BLM to Offer Final Solution on Wild Horses

In June, Henri Bisson, deputy director for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), issued a report in Reno, Nevada, before the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board stating that its ability to manage the wild Mustangs and burros on BLM land had reached critical mass and that the situation had become one of pure economics. Bisson said it was time to consider an unpopular option—a final solution—that would allow for the euthanizing of more than 25,000 wild horses and burros that had once made their home on the hills, prairies and deserts in 10 western states and are currently in government holding facilities in South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The final solution—what to do with 20,000 wild horses the BLM considers to be either too old, too ill or too un-adoptable, along with another 5,000 the BLM wants to take off the range to reduce herd management levels to 27,300—is expected after a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concerning BLM management practices is returned in mid-September and the BLM, the Advisory Board and Congress have time to review the GAO's findings sometime in October.

Meanwhile, Bisson's announcement has forced an old-fashioned showdown between the BLM and its supporters and those opposed to any solution that would result in euthanizing 25,000 horses.

Supporters of the BLM include those who consider wild horses a nuisance, ranchers who see them as competition for rangeland and some in the private market sector who believe the adoption of wild Mustangs devalues those horses bred for pleasure.

On the opposite side of this line so clearly drawn in the dusty desert landscapes that has been home to the wild Mustang since they first appeared with the conquistadors more than 500 years ago, are those who believe America's Mustangs are equal to that of that of the iconic status of the American eagle, scientists who believe they have the technology necessary to manage the herds and are not being allowed to use it and still others who believe that, left alone, nature will take its course and keep wild Mustang populations in check.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey believes there are just too many wild horses on BLM land and not enough money or technology to appropriately manage them. "Our only long-term method of birth control on a widespread basis is rounding them up."

Gorey said the BLM removes 7,000 to 10,000 horses a year and conducts gathers or roundups from each herd every four years and places them in government holding facilities for adoption or long-term care. Since 2001, the BLM's adoption program has managed to adopt out only 60% of those horses removed from the range. "If we continue to do lifetime holding, our budget will need to be doubled from $37 million to $77 million by 2012."

But Dr. John Turner, of the Medical University of Ohio and with whom the BLM has a Cooperative Agreement, believes the proper technology is available, in the form of a contraceptive vaccine, and that the BLM would have far fewer horses in captivity—and associated costs—if the agency had taken a strong stance on the use of contraceptive vaccines years ago.

Echoing Turner's belief is reproductive physiologist Jay F. Kirkpatrick, director of the Science and Conservation Center at ZooMontana in Billings, Montana, who has spent the last 38 years studying herd management and population control. "The BLM has been playing with the symptoms of the problem for the last 10 to 20 years and not attacking the problem," said Kirkpatrick, who believes the use of PZP (porcine zona pellucida), a reproductive vaccine, would work if the BLM would use it.

"We don't consider PZP the solution. It's still on an investigational basis," said Gorey who added that from 2004–2008, the BLM treated 1,108 mares in 47 herd management areas and found PZP to have limited use due to the difficulty of administering the drug. The BLM's ability to dart—or "catch, gather and vaccinate"—herds that live on 29,000,000 acres of BLM land made it both economically and physically difficult to administer.

Kirkpatrick believes the BLM is dancing around the issue and disputes that PZP should still be considered for testing or for investigational uses only. "Testing phases only?" he asked. "The vaccine has been tested extensively in non-human primates, without finding any debilitating side effects, for 20 years, and it isn't all that difficult to administer for all those NPS people…or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife people. Maybe it's just too difficult for the BLM."

HOME ON THE RANGE

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (Public Law 92-195) gave the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service responsibility to oversee the more than 42,000,000 acres across 10 western states where wild horses have been found. Within this area are 199 BLM Herd Management Areas (HMA), 102 of which are in the state of Nevada. The entire HMA accounts for 29,000,000 acres and is home to an estimated 30,000 wild Mustangs and 3,500 burros. Gorey maintains that despite the fact that wild horses have been removed from nearly 30% of BLM lands and onto Herd Management Areas since 1971, "land is not the issue, population is the issue."

But there are those who contend that land is the issue, that the Mustangs' natural habitat is being sacrificed to beef stock interests. BLM Studies on herd statistics show more than 2,000,000 acres have been transferred out of the BLM herd management areas. This has been a sore point for those who believe the wild Mustang herds are being driven farther and farther from natural water sources by ranchers who have influenced the BLM to gerrymander the herd management areas to increase the ranchers' grazing rights and put up fences to restrict the wild Mustangs' access to water and grazing.

Susie Stokke, state lead for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program in Nevada, where nearly half the wild horse population is managed, said, "The goal of BLM is healthy herds on healthy rangeland, but we're only allowed to graze wild horses on areas where horses were found in 1971." She added that in many ways the BLM's hands are tied due to apathy by the very people who are most vocal about the BLM. When the BLM issues a decision to allocate lands, the public is always asked for their involvement. "Everyone who is interested has an opportunity to review, comment and appeal, and yet very few are filed," she explained. "People tend to respond to the emotional thought, but tend not to get involved when we set those numbers."

