Nevada Revives Wild Horse Birth Control Program Amid Foal Boom
April 15, 2019
Deb Walker is eager to return to the Nevada range to work with wild horses. After an 18-month hiatus from administering birth control to free-roaming mares, there is much work for Walker and other volunteers.
“Right now, every mare on the range is pregnant,” said Walker, a volunteer spotter with the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign).
A spotter's job is to identify mares that haven't received birth control for darters, volunteers who use air rifles to administer birth control darts to the mares.
“The darter’s job is to get that dart in that mare’s butt,” said Walker, a retired math teacher from Fish Springs, Nev., near Gardnerville. “We want it to go into the right butt.”
Walker and her colleagues are returning to the field largely because Assembly Minority Leader Jim Wheeler, R-Gardnerville, convinced Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak to restore a program enabling volunteer darters to work with the Nevada Department of Agriculture.
Wheeler and Jeffrey Berns, founder of Blockchains LLC, which owns 67,000 acres in the Virginia Range east of Reno, met with Sisolak to emphasize the importance of volunteers returning to work for both horses and people.
“We were concerned this program had been stopped with no indication of restarting soon,” said Sarah Johns, public relations director for Blockchains.
“We were aware it was possible the horse population on our property could double without a darting program,” Johns added.
The previous darting program ended on Oct. 25, 2017, when Nevada Department of Agriculture officials terminated a privately funded agreement with the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) to manage horse issues on the Virginia Range.
At the time, agriculture officials accused volunteers of not fulfilling their part of the agreement, which volunteers denied. The program included darting horses with the birth control drug PZP.
After terminating the agreement, the agriculture department offered the approximately 3,000 free-roaming horses on the range at no cost to anyone willing to manage them. There were no takers.
'It is a very urgent situation'
Based on the results of the first two years of volunteer-run darting, the absence of birth control has resulted in nearly 400 foals that wouldn't have been born otherwise.
“It is a very urgent situation,” Wheeler said. “Next year there will be another 2,000 foals on that land if they don’t act quickly.”
Sisolak and Nevada Department of Agriculture Director Jennifer Ott declined multiple interview requests.
Controlling the horse population is crucial for both horses and people, as both suffer when the population exceeds the range's capacity. Horses face scarcity of food and water, while people encounter horses crossing roads and entering communities in search of resources.
According to the Nevada Department of Transportation, in 2017 there were 53 car accidents involving horses, resulting in 10 injuries and one fatality near the Virginia Range on U.S. Highway 50 near Stagecoach.
“We have to stop the problem now,” Wheeler said.
Once headed for slaughterhouse
Unlike wild horses under the federal Bureau of Land Management, free-range horses in the Virginia Range are considered feral or “estray” livestock under state jurisdiction, not protected by federal regulations against slaughter.
Before agreements with volunteer groups, horses rounded up from the range were eligible for auction and potential slaughter. The agreements allowed non-profits to facilitate adoptions for captured horses. Since 2013, the group has secured adoption for over 200 horses.
Originally posted by Reno Gazette-Journal