BLM's New Approach to Managing Wild Horse Populations

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is implementing a new strategy to manage wild horse populations in Gardnerville, Nevada. This pilot project aims to reduce the number of wild horses in the Fish Springs community through the use of birth control, offering a humane alternative to traditional gathering methods.

GARDNERVILLE, Nev. (MyNews4.com & KRNV) -- The Bureau of Land Management is trying out a different approach to reduce the number of wild horses. The new pilot project is designed to lessen the number of wild horses roaming around the Fish Springs community in Gardnerville.

The BLM started the project on Thursday, treating wild horses with birth control.

"We are looking at giving it to them once a year, so we'll start out by giving them the initial inoculation," said Leon Thomas from the BLM. "Then we will give a booster after two weeks, and then we will try and repeat again next year."

Thomas said there are about 40 horses in the Fish Springs area. Over the next few days, 24 female horses will be treated. "We felt that this was a decent alternative to actually having to gather the horses. We feel that we want to try some creative solutions to see if there are other effective methods to controlling the population."

Because the Fish Springs area is an open range area, the BLM said the horses come down here every morning. That is one of the reasons why they wanted to do this project. "And we're looking at taking this isolated population, using it as a test base, getting some lessons learned and taking those lessons and possibly using it in other areas."

The horses will be monitored to determine whether the treatment has lowered the population growth rate. If successful, the program may be continued next year, and in other areas of the Pine Nut mountains.

The BLM is working with the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation) on the pilot project.

Originally Posted By KRNV