Wild horses at New Mexico’s Jarita Mesa Wild Horse Territory. Credit: Dan Elkins
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is responsible for managing the wild horses and burros on nearly 27 million acres of public lands. Along with the horses that range on those public lands, private ranchers, through leases, use public lands for grazing cattle. Wild horses and burros have virtually no predators and their fertility has been a source of controversy and dispute for many years.
The romantic vision of wild horses galloping across the plains is missing some startling details. Complaints from ranchers, along with the loss of grazing land to brush fires, budgets and perceptions about the actual population of wild horses have led bureaucrats in Washington to dream up some rather draconian methods of reducing and containing the wild horse population.
In July, Congressman Chris Stewart (R-Utah) added an amendment to an appropriations bill that would permit the BLM to surgically remove the ovaries of wild mares.
Using helicopters, the BLM began rounding up the wild horses in Oregon’s Warm Springs Herd Management Area on October 2.
The American Wild Horse Campaign reported on October 4 that following the surgical sterilization of mares, the BLM intends to return 100 horses (50/50 mare/stallion ratio) to a fenced area of the range as the control group and 100 horses (50 stallions and 50 mares, 34 of whom will have undergone surgery to remove their ovaries) to an adjacent, fenced area as the study group to research the health and social effects of permanent birth control. The remaining approximately 685 horses will be permanently removed from the range. The horses will be studied for four years, after which time they will be rounded up again and reduced to the low "appropriate" management level of 96.
Wild horse groups, including the American Wild Horse Campaign, have taken legal action to stop the agency’s plans. As a result of the injunction, the BLM announced ovariectomies are scheduled to begin in November at the Hines, OR facility.
A Radical Proposal
The radical proposal to perform ovariectomies on otherwise healthy wild mares seems antithetical to the BLM’s mandate to protect wild horses and burros. Especially given there is an alternative birth control method available that is less invasive, less likely to result in infections and less expensive.
Porcine Zona Pellucida, or PZP has been shown to be 90 per cent effective as a contraceptive, according to Karen Herman of Sky Mountain Wild Horse Sanctuary in Santa Fe, NM. “Decades of research have shown that native PZP, or the one-year dose, is 90 to 95 per cent effective in reducing reproduction in treated mares,” she says. And it’s being used elsewhere on wild horse populations. “Entire herds of horses, such as the Assateague herd, are now successfully managed on their range using PZP in place of round up and removal.” She says that PZP, injected via a dart, is a vaccine against conception that produces no side effects. “And it has proven to be safe for the long-term health of treated mares.”
And there is a form of PZP that can be used for longer-term effectiveness. “PZP-22 is PZP that uses time-release pellets to extend the effectiveness of treatment,” Herman explains. “Treating mares with PZP-22, followed by one booster treatment extends the contraceptive effect for at least three years with an average 70 per cent reduction in fertility.”
The National Academy of Sciences—on behalf of the BLM—conducted an extensive study of the wild horse population and the BLM’s challenges in managing it. They cautioned that ovariectomies would carry far too many risks for the mares. Researchers from Colorado State University and Oregon State University have withdrawn from the study, citing the potential risks to the mares.
“The optics are terrible,” Joanna Grossman said of the proposed plan. Grossman is the Equine Protection Manager at the Animal Welfare Institute. “You’ve seen a lot of understandable outrage from concerned people. Wild horses enjoy tremendous support.”
Herman agrees that the plan is bristling with potential problems. “Consultations with our team, which includes veterinarians and scientists, have identified a number of challenges to using this approach,” she says. “Infections and a lack of pain management pose a huge threat to the lives and well-being of wild horses undergoing these invasive surgical procedures.”
Phone calls to the Deputy Director of BLM in Washington, DC were directed to the BLM press office. Emails to that office requesting information about the BLM’s plans for wild horse population control received no response.
Pest Control or Resource Management?
The BLM estimates there are 67,000 wild horses and 15,000 burros on public lands. They estimate that the Appropriate Management Level (AML) is 26,690 animals. In addition to the horses on public lands, the BLM also houses and feeds 47,000 animals—mostly horses—they’ve rounded up and removed from the grazing lands. These animals are up for adoption, and the BLM actively promotes adoption, though adoption numbers dropped off after the economic downturn and have not fully recovered.