BLM PRESENTS EXTREME MUSTANG MAKEOVER

Two years ago, Texas resident Patti Colbert decided it was time to take matters into her own hands and do something to help the BLM with the wild Mustang problem. A self-proclaimed "innovator among regulators," Colbert admitted she was "a bit of a burr under the saddle blanket of the BLM" when she came to them with the idea of the Extreme Mustang Makeover program.

"The idea for Extreme Mustang Makeover came to me after watching too much reality TV," said Colbert, the executive director of the Mustang Heritage Foundation. She approached the BLM about getting behind a nationwide program that focused on America's wild Mustang. "I thought it would be intriguing to show these horses have value and to create brand identity. There is nothing like riding a piece of American history."

Colbert got the BLM to agree to the idea and also convinced the Ford Motor Company to help underwrite part of the program. Last year Extreme Mustang Makeover produced five sellout shows, along with a show that appears on RFD–TV.

The program facilitated in the adoption of 900 mustangs in 2007, not nearly enough to offset the 7,000 to 10,000 horses the BLM currently takes out of the herds annually. But Corbert believes it is a beginning. "We hope to expand the program and the desire for people to be riding an American Mustang around the world," she said. "We have plans to expand our program to Europe."

MORE IDEAS

Wild horse advocate Karen Mayfield, who formerly worked as a compliance officer with the BLM, believes the BLM is paying far too much for contractors to house the wild horses and has come up with the "Give A Dollar Wild Horse Global Project Relief Fund."

Mayfield said the online donation program, which originated in early August, asks people to send one dollar to save the Wild Mustangs. The goal is to get enough money to release the horses back into the wilds. "But," she said, "we've got a long way to go and need to really get the word out." To date, the group has raised just $400.

Deanne Stillman, author of Mustang, The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, also has proposed a national donation program that includes checking a box when filing taxes.

Upon the BLM's announcement, groups of supporters have hurriedly arranged the 2008 Wild Horse Burro Summit to "bring together the leading experts in the world of equine behavior, genetics, research… and to focus on solutions. The summit is scheduled to take place October 11–12, at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

BLM's FINAL SOLUTION

Since Bisson's announcement in June, Gorey said the BLM has received thousands of suggestions about what to do. Fifty percent of those responses oppose the idea of euthanizing the horses, while another 25% oppose the idea and offer other alternatives. "Most of those," said Gorey, "are about some form of contraceptive." The remaining 25% of those responding support the selling or euthanizing of the horses. "By and large, we're not seeing or hearing anything different," he said.

While Gorey didn't want to speculate on what the BLM's final solution would be, he did admit the BLM would be within the law to euthanize the horses, but would not elaborate as to how that would be done. Under the 1971 law, the BLM does have to right to sell without limitation those horses 10 years old or older or who have been passed over for adoption three or more times.

While the last remaining slaughter plants in this country were closed in 2007, laws still allow for the transport of horses across international borders into countries like Mexico and Canada, where horse slaughter is still legal.

MORE INVESTIGATION

Concerns over deputy director Bisson's recent announcement, the management of the BLM and recent changes to the program that allow the BLM to sell the horses without limitation prompted Congressmen Nick J. Rahall, II (D-VA), and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) of the Committee on Natural Resources to request that the GAO conduct an investigation of the BLM management of wild horses and burros on public lands. Results of that study are expected in mid-September. They also sent a strongly worded letter to Bisson urging him to "refrain from any further action until the [GAO] report is released and the BLM, the Advisory Board and the Congress has time to review the GAO's findings."

This is not the first time the GAO has issued a report concerning the management practices of the BLM. The last time was in 1990, when the GAO issued a report, Rangeland Management: Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program, which highlighted problems in BLM's management of the program similar to those today. The result of that report found: "(1) BLM removed thousands of wild horses from the range each year without the land condition data that would enable it to determine how many horses the land could support and how many needed to be removed to meet this capacity; (2) the number of wild horses BLM removed exceeded its adoption program's capacity; (3) BLM was making its removal decisions on the basis of an interest in reaching perceived historic population levels or the recommendations of advisor groups largely composed of livestock permittees; (4) the fee waiver adoption program led to the inhumane treatment and eventual slaughter [of horses and burros]."

Ten years ago the Associated Press broke a story about how BLM employees were selling Mustangs for slaughter, and the accusations continue today from various groups claiming the BLM is influenced by ranchers who pay the government for grazing rights.

Gorey said, "We're always working hard in this program. It's not among the better understood. The criticism is we've mismanaged the program. But, whatever decision is finally made, it will still come down to money."

Meanwhile, those opposed to the BLM's "final solution" to march one of America's heritage icons out to pasture or to seek a final solution and euthanize them, will still need to address how to manage America's wild horse populations for generations to come and how to prevent this possible death march from occurring over and over again.

To learn more about the BLM program what's happening with America's wild Mustangs, go to www.blm.gov.

For information about the Wild Horse Summit in Las Vegas, go to www.wildhorsesummit.com.

To make a donation to the Give A Dollar Wild Horse Global Project Relief Fund, e-mail savethewildhorses@hughes.net.

Or visit www.whisperingwindsequinerescue.com, www.wildmustangcoalition.org or www.wildhorsepreservation.com for additional updates and information.