New Details Emerge on Controversial Wild Horse Management Plan
New Details Emerge on a Controversial Plan for Wild Horses
(May 20, 2019) Details of the deal cut between the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and other livestock and hunting industry lobbying groups, alongside the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS), the ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, have been revealed. This plan, presented as a compromise, is a significant setback in the fight for fair treatment, humane management, and preservation of our nation’s wild free-roaming horse and burro herds.
The Path Forward for BLM’s Management of Wild Horses and Burros
Entitled “The Path Forward for BLM’s Management of Wild Horses and Burros,” the 10-year plan calls for:
- Roundup and removal of 15,000-20,000 wild horses and burros from public lands for the first three years, followed by the annual removal of 5,000-10,000 horses per year for the remaining seven years. This totals 130,000 wild horses and burros removed over the next decade—more than currently exist on the range. Terrified horses and foals will be chased with helicopters, leading to injuries, deaths, and family separations.
- An almost tripling of the number of wild horses and burros incarcerated at taxpayer expense, costing nearly $1 billion over the next decade, without guaranteed long-term funding to ensure their safety from slaughter.
- Reduction in wild populations to the BLM’s extinction-level “appropriate” management level—27,000 horses and burros on 27 million acres of land, down from the current population of 72,000 wild horses and 18,000 burros. The National Academy determined this limit lacks scientific basis and is not adaptable to changing environmental factors and social preferences.
- Use of fertility control on 90% of the wild horses and burros left on the range, potentially ending many herds. There is no requirement for humane PZP fertility control; the ASPCA acknowledges the plan could allow for inhumane surgeries to remove wild mares' ovaries.
- Sex ratio skewing of remaining herds to achieve a 70% stallion to 30% mare ratio, causing social disruption and increased aggression as many stallions fight for few mares.
- Large-scale removals in areas of “direct political conflict,” prioritizing powerful ranching organizations like the Rock Springs Grazing Association in Wyoming and litigious ranchers in Beaver County, Utah.
This plan is the cattlemen’s dream, aiming for the virtual eradication of the wild horse and burro population, reducing them to 1971 levels when Congress passed a law to protect these iconic animals.
What’s Missing from the Plan
- Protection of genetically viable herds. Many herds will be reduced below the Minimum Viable Population number.
- Reference to livestock and their larger impact on grazing land in the West, and the cost to taxpayers for the subsidized public lands livestock grazing program.
- Consideration of fairer resource allocation for wild horses and burros on their designated habitat.
- Creative solutions beyond roundup, removal, and undefined “fertility control,” such as consolidating Herd Management Areas for viable habitat, creating migration corridors, range improvements, and livestock grazing permit buyouts.
An Inside the Beltway Deal
Why did groups claiming to protect wild horses negotiate such a poor deal with pro-slaughter lobbying groups? The truth is, this plan is an inside the beltway deal cut by large corporate animal welfare organizations, lacking on-the-ground knowledge and experience in humane management of wild herds. In a call with AWHC, ASPCA government relations head Nancy Perry acknowledged that the groups had no on-the-ground presence to verify claims of wild horse overpopulation and range damage.
No organization currently implementing humane management programs for wild horses in the wild was involved in these negotiations. No wild horse protection organization from Nevada, where over half the nation’s wild horses and burros reside, was involved in this deal.
Throwing in the Towel
These groups have conceded the fight for sustainable herds of free-roaming wild horses by endorsing the BLM’s extinction-level Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs), based on allocating 80% of forage resources to private livestock on the limited public land where wild horses and burros live.
For example, the BLM will reduce the population in the Silver King Herd Management Area (HMA) in Nevada to the low AML of 60 horses. With the 70-30 sex ratio skewing, 42 will be stallions, and 18 will be mares. Additionally, 90% of these horses will be given fertility control or sterilized, threatening the existence of wild free-roaming horses in this HMA, a vast 600,000-acre area in eastern Nevada where thousands of livestock graze.
Even worse, the groups have accepted the BLM/cattlemen’s false claim that the BLM is legally required to manage wild horses at AML. In reality, through legal action, AWHC and The Cloud Foundation have secured precedents in the Ninth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal establishing:
- The BLM is not legally required to remove horses from the range just because their population exceeds AML. The BLM must manage wild horses and burros to maintain a "thriving natural ecological balance" on public lands.
- Removing horses requires a two-step process: determining excess animals based on rangeland health data, and deciding if removal is necessary to restore ecological balance.
- The BLM has broad discretion in managing horses and is not required to remove excess horses. It can address excess horses through fertility control and/or reducing livestock grazing, as allowed by 43 CFR Section 4710.5.
Ironically, Return to Freedom, a signatory to the cattlemen’s plan, was a party to our intervention in the Tenth Circuit case establishing this precedent. It's disappointing these organizations ignore these hard-fought legal precedents.
Slaughter vs. Freedom
HSUS and ASPCA appear focused solely on preventing slaughter, which this plan only temporarily addresses while increasing long-term risk. AWHC’s mission is broader, including preserving wild free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in viable herds. This plan presents the greatest threat in decades to our mission.
We are vigorously opposing it, working with other organizations to urge Congress to reject this mass removal plan.