National Coalition Condemns BLM's Plan to Sterilize Idaho Wild Horse Herd

The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) has strongly criticized the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) proposal to sterilize the wild horse population in the Saylor Creek Herd Management Area (HMA) in Idaho. This plan involves castrating and spaying all horses, effectively ending the natural, free-roaming existence of these federally-protected animals.

“The BLM’s disastrous plan spells the end for the federally-protected, wild free-roaming horses in Saylor Creek,” said Suzanne Roy, AWHC director. “Sterilizing wild horses alters their natural behaviors and destroys the complex social structures that make mustang populations unique.”

Roy further criticized the BLM's attempt to transform a designated wild horse habitat into a long-term holding facility for sterilized horses, labeling it a fraud on the American public.

In September 2014, AWHC, alongside The Cloud Foundation (TCF), submitted a protest against the BLM’s proposed Jarbridge Resource Management Plan (RMP). This plan aims to convert the Saylor Creek HMA's wild horse population into a non-reproducing herd. Despite protests from AWHC, TCF, and other organizations, including Western Watersheds Project and the Wilderness Society, the BLM is proceeding with the RMP.

AWHC and TCF argue that this plan violates the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which protects mustangs and burros as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” The act mandates their protection from capture, branding, harassment, or death, ensuring they remain an integral part of the public lands' natural system.

Since the act's passage, the BLM has conducted helicopter roundups of tens of thousands of wild horses and burros, reducing their habitat by over 40 percent.

“The BLM has turned what was intended to be a wildlife protection statute into a pest control act for welfare ranchers, who view mustangs as competition for cheap, taxpayer-subsidized grazing on public lands,” Roy continued. “The plan to sterilize the Saylor Creek herd is one more step down the path of total destruction for America’s cherished mustangs.”

Under the Jarbridge RMP, the agency will allocate ten times more forage to privately-owned livestock than to federally-protected wild horses. Nationally, although wild horses and burros occupy just 17 percent of BLM land grazed by livestock, 80 percent of the agency’s forage allocations in wild horse and burro habitat areas are designated for livestock. Publicly-subsidized livestock grazing on public lands costs taxpayers as much as $500 million annually.

The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign) is committed to preserving and protecting wild horses and burros in viable free-roaming herds on public lands for future generations. This mission is supported by a coalition of over 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations. AWHC’s founding organization, Return to Freedom (RTF), is a national non-profit dedicated to wild horse preservation through sanctuary, education, and conservation, operating sanctuaries on the Central California Coast.

Originally Posted By EquiMed