Should BLM Euthanize Wild Horses? Advisory Panel Recommends Action

The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) recent decision to cancel a research project on surgical sterilization methods for wild mares has reignited a fierce debate over managing the growing herds of wild horses and burros. Critics argue these herds are damaging Western rangelands. The BLM's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board has now recommended selling the more than 40,000 wild horses in corrals and euthanizing those that cannot be sold or adopted.

BLM announced last Friday that it was canceling the research partnership with Oregon State University to study the "safety and effectiveness" of three fertility control methods on wild mares. This decision came in response to several federal lawsuits from wild horse advocate groups, which challenged the research as "inhumane."

The advisory board's resolution, approved at a meeting in Elko, Nevada, suggests BLM should comply with the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 by offering all suitable animals in long- and short-term holding for sale without limitation or humane euthanasia. "Those animals deemed unsuitable for sale," the resolution states, "should then be destroyed in the most humane manner possible."

This proposal has sparked heated debate. "While cancellation of the sterilization experiments is a major victory, Americans will not stand by and allow the killing of tens of thousands of wild horses in holding facilities," said Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign). "If the agency thought the public was opposed to sterilization, wait until it sees what happens in response to the proposed mass killing of these American icons."

BLM, however, has no intention to hold large-scale sales or make any attempt to slaughter excess animals, according to Jason Lutterman, a spokesman for the agency's Wild Horse and Burro Program. Congress has attached stipulations in Interior appropriations bills, including the fiscal 2017 legislation, prohibiting BLM from using federal money to sell wild horses or destroy any of the animals.

BLM released a formal statement this week stating that the agency "is committed to having healthy horses on healthy rangelands. We will continue to care for and seek good homes for animals that have been removed from the range." However, there are currently an estimated 67,027 wild horses and burros on federal rangeland, nearly three times the 26,715 horses and burros that BLM says the rangelands can sustain.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act requires BLM to remove the excess 40,312 wild horses and burros to protect native wildlife and other rangeland resources. But the agency is already holding more than 46,000 horses and burros in off-range corrals and pastures, and it lacks the resources to round up and hold all the excess animals or care for them over their lifetimes.

BLM Director Neil Kornze told a House Appropriations subcommittee in March that the agency is "overwhelmed" by the growing herds, which are causing environmental harm to vast swaths of rangeland.

Dave Eliason, president of the Public Lands Council, praised the advisory board's recommendation, calling it a move to "take heed of this epidemic" and find a solution. "Watching these horses starve to death or die of dehydration because the population has exceeded what the range can hold is simply unacceptable," he said. "The Department of the Interior must bring these populations back to a sustainable and responsible level."

The Congressional Western Caucus, composed of Republican leaders in Western states, issued a "Bull Report" criticizing BLM for canceling the research project with Oregon State University "under the threat of litigation by a special interest group." The report argues that proper management of the horse population could restore rangelands and provide ample food and water for the animals.

Meanwhile, advocacy groups that filed federal lawsuits to stop the sterilization experiments, which included testing a procedure to remove both ovaries from wild mares, argue that BLM already has an effective fertility technique at its disposal: porcine zona pellucida (PZP), which renders mares infertile for roughly a year.

"The sterilization research was a path to destroying wild horses, by destroying the very essence of what makes them wild — their natural behaviors," said Ginger Kathrens, executive director of the Cloud Foundation and a member of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board. Kathrens voted against the recommendation.

"Now we must remain vigilant to ensure that the agency does not pursue the 'euthanasia' of wild horses in holding or the castration of wild stallions, and instead works with advocates to develop wide-scale, humane PZP fertility control programs as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences three years ago."