US Agency Halts Nevada Mustang Fertility Project

May 11, 2016

AWHC Contributor

AWHC Statement on BLM's Suspension of Fish Springs Wild Horse PZP Program

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has recently suspended the Fish Springs wild horse PZP birth control program in Nevada. This decision follows a lawsuit threat by the Connecticut-based group, "Friends of Animals." The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) has issued a statement addressing the impact of this suspension on humane wild horse management.

The threat of a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to stop a humane PZP birth control program is harming wild horses by obstructing a community-based humane management program that is responsible for keeping the Fish Springs wild horses, of the Pine Nut Mountains Herd Management Area, wild and free. Without this program, the BLM would have rounded up these horses three years ago, and today they would be languishing in holding pens instead of thriving wild and free with their families on the range.

Those behind the threat of the lawsuit are based in an office in Connecticut and are working against folks in Nevada doing the hard work on the ground to keep wild horses free on the range. PZP has been effectively and safely used in wild horses for 30 years and does not interfere with the natural behaviors of wild horses. (Researcher Cassandra Nunez, whose work is cited by groups opposing PZP, has stated in her research that PZP birth control is preferable over removals.) If groups want to help wild horses they need to focus on the BLM's current effort to conduct barbaric spaying of wild mares and the castration of stallions on the range rather than target this type of humane birth control program.