Back to StoriesThe Complex and Confounding Task of Wrangling America’s Wild Horses
March 7, 2024
The Complex and Confounding Task of Wrangling America’s Wild HorsesAs management agencies wrangle with wild horse management, advocates, nonprofits and the general public are pushing back.
The Bureau of Land Management was tasked with managing wild horses in 1971. At approximately 170 horses, the McCullough Peaks herd east of Cody, Wyoming, needs to be managed down by 41 animals, according to BLM officials. Wild horse advocates say BLM numbers are flawed. Photo by Sandy Sisti
by Brigid
Mander
On the
night of January 23, a recently captured one-year old wild horse died trying
to escape a Bureau of Land Management holding pen in northwestern Wyoming. Wild
horse advocates immediately decried the incident, lamenting the loss of the
sorrel filly, with her blonde mane and white blaze exactly like her mother and
grandmother, and the destruction of this tightly knit family band.
The
advocates broadcasted an oft echoed refrain: inhumane tactics, arbitrary, non-science-based
population goals, and rangeland management guidelines tilted toward livestock
production. Media outlets across the West
picked up on the latest salvo of controversy in the long saga of wild horses in
North America. The BLM expressed regret, but stated the removal of 41 wild
horses from this herd in Wyoming’s McCullough Peaks area must continue. Other
stakeholders in the issue, including livestock producers, wildlife managers and
ecologists, mostly remained silent.
As of early 2023, the BLM estimated about 83,000 combined horses and wild burros roamed fragmented habitats in 10 western states covering around 27 million acres.
The untimely
death of this single wild horse neatly outlines the nearly impossible situation
of wild horses and beyond it, the bitter, complex battles over land in the
American West. Cattle and sheep ranchers say the horses eat the forage within
their grazing permits. Environmentalists say it’s the livestock who have
wrought ecological devastation across the West and must be removed from public
lands. Wildlife advocates and hunters say cattle and their fences, which exist
on public and private land, negatively impact native animals and forage, but
concede working ranches and open space are still better for wildlife than roads
and subdivisions. And wild horses and cattle both eat forage the native
wildlife depends on.
It's a dizzying
array of conflicting information and impassioned opinions. Nonetheless, there
is no denying that wild horse numbers can grow 20 percent annually, according
to the BLM. These equines have few natural predators, particularly in a West
where the livestock industry has extirpated large carnivores from their
traditional ranges and vociferously opposes reintroduction.
____
The BLM allots the McCullough Peaks herd approximately 120,000 acres in Wyoming. The agency estimates around 83,000 horses and wild burros roam the western U.S. Photo by Heather Hellyer
Historically,
the McCullough Peaks herd has been a success story: with a relatively small
number of wild horses, annual contraceptive darting of mares had kept the
population growth to 2 percent over the last decade. Larger herds in vast
territories are much more difficult to track and dart with effective
contraception, resulting in larger increases in herd size and more
controversial, stressful roundups. It is, admittedly, a difficult task, according
to an email from the Bureau of Land Management’s public information office in
Washington, D.C. “The BLM’s priority
is to first reduce overpopulation to protect the long-term health of the herds
and public lands," the email read, "followed by a significant increase in the use of fertility
control.”
But at
McCullough Peaks, BLM and horse advocates have worked well together for the
most part, with both parties sharing information on herd health, and
collaborating in the tradition of naming the animals, including Kat Ballou, the
filly who died in January. Despite the inauspicious start, the gather must continue,
according to BLM officials. “This part of McCullough Peaks is not just for
wildlife,” said Sarah Beckwith, the BLM public affairs officer for the Wind
River/Big Horn Basin District. “It’s a multiuse area also for livestock and
recreation. We’re required to manage the horses in a way that keeps the land
and vegetation healthy.”
A National Academy of Sciences report found livestock consumed 70 percent of grazing resources on public lands; wild horses and burros ate less than 5 percent.The land area allotted by the BLM to the McCullough Peaks herd is 120,344 acres. Yet over the last 10 years, the herd grew by a few dozen. Today the herd numbers around 170 animals. The target number of this particular herd, according to the BLM, is between 70-140. Horse advocates say that number—which equates to more than 700 acres per horse—is flawed. And confusingly, the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Handbook states a herd must have 150 horses to avoid homogeneity. According to Beckwith, 140 animals will ensure acceptable genetic diversity.
The Bureau
of Land Management was tasked with managing wild horses after the passage of
the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. Before 1971, huge numbers of
then-unprotected wild horses on public lands were shot on acreages desired for
livestock grazing, poisoned at water holes, or captured and sold into slaughter
for chicken and dog food, among other atrocities. As of early 2023, the BLM estimated about 83,000 combined
horses and wild burros roamed fragmented habitats in 10 western states covering
around 27 million acres. Wild horses and burros along with bald eagles are the
only animals under permanent federal protection today.
