BLM to Round Up Wild Horses Near Remote Utah Highway

In February, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will conduct a roundup of wild horses in Utah's West Desert. This action aims to address safety concerns for both the horses and motorists along a remote highway.

Federal land managers have identified the horses as a danger to themselves and drivers. Last winter, three horses were found dead along State Road 21, suspected to be victims of collisions, according to Chad Hunter, a range and wild-horse specialist at the BLM’s Cedar City office.

"We were able to remove 30 head last summer. There were additional horses in the area that we tried to move away. They have moved back in," Hunter said. "We have excess numbers and they are looking for space."

The agency is expediting an environmental review of the roundup, which is part of a multiphase project to remove hundreds of horses from Utah’s Sulphur Herd Management Area, a 280,000-acre region spanning Millard and Beaver counties.

Last week, the BLM began an Environmental Analysis of a proposal to reduce the herd’s numbers to between 165 and 250 horses. This year’s estimate for the herd is 718, not including this year’s foals, Hunter said.

Wild horses are a contentious issue in Utah’s West Desert and Nevada, where ranchers and county commissioners argue that the BLM is allowing horses to overrun the range, reducing forage for cattle.

Animal-welfare advocates argue that cattle, which greatly outnumber horses, are degrading the range. They assert that the BLM should allow wild horses more room to roam instead of continually rounding them up for long-term storage at significant public expense.

The BLM is caught in the middle of this struggle, facing pressure from the state to remove horses. Land managers hope that contraception can become a more prominent tool in the agency’s wild horse and burro program, which has heavily relied on controversial helicopter gathers.

The BLM attempts to adopt out horses, but most spend their lives in corrals. Some mares are returned to the range after receiving contraceptive treatment.

The agency will soon accept public comments on its proposal to reduce the Sulphur herd, which was last rounded up in 2010.

"This is a 10-year plan to get the herd to the appropriate management level as we get funding, and it includes fertility control," Hunter said.

However, the removal of approximately 100 horses along State Road 21, a narrow highway connecting Milford and Garrison, cannot wait. The February roundup will focus on a 10-mile stretch in Millard County, just west of the Desert Range Experimental Station, where the Pine and Snake valleys meet. This area lies just outside the northern margin of the Sulphur HMA.

Originally posted by Salt Lake Tribune