{"id":45402,"date":"2021-08-04T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T20:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-plans-50-more-wild-horse-roundups-amid-western-drought\/"},"modified":"2021-08-04T20:55:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T20:55:00","slug":"u-s-plans-50-more-wild-horse-roundups-amid-western-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-plans-50-more-wild-horse-roundups-amid-western-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. plans 50% more wild horse roundups amid Western drought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A livestock helicopter pilot rounds up wild horses in July 2008 from the Fox & Lake Herd Management Area in Washoe County, Nev., near the town on Empire. Federal land managers say they\u2019re beginning to capture about 50% more horses than they originally planned this year on public U.S. rangeland across the West because of severe drought conditions, about 6,000 additional animals primarily in Nevada, Oregon and Colorado. (Brad Horn\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

RENO, Nev. \u2013 U.S. land managers have begun efforts to capture about 50% more wild horses than originally planned this year because of severe drought across the U.S. West \u2013 about 6,000 additional animals primarily in Nevada, Oregon and Colorado.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Land Management said the emergency roundups, which began Sunday in Oregon and Monday in Nevada, concentrate on places where \u201cchronic overpopulation\u201d of the herds \u201calready has stretched the available food and water to its limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs one of the agencies charged with the responsibility to protect and manage America\u2019s wild horses and burros, the BLM is prepared to take emergency action where we can in order to save the lives of these cherished animals,\u201d said Nada Wolff Culver, the bureau\u2019s deputy director for policy and programs.<\/p>\n

The agency is committed to \u201ccontinuing our efforts to reduce overpopulation across the West and achieve healthy, sustainable herd sizes that are more capable of withstanding severe conditions, including prolonged drought, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change,\u201d she said in announcing the effort Monday.<\/p>\n

Horse advocates say the emergency roundups that will continue into September are being driven by pressure from ranchers who don\u2019t want the mustangs competing with their livestock for limited forage and water.<\/p>\n

One advocate said she\u2019s especially disappointed the Biden administration is continuing the policies of former President Donald Trump and previous administrations that prioritized removal of horses that are federally protected without reining in the number of cattle and sheep grazing on the same land.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfit-driven interests ravage the landscape, and we blame the horse,\u201d said Laura Leigh, president of the nonprofit group Wild Horse Education.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely nothing has changed under the Biden administration except we are being spoon-fed a dose of greenwash that they \u2018care\u2019 about the environment and wild things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The National Cattlemen\u2019s Beef Association said ranchers already have made voluntary changes to reduce and rotate grazing on federal lands during a drought \u201cmore pervasive and dramatic than we have seen in years,\u201d said Kaitlynn Glover, the association\u2019s executive director of resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese removals are critical for the horses as well as the health of the rangelands,\u201d she said in an email to The Associated Press. \u201cEven in times where resources are plentiful, these overpopulated herds cause serious damage to the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bureau already has gathered 1,200 animals this year and originally intended to round up about 12,000. The new effort would push the total to about 18,000 across 10 Western states from Montana to California.<\/p>\n

The bureau says the estimated 86,000 free-roaming mustangs and burros on federal lands is three times what the ecosystem can sustain, something that animal advocates dispute.<\/p>\n

About 1,400 that are rounded up would be returned to the range after they receive contraceptive drugs. But the total rounded up would be more than double the 9,181 gathered last year.<\/p>\n

The previous peak over the past decade was 9,749 in 2018. Fewer than 4,100 were gathered annually from 2013 through 2017.<\/p>\n

Culver said the land agency announced last week that it was taking additional steps to ensure that captured horses made available for public adoption do not end up in the hands of secondhand buyers who ship them to slaughterhouses.<\/p>\n

That move drew mixed reactions from horse advocates, who welcomed efforts to tighten regulations but said the reforms don\u2019t go far enough and that horses will still end up being slaughtered as long as the government offers $1,000 cash incentives to adopt the animals.<\/p>\n

Neda DeMayo, president of Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation, said the crisis on the range is the result of the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s \u201cfailure to implement solutions that have been available for over 20 years,\u201d including accelerated use of fertility control programs.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation further illustrates that the status quo does not work,\u201d Titus said. \u201cThat is why I led an effort to provide funding in this year\u2019s Interior appropriations bill for safe and humane birth control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics say ranchers don\u2019t want mustangs competing with livestock for limited resources<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,195,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-bureau-of-land-management","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45402"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}