Kat Ballou of the McCullough Peaks herd died trying to escape from a BLM holding pen in January. Photo by Heather Hellyer
Nonetheless,
wild horse activists have long accused the BLM of implementing arbitrary Animal
Management Levels, or AML, which
is the BLM number for how many horses should be in each herd management
area. The accusations were vindicated in
a 2013 review
by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, which
challenged current BLM practices. In the report preface, researchers wrote, “The
Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to
estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of
management on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on
rangelands.”
The report found livestock consumed 70 percent of grazing
resources on public lands; wild horses and burros ate less than 5 percent. And
it recommended greater transparency by the BLM to improve outcomes and public
confidence. In the last decade, it isn’t outwardly apparent the BLM has made
significant management changes regarding horses and burros.
According to an email from the BLM’s Public Affairs Office, the agency said it
now conducts population surveys using scientifically rigorous methods common
for estimating other wildlife populations, including the “simultaneous
double-count method,” which accounts for animals that were not seen during
surveys. It has also invested heavily in GonaCon-Equine, a birth control
treatment for mares that can last up to five years. The email did not directly
address questions on cattle grazing numbers or impact, other than to say the landscape
is “managed for rangeland health,” which wild horse, wildlife and environmental
advocates dispute.
Wild horse
advocates suggest the BLM should shift its priorities entirely. “The money
spent on roundups would be better spent on [contraception] and better rangeland
management,” said Heather Hellyer, founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Save
Our Wild Horses. “Cattle and other livestock do more damage and shouldn’t be
out there at all. The only reason to remove horses [and maintain low
populations] is to make more room for cattle.”
The BLM
flatly denies this statement. On
its website, a Wild Horse and Burro Myths and Facts page states that not
only have wild horse numbers risen in recent decades, but cattle grazing
permits have fallen more than 30 percent since the 1970s. The agency points out
the scientific review on the same page but does not address it.
Population
continues to be handled using roundups, darting mares with the annual
contraceptive PZP, or GonaCon, a longer lasting contraception. Captured horses
and burros are put up for adoption, with constraints to ensure adopters cannot
sell the animals to slaughter. The ones that aren’t adopted live out their
lives at horse sanctuaries or on ranches set up for this purpose, for an annual
sum north of $75 million.
____
Battle at Red Rock: Stallions Kiamichi and TNT battle near a cliff edge in the badlands of McCullough Peaks. Photo by Sandy Sisti
For state
agencies tasked with wildlife stewardship such as the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department, biologists say there are in fact real issues with the non-native
horses. “From a wildlife standpoint, we see an impact, particularly on drier
years,” said Doug Brinmeyer, deputy chief of wildlife for Wyoming Game and Fish.
“We do see evidence of overgrazing, and conflicts with smaller ungulates like pronghorn
who won’t approach water sources and springs until the horses leave.” On the
subject of livestock versus equine impacts, Brinmeyer deferred to the BLM’s
decisions. “The bottom line is ecologically sustainable environments,” he said.
“In a fragile alpine desert, wild horses need to be kept to the proper AML.”
The issue
of cattle, which evolved in the bogs of Europe and are spectacularly unsuited
to arid, high western deserts, is more ignored by ranchers and managing public
lands agencies than disputed or improved. Cattle on public land in the West also
account for only around 6 percent of the U.S. meat industry. Opponents point
out this negligible level of economic productivity and food production is
vastly outweighed by devastating impact of cattle on western ecosystems.
“Wild
horses are often scapegoated for damage to forage caused by cattle and sheep,”
said Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, a
nonprofit that works to protect healthy watersheds and intact natural
landscapes. Although overpopulation of any animal is undesirable, wild horse
populations are far below that level, said Molvar, pointing out that if the
horses were causing problems on the landscape, his organization would support more
aggressive population controls. “Livestock overgrazing is responsible for the
vast majority of ecological damage in the West.”
The gray stallion Indigo leads his mares away from a rogue bachelor stallion who challenged his authority. Photo by Sandy Sisti
The right
balance of wildlife, healthy wildlands and human interests at present is an almost
impossible conundrum, and the consequence of near total human dominion in just
two short centuries. Interestingly, the horse originally evolved in North
America about 53 million years ago, and eventually spread across the Bering
land bridge to Asia. They disappeared from this continent about 10,000 years
back, then Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century returned horses
to North America. Today’s mustangs descend in part from the escaped horses of that
era, and are part of the cowboy and the pioneer myth of westward expansion.
They have helped humans conduct war, prosper in work, and provided transportation
throughout history. They are social and emotionally intelligent beings, often
used as modern companions and therapy animals.
For these
reasons, public sentiment supports wild horses and will not abide
extermination, euthanasia, or slaughter for meat, as is common in some other cultures
around the world. It remains a complex problem with no easy solution, but the
management inertia, flawed AMLs, and outdated mandate the BLM adheres to will
have to change before the situation improves.
And in the
middle of it all are individual, sentient and intelligent animals, steeped in
the romance and the legend of the beautiful, self-reliant, wild horse.
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