Advocating for Humane and Cost-Effective Wild Horse Management at the BLM Advisory Board

AWHC team spoke at the 2025 Bureau of Land Management Advisory Board meeting. Tracy Wilson, Nevada state director delivered impactful comments about the need for fertility control before the BLM's arbitrary population limits are reached.

My name is Tracy Wilson and I am the Nevada State Director for American Wild Horse Conservation. 

The BLM has stated it needs to reduce wild horse populations to AML before fertility control will work, but the reality is that getting to AML and HOLDING it is an unattainable goal with the agency’s current plans and it’s costing taxpayers millions. 

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There are 45 Herd Management Area at or below their Appropriate Management Level, not including those that have recently been rounded up to within AML - how many of those have meaningful fertility control programs started? ONE

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Used even when over AML, every birth prevented with fertility control is one less horse removed, which is one less horse at risk of entering the slaughter pipeline, or one less horse requiring taxpayer funding to be held in long term holding for its lifetime.

In Fiscal Year 2024, BLM treated approximately 1,038 mares with fertility control at the cost of $5 million dollars. In calendar year 2024, we treated 1,202 individual mares for $355,000 dollars on the Virginia Range alone. We’ve seen a 72% decrease in foal births and population not just stabilized, but in decline. 

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And through a collaborative grant program with BLM, AWHC and a rancher, we are administering fertility control to mares in the Cedar Mountain HMA in Utah. The BLM grant program helped start fertility control programs. We need those grants to continue.

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The BLM CAN take measured steps to “get off the treadmill” and not do this forever, by reallocating resources and flip the status quo from primarily helicopter roundup management to primarily fertility control management. 

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In conclusion, I ask the board to recommend that the BLM take steps NOW to reform its current management program by significantly scaling up humane fertility control programs, AND continue grants to nonprofits to continue fertility control programs both new and already in place, even WHILE an area is above AML. 

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Thank you for your time.