It appears that BLM cares more about pacifying the livestock industry than it does about protecting wild horses, despite its statutory directive. And BLM continues to manage America’s wild horses in an unsustainable, inhumane way.
Photo by Christine Mendoza
There is a fight going on out west – a fight over how we should treat our wild horses. On one side is the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”), an agency within the U.S. Department of Interior charged with administering the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. This statute “declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West,” and tasks BLM with managing and protecting wild free roaming horses “as components of the public lands.” On the other side of the fight is arrayed a multitude of animal protection organizations, such as the Animal Welfare Institute and the American Wild Horse Campaign, that are highly critical of BLM’s treatment of wild horses.
A recent pair of dueling pieces in the Salt Lake City Tribune shed light on
this ongoing battle. Last month, William Perry Pendley, deputy director for
policy and programs for BLM, wrote that wild horses pose an “existential
threat to our public lands.” According to Pendley, when wild horse herds are
“left uncontrolled,” they “quickly overpopulate their habitat, overgraze the
land and decimate the fragile desert spring ecosystems critical to their
survival and that of other species.” The tendency for wild horse herds to
outgrow the ability of the land to support them poses an “ecological time
bomb.” If what Pendley states is true, it seems that human intervention is
necessary to stave off this cycle of suffering.
But what does human intervention look like? BLM’s current method of
gathering and removing “excess” wild horses from public lands is through
helicopter roundups – contractors fly helicopters low to ground, causing the
wild horses below to stampede. Fences funnel the horses to the designated
pen, and the horses are eventually trucked to containment areas. These
helicopter roundups are terrifying, highly stressful, exhausting experiences
for the horses, and may even be fatal, as horses that suffer injuries
incurred during the roundup may be euthanized. After being corralled, horses
are sent to holding facilities. Tens of thousands of horses are contained at
these facilities at a cost of nearly $50 million per year.
In his article in the Salt Lake City Tribune, Pendley calls for increased
gathers and increased capacity at holding facilities. But he also champions
a different tactic, explaining that BLM has increased the number of herds
treated with “fertility control.” In response, Joanna Grossman, the equine
program manager for Animal Welfare Institute, wrote a piece that called into
question several of Pendley’s claims. Grossman explains that while BLM touts
its fertility control efforts, in reality, BLM “spends less than 1 percent
of its Wild Horse and Burro program budget on proven and safe fertility
control methods such as the porcine zona pellucida (PZP) immunocontraceptive
vaccine.” Rather than rely on this vaccine, BLM has proposed using a
controversial, risky surgical procedure called “ovariectomy via colpotomy.”
According to Grossman, this procedure “involves blindly inserting a metal
rod-like tool to sever and remove the ovaries of wild mares while they
remain conscious.” BLM’s proposal to use this procedure has proven
contentious – the National Academy of Sciences has advised against the use
of the procedure, a federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction
halting the use of the procedure on a herd in Oregon, and federal lawmakers
have written a letter urging BLM to drop their plan.
Grossman also calls into question the role wild horses play in the
degradation of American’s public lands. Grossman explains that wild horses
occupy only 12 percent of the lands managed by BLM, and that cattle
outnumber horses and burros by 28 to 1, and even 90 to 1 in some years.
Cattle themselves are a major contributor to environmental degradation, as
highlighted by a United Nations study which called livestock “the major
contributor to soil erosion on agricultural lands” in the United States.
According to the American Wild Horse Campaign, more than 75% of available
forage on BLM lands is allocated to livestock.
It appears that BLM cares more about pacifying the livestock industry than
it does about protecting wild horses, despite its statutory directive. And
BLM continues to manage America’s wild horses in an unsustainable, inhumane
way. But animal protection groups are fighting back, and the conflict
continues.
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