solutions
Ensuring healthy populations of wild horses on our public ranges will require the support and cooperation of many diverse and sometimes opposing viewpoints. How man has treated the horse, even since prehistoric times, is on a larger scale, how we have come to conquer, exploit and ravage any people, species or obstacles in the way of our monetary and societal goals. “Saving the American Mustang,” means striving for a balance between the civilized and natural world. The AMF is calling for fair and balanced management decisions that are based on accurate, scientific information and that take into account the interests of all parties, including wild horses, ranchers, wildlife and the American public.
Our Plan - Legacy Ranch
While our ultimate goal is to see management of our wild horses change to allow for herds to remain on the open range, we know that will not happen overnight. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of horses are being held in BLM holding facilities and other sanctuaries through the United States. And many thousands will continue to be rounded up every year.
Many qualities of the mustang make it an exceptional horse, especially for trail riding, including strength, endurance, and spirit. To survive on the range, the mustang has been naturally selected for strength and endurance. Grown up on the range, a mustang has had to develop a keen sense of and experience with his surroundings.
A major function of the AMF is to gentle and train mustangs obtained from the BLM to make them more adoptable and thereby find permanent homes for the horses. Our Plan provides an economically sustainable solution.
Self-Stabilizing Herds in Dedicated Wilderness Areas
First and foremost, wilderness areas need to be established that are of sufficient size and habitat composition to provide for the long term survival of genetically viable, self-stabilizing wild horse herds.
To allow density-dependent population regulation, the design of each area should involve natural boundaries wherever possible, and where necessary, artificial horse-proof barriers. These dedicated wilderness areas should feature restored ecosystems, including wild horse predators such as mountain lions. A stipulation should be that wild horses and burros be the principal species in these areas, in conjunction with all naturally occurring wildlife.
One example of this self-regulating model can be found with the Montgomery Pass herd, on the California/Nevada border. For twenty-five years, these horses have survived unmanaged, and through natural attrition have maintained stable population levels of roughly 150 to 200 animals.
Such a model complies with the true intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, ensuring preservation of America’s wild horses in a natural state, as part of our national heritage.
The Act calls for dedicated areas to be “devoted principally” to wild horses and burros. The Bureau of Land Management’s current policy contravenes this mandate by favoring private livestock and game animals on the very areas that were legally allocated to wild horses, steadily reducing wild horse management levels, sometimes to the point of eradication (the so-called “zeroing out” of a herd area).
Ecotourism
Most people, even horse lovers, have never seen mustangs running wild. America’s wild horses are universally recognized and cherished as American icons. Yet, our wild herds are a mostly-untapped ecotourism resource.
Horse lovers, wildlife enthusiasts, as well as those with an interest in the history of the Old West, should be given the opportunity to enjoy wild horse excursions year-round. In addition to non-intrusive observation of wild horse behavior and herd dynamics, in-the-wild management itself could become part of a unique experience for visitors to herd management areas.
In this manner, the American wild horse could establish itself as an economic resource on the Western range and better its chances of long-term survival.
Fertility Control Methods
To the extent population control is necessary in certain areas, fertility control methods are available whose efficiency has been proven in field studies.
Since 1988, the wild horse population of Maryland’s Assateague Island has been successfully controlled using a contraceptive vaccine (PZP) developed with the help of the Humane Society of the United States. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick is assisting the BLM in implementing this non-intrusive contraceptive method across a growing number of herd management areas.
The method has proven very successful, is easy to administer (via remote darting of the mares) and does not disrupt the complex social structure of wild herds. A March 2004 USGS study found that $7.7 million could be saved annually through the use of contraceptive measures alone.
PZP should be used judiciously, solely to the extent necessary to maintain healthy population levels, in keeping with the intent of the 1971 Act. The goal is to minimize the need for costly and traumatic round-ups as well as save millions of tax dollars, while ensuring genetic diversity.
Use of PZP is subject to oversight by the Humane Society of the United States. The government’s recent interest in alternative contraceptive methods that are not subject to HSUS oversight is of great concern to wild horse advocates. Uncertainty as to the safety and reversibility of some of these newer methods, such as the vaccine SpayVac, are also cause for concern.
Cooperation From Ranchers
The BLM has contracted with former cattle ranchers to operate long-term holding facilities in Kansas and Oklahoma. Wild horses removed from the Western range are transported by the thousands to these facilities; operators receive $1.25 a day per horse. The transfer of these horses is costing millions of tax dollars a year.
Competition with private livestock for public-land forage is often the cause of these relocations. One option would be for the BLM to contract with public-land ranchers, as it currently does with holding-facility operators, eliminating the stress and expense of round-ups and shipping cross-country. The horses would be left where they are and public-land ranchers whose allotments include wild horses could be granted a tax-credit or paid a per-horse fee (presumably lower than the fee paid to holding-facility operators), eliminating the need for long-term holding facilities. Ranchers would be expected to allow the horses to enjoy range improvements (for which they receive government range improvement funds) such as water pumps in drought areas, to the same extent as their cattle (with fair compensation for any increase in their utility bills).
However, without independent oversight and incentives to ensure ranchers will provide long-term care for the horses, initiatives such as BLM’s partnership with the Public Lands Council to simply sell captured horses to ranchers for a nominal fee are not acceptable solutions.
Cattle fencing on public lands is often the cause of high wild horse mortality during drought episodes, as recently reported in Nevada (see A Study in Mismanagement). In such instances, cooperation from public land ranchers is also necessary to avoid wild horses being kept from water sources by cattle fencing.
We cannot emphasize enough that this campaign is not in any way directed at cattle ranchers or their way of life, which we respect. It is our belief that change can only come about if the ranchers as well as the horses are taken into account. Historically however, the horses have been on the losing end of this equation. We look forward to working with cattle ranchers on solutions that will not threaten their allotments.