Well, they didn’t actually announce anything other than they are going to hold public hearings – but that is a step in the right direction.
Last week, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey announced plans for a “new direction” in the Federal Wild Horse and Burro Program. As part of the development process, BLM is seeking public comment, including a public forum to be held in Denver, Colo. next week, on a Strategy Development Document implementing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s Wild Horse and Burro Initiative (announced in October). BLM plans to announce its strategy in a report to Congress later this year.
Specifically, the agency will be seeking input on a number of issues, including: implementation of a comprehensive animal welfare program; the potential reintroduction of wild horses or burros into herd areas where they currently don’t exist; increased use of fertility control or other methods to slow population growth; opportunities to make more forage available for wild horse and burro use; the establishment of preserves to care for unadopted wild horses; the designation of selected wild horses and burros as treasured herds; and opportunities to place more excess animals into private care.
According to Abbey, certain topics and options will be “off the table,” including the euthanasia of healthy excess animals or their sale without limitation to protect the animals from slaughter.
Since the enactment of the Horse and Burro Act in 1971, grazing on federal lands has been reduced by as much as 50 percent, while the horse population has been on the rise. In fact, if the herd continues to increase at its current rate of 20 percent per year, in four years, the population will be twice its current size of 37,000 — which, according to BLM, is already 25 percent above sustainable levels.
[Richard. A key thing to focus on here is why federal grazing lands for horses have decreased 50%. If that wasn’t true, we wouldn’t have a problem]
Having spent 2 days frozen to my computer watching the 2 meetings..the only idea embraced at all by the WH&B advisory board was removals and fertility control, which is no different than the policys they have been pursuing..they stated they are not going to give back any lands nor will they add any lands to the horses..its full speed ahead.
The only thing that the BLM is certain of is that they really are cetain as to how many horses there are on the range. The numbers and estimates differ by thousands every year. The 20% figure is just a guess since they do not have an accurate head count. There is no science at all that determines this figure let alone peer reviewed science as stated in the President’s Memorandum on Sciece & Technology. The one that states there should be real science behind the decisions made my agencies, should be able to produce the data to the public and it should be authentic science and not just a shot in the dark. The same inaccuracies apply to the numbers of cattle and sheep currently grazing.