMAs that could permanently alter the landscape for wild horses in the region.
BLM is amending its Resource Management Plan in order to comply with a consent decree it entered into in 2013 with the Rock Springs Grazing Association, a livestock group that sued to have wild horses removed from Wyoming’s Checkerboard, a 2-million-acre area of alternating blocks of private and public land set up in the 1860s as part of negotiations with the Union Pacific railroad.
BLM’s pending plan considers only reallocating forage from wild horses to other wildlife or livestock without making an equivalent amount of forage available to wild horses elsewhere.
In drafting its plan, BLM apparently did not consider other possible solutions more in keeping with the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act like land swaps or scaling up a program of safe, proven and humane fertility control, which could stabilize herd populations and reduce the number of wild horses removed then warehoused in already overcrowded off-range holding facilities.
Viewing the roundup
Participants must provide their own transportation, water and food. The BLM recommends a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle. Those interested in observing the gather must notify Brad Purdy at bpurdy@blm.gov or 307-775-6328.