The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 directed the Interior Department and its agency the BLM to protect wild horses from harassment, branding, capture and death; “and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.” Congress determined that these animals represent something indispensable to the American spirit, thus their decision to protect them. “That Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene.”
Between the mission of protecting the wild horses and the range where they roam, and the execution of that mission there is a widening gulf of misunderstanding and hostility brewing.
Consider the point of view of Ellie Phipps Price, a contributor to Writers on the Range. “But what was intended to be a wildlife protection law has been implemented by the agency in charge—the Bureau of Land Management—as if it’s closer to a pest-control statute that is designed to benefit ranchers who graze livestock on the public lands where wild horses live.” She and others who are dedicated to the protection of wild horses, believe the BLM is not acting in good faith.
Money Changes Everything
If PZP can be used effectively, and if ovariectomies represent a calamitous third rail for researchers and potential BLM partners, why is BLM pursuing this course? According to the American Wild Horse Campaign, the BLM has turned the mandate to protect wild horses and burros from “harassment, branding, capture and death” into lucrative business models for several companies. Through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and the BLM’s web site they have discovered contracts totaling millions of dollars annually for companies that round up and trap wild horses and hold them in feedlots, sometimes for years.
The National Academy of Sciences study pointed out several ways in which the BLM could serve its mandate better. They recommended that BLM engage in more transparent decision-making, inviting stakeholders to discussions of strategy, and developing better methods of recording data on the animals kept on feedlots.
Grossman, of the Animal Welfare Institute, says that the BLM is actually becoming more opaque in their operations, particularly regarding private adoptions of wild horses. Whereas previous guidelines limited individuals to adopting four horses at one time, with a six-month waiting period between transactions, “now they can sell off 25 horses at one time. Safeguards are there for a very good reason,” she says. “In 2015 the Office of Inspector General (OIG) came out with a very damaging report that the BLM had accidentally sold a couple thousand horses into the slaughter pipeline.”
The National Academy of Sciences study recommended that the BLM develop better ways to quantify the wild horse population and manage individual herds within the larger population. The current strategy of using helicopters to drive terrified horses into pens or to do population estimates while flying over the herds is expensive and dangerous, as horses are often injured while trying to get away from the helicopters.
Herman, of the Sky Mountain Wild Horse Sanctuary in New Mexico, says that her organization has been doing population surveys which are less invasive and yield greater understanding of the dynamics of the herds. “Surveying the herds on the ground using trail cameras, cameras and in-person observation provides more in-depth data about distinct family bands,” she says. “It’s analogous to developing a movie of the herd that tells their story versus a one-time snapshot.” The on-the-ground methods Herman describes are also far less expensive than the helicopter method. “This rich data is the foundation for locating, treating and documenting mares treated with PZP, and is particularly strategic for elusive herds on heavily-forested territories.” She explains that this is part of the mission of Sky Mountain Wild Horse Sanctuary. “SMWHS is working for on-range management for wild horses using the most humane, science-based, cost-effective means for healthy wild horses and healthy range.”
Wild Horses on the Brink
The BLM is specifically directed to safeguard the living symbols of our country’s pioneer West. The National Academy of Sciences recommended that the BLM work with stakeholders to devise ways to balance the agency’s mandate with the increasing population of wild horses and burros.
Herman fears the BLM’s plans for population control will have a profoundly negative impact on individual herds and believes that Americans need a better understanding of the reality. She believes that more science, more stories, better data and more pictures should be shared with the public. “Images and stories have the power to convey the depth of the reality by showing phenomena such as the bonds within family bands of mustangs, the suffering caused by round up and removal, and the suffering caused by invasive sterilization procedures if this is allowed to go forward.”
The Interior Department and the BLM operate on behalf of the American people. The decisions they make should be both transparent and developed with the will of the American people paramount. The American people, repelled by deliberate as well as inadvertent cruelty to animals, expect common sense and compassion—instead of expedience—to guide decisions.