“They eat a little grass and they water in the tanks, but there’s not enough of them to disturb our cattle at all,” Miller said. Tara Miller, part-owner of Miller Land and Livestock in Sublette County, said she likes mustangs. Some ranchers say the horses compete for the vegetation on the land with their cows, but not all ranchers feel that way.
“So what happens is they sit in an area and they just kind of devastate that area.” All the other wildlife that you see in Wyoming that are native – like your deer and your elk – those all have natural migratory patterns and the horses don’t really have migratory patterns,” she said. “Those horses are really, really hard on the ground.
#WILD HORSES FREE#
There are nearly 60,000 wild horses and burros in BLM care nationwide., and according to BLM data, it costs about $50 million yearly to take care of them.īut, Fear said not rounding up the horses and leaving them all to free roam on public land is not viable either. She is currently riding a few of her mustangs across the country, advocating for the adoption of wild horses. “Once you have that trusting bond and that connection, they’ll do absolutely anything for you, which is completely different from any domestic horse I've really been around,” Fear said. Lisanne Fear is a lifelong resident of nearby Sublette County and has adopted multiple mustangs. The majority of the horses gathered are put up for adoption. Horses are also placed in training programs and other holding facilities across the state. Wyoming Public Radio Around 800 horses are in the long term holding facility outside Rock Springs where they are available for adoption. According to the American Wild Horse Campaign, it is “costly and inhumane.” The organization claims that the land can sustain more wild horses than the BLM allows. Some national groups vehemently oppose the BLM roundups. “It’s for their health and their well-being to make sure they’re not out here starving to death in the winter,” she said. There were 37 horse deaths during the roundup however, 27 were because of pre-existing conditions like a club foot.Īlthough Hubbard said she did not like the horses being taken off the land, she understands why it is done. He just kept them kind of going in the general direction he wanted them to go, and they went exactly where he wanted.” “Which was really kind of refreshing, they’re not just down there just right on them. “It was far less aggressive than I would expect them to be,” Hubbard said. Krista Hubbard, a Rock Springs resident who spends a lot of time on BLM land rockhounding and taking photos of the horses, said she initially was upset at the roundups, especially because they use a helicopter to gather the horses. “And it feels very good to have them back out on the range.” “This is the very last step,” Jay D’Ewart, BLM Wild Horse Specialist, said. On a windy day in mid-February, the last nine of the mares treated with fertility control were released back on BLM land, just outside Rock Springs. The release concluded the BLM roundups on the Red Desert. Wyoming Public Radio A couple observers watch and photograph as the wild horses run onto the BLM land after being treated with fertility control. They are treated with birth control using either PZP, a drug, or an IUD, an intrauterine device. “And a lot of that is so the mares can be treated.” “We're always going to gather more animals than we're actually going to remove,” Purdy said. The majority of the 4,161 horses gathered will remain in captivity, however 659 of them were returned to BLM land. “The horses and the range are codependent on each other.” “So we have to make sure that that population number stays in a range that we can have healthy wild horse herds on healthy rangelands,” said Brad Purdy, acting deputy state director of communications for the Wyoming BLM. According to the BLM, the number of horses in southwestern Wyoming was double what their data shows the land can sustain. It requires the BLM to manage wild horses when they overpopulate. The roundup is part of the ‘ Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act’ that was passed by Congress in 1971. Wyoming’s Bureau of Land Management recently wrapped up one of its largest wild horse roundups in the southwest part of the state, and while controversial, many who live in the area said it is necessary.Ībout 80 percent of wild horses in the Sweetwater County area were gathered between last fall and this January.
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