BLM plans to round up 20,000 wild horses each year to control population on public lands

LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — From 2020 to 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rounded up and removed 50,000 wild horses and burros, primarily in Nevada.

The BLM said Monday it estimates the current population in the state at 38,023 — 33,338 horses and 4,685 burros. Overall, the population on all public lands across the country is estimated at 73,520, a decline of 9,363 from levels estimated for 2022.

“Though this latest estimate represents the largest one-year reduction in overpopulation since 1985, the estimated population remains nearly three times what scientists estimate public lands can sustainably support,” according to a BLM news release.

The BLM plans to round up and remove 20,000 more wild horses and burros over the next year with a goal of treating 1,400 horses with fertility control drugs. About 10,000 of the horses and burros will be put into the adoption and sale program.

That level — 20,000 — will be necessary to maintain herds and reduce the population of horses on the range, according to the BLM.

American Wild Horse Conservation (AWHC) slammed the BLM in a statement Tuesday, criticizing the agency’s plans “proof of a failed management system.”

AWHC argued that BLM should be putting more emphasis on reversible fertility control drugs administered with darts. BLM should end helicopter roundups that traumatize the animals and leave tens of thousands of animals confined in holding pens.

“This is not sustainable conservation of these national icons,” AWHC Executive Director Suzanne Roy said. “It’s time for Congress to require humane and less costly in-the-wild methods that preserve the freedom of America’s federally protected wild horses.”

Roy’s organization said BLM’s news release doesn’t disclose the real results of roundups: 64,000 wild horses and burros confined in holding facilities with a potential cost to taxpayers of more than $1 billion. AWHC also said the BLM hides “that its controversial cash incentive adoption program has sent ‘truckloads’ of these iconic animals into the slaughter pipeline.”

“Continuing costly, large-scale helicopter roundups is a flawed, excessive, and inhumane policy that places an unmanageable burden on an inadequate holding and adoptions system and on U.S. taxpayers,” Roy said. “The program also comes at a high cost to these wild, free-roaming animals who are captured, traumatized, robbed of their freedom, and will spend the rest of their lives in captivity, or worse, will end up at slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico.”

The roundups have put negative attention on the BLM , with videos showing several horses injured over the past year. Those horses had to be killed due to the severity of their injuries.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., has led efforts in Congress to prioritize in-the-wild conservation by prioritizing fertility control. Over the last two fiscal years, Congress has allocated over $20 million to support that approach, according to AWHC.

Titus issued a statement in late January , but BLM plans released Monday fall short of the direction she suggested.

“Despite a massive increase in roundups throughout the West, BLM’s plan shows no increases in the number of wild horses and burros being treated with fertility control,” Titus said. “This creates an influx of horses into already overcrowded holding pens, and inevitably leads to more deaths for these icons of the West through the cruel use of helicopters during roundups. This plan is inconsistent with Congressional directives regarding the humane treatment of wild horses on our public lands, and I strongly urge BLM to reconsider the scope of their gather operation in the following months.”

Titus has also criticized the BLM’s decisions to kill some horses because of injuries such as blindness in one eye.

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