ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. – Today the Bureau of Land Management released its draft environmental assessment for a proposed wild horse gather in southwest Wyoming and is seeking public input. The proposed gather will reduce wild horse populations in the Salt Wells Creek, Adobe Town and Great Divide Basin Herd Management Areas to their low Appropriate Management Levels in order to maintain healthy wild horses on healthy, productive rangelands.
A copy of the project map and additional details can be found here.
Currently, public lands are home to 73,000 wild horses and burros across the west. This amounts to nearly triple the 26,715 population target that was established by the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, as amended. The extensive overpopulation of wild horses and burros routinely results in their starvation and death from lack of water.
In the three HMAs affected by the proposed gather, the current, overall population of 2,836 wild horses exceeds the cumulative AML of 1,560 animals by about 80 percent. The proposed gather would remove 513 of the 1,123 wild horses present in the Adobe Town HMA, 725 of the 976 in the Salt Wells Creek HMA and 322 of the 737 in the Great Divide Basin HMA. The proposed gather would also allow the BLM to comply with the 2013 Consent Decree of Rock Springs Grazing Association v. Salazar.
The release of the draft environmental assessment launches a 30-day public review of the proposed action. Public input is valuable early in the process and will enable the BLM to develop a well-informed analysis.
Written comments should be received by August 10, 2017. All comments submitted via email should be sent to [email protected] with “2017 AML Gather EA” included in the subject line. Alternatively, comments may be hand-delivered or mailed to:
BLM Rock Springs Field Office
2017 AML Gather
280 Highway 191 North
Rock Springs, WY 82901
Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment – including your identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time. While you may ask us in your comment to withhold your identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.
For more information, please contact the BLM at 307-352-0256.
