A Study in Wild Horse Mismanagement

• A Study in Mismanagement

In 1971, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the U.S. Department of Interior, was put in charge of implementing the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. When the Act was passed, the U.S. Senate stated: "An intensive management program of breeding, branding, and physical care would destroy the very concept that this legislation seeks to preserve […] leaving the animals alone to fend for themselves and placing primary emphasis on protecting the animals from continued slaughter and harassment by man." Sadly, this Congressional mandate has been ignored and, over the past thirty-five years, no strategic plan to keep viable herds of wild horses on public lands was ever developed.

Pursuant to the 1971 Act, BLM is directed to protect and manage wild free-roaming horses and burros as components of the public lands, and may designate and maintain specific ranges on public lands as sanctuaries for their protection and preservation. Yet, its management policy has translated into a diligent and steady herd reduction campaign, causing America’s wild horse population to dwindle to less than 25,000. In 2008, BLM allocated less than 5% of its $39 million wild horse and burro program budget to herd management on the range, even though such management is BLM’s primary mandate under the 1971 Act. In complete disregard for such mandate, the bulk of the wild horse and burro program budget is consistently allocated to captures, holding and a failed adoption program.

Approximately 36,000 wild horses and burros adopted through BLM’s Adopt-A-Horse program are unaccounted for, and in 1997, BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program Director conceded that about ninety percent of rounded up horses ended up at slaughter. Questioned off-the-record, BLM employees routinely acknowledge rampant mismanagement and disregard for the 1971 Act.

In 1992, wild horses and burros were left out of BLM’s revised mission statement altogether.

“Excess Animals”: A Very Nebulous Concept.

The 1971 Act requires that wild horses "be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands." The Act also defines "range" as “the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare, in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for public lands." By law, only “excess animals” should be removed from the range. It is therefore how BLM determines “excess” that will shape the entire Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The legal requirement that “excess” be determined based on population monitoring and inventory has been circumvented by allowing BLM to determine “excess” based on whatever information is in its possession at the time a decision is made, rather than requiring that relevant information (such as actual census numbers) be obtained. In fact, only four percent of BLM’s wild horse and burro budget is allocated to population inventory. The legal requirement that BLM consider the “recommendations of qualified scientists in the field of biology and ecology, some of whom shall be independent of both Federal and State agencies,” has also been circumvented or ignored.

“Excess” is simply determined on paper, using grossly inflated fertility rates (up to 25%, whereas the National Academy of Sciences estimates actual growth rates to be closer to 10%) and generalized data that does not take into account the specificity of each geographic area (foaling rates, mortality rates and foal survival rates can vary greatly from one area to the next). This questionable methodology leads to highly inaccurate population estimates (e.g. an 800% discrepancy in the Salt Wells HMA - WY, 2006).

In conjunction with flawed population monitoring, BLM relies on the notion of “Appropriate Management Level” (AML) to determine “excess.” AMLs dictate how many horses and burros can be allowed on the range, and therefore what constitutes “excess.” AMLs are the single most important tool in BLM’s arsenal. They are also a moving target: once AML is reached in an area, meaning the wild horse population is deemed at an acceptable level, it is often subsequently lowered, paving the way for more round-ups (e.g. in 2001, the national wild horse AML was drastically lowered to 26,000; since then, it has crept down by a few hundred every year, adding up to a further loss of 1,500 as of 2006).

AML for a given Herd Management Area (HMA) is based on forage and water availability, or rather, forage and water allocation. Case study after case study have shown that BLM consistently allocates substantially more forage to private livestock and game animals on the very areas that were legally designated for wild horses (e.g. 700% more forage allocated to livestock than to horses in the Stone Cabin Complex - NV, 2007), steadily reducing wild horse AMLs, sometimes to the point of eradication (the so-called “zeroing out” of a herd area).

Likewise, only a small fraction of water available in a given area will be allocated to wild horses (e.g. 7% in the Spring Mountain Complex - NV, 2006), who will then be removed due to supposed lack of water, while livestock and game animals are allowed to thrive in areas that, by law, were to be “devoted principally” to wild horses. Case in point: bighorn sheep can be found on seventy-five percent of Nevada’s Muddy Mountain HMA and are allocated water from the National Park Service (NPS), water guzzlers and specially made dams. These water developments have allowed the HMA to be turned from seasonal into year-round bighorn habitat, a victory for the local hunting lobby, but are not taken into account in determining wild horse and burro AMLs for the area, despite a federal mandate that “all range improvements […] be installed, used, maintained and/or modified on public lands […] in a manner consistent with multiple-use application” (43 CFR 4120.3-1 (A)).

Another critical piece of federal regulation states: “If necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd management actions, or to protect wild horses or burros from disease, harassment or injury, the authorized officer may close appropriate areas of the public lands to grazing use by all or a particular kind of livestock.” (43 CFR 4710.5 (A)) This provision is also routinely ignored.

More Round-Ups

Round-ups (or “gathers,” to use a placating BLM euphemism), are BLM’s “management” tool of choice: the fewer horses on public lands, the more convenient for public land managers and special interest groups. Oftentimes, livestock is restocked shortly after wild horses have been removed (e.g. about 1,000 sheep reportedly brought in the Dry Lake Complex just a couple of weeks after 200 horses had been removed from that same area - NV, 2006).

In addition to the concept of “excess animals,” BLM has several tools at its disposal to justify round-ups. Early on, BLM did not capture wild horses who ranged out of their herd boundaries. Today, if wild horses step out of their boundaries, BLM removes them permanently from public lands. In the state of Nevada, home to about seventy percent of our nation’s wild herds, horses found outside of their federal boundaries are treated as stray animals and sold at auction, usually ending up at slaughter.

Another well-established BLM practice is to thin out herds to the point where they are no longer deemed genetically viable, and then use the threat of in-breeding as an excuse to zero out such herds completely. It has been estimated that up to three-fourths of our remaining wild horse and burro herds are below population levels that would guarantee their long-term survival. Sex ratios in wild horse herds normally average 50/50. To further affect viability, BLM will stack herds with seventy percent of males, severely disrupting herd dynamics and behavioral patterns.
Still, BLM’s most often used rationale for round-ups is the threat of starvation and drought conditions: so-called “emergency gathers” are another way for BLM to circumvent the legal requirement that only “excess” animals be rounded up.

Whereas private cattle and sheep are promptly restocked (if in fact they were removed at all), horses are not returned to the area after the “emergency” conditions subside. BLM simply makes the zeroing out of the HMA official by issuing an AML of zero: a wild horse range originally managed under the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act is now permanently devoid of wild horses. Over the years, dozens of HMAs, representing millions of acres, have met this fate.

Case Study #1: The Status of Wild Burros in 2006 – A Critical Analysis
By C.R. MacDonald

As of 2007, there were fewer than 3,500 burros left on our public lands, with a target population set below 3,000 nationally, a level that had once been deemed desirable for Southern California alone!

In 1980, nineteen burro HMAs were allocated as part of Southern California’s Desert Conservation Area Plan. AML was set at 2,747 burros, with an available habitat of more than three and a half million acres.

Today, over ninety percent of both population and habitat have been eliminated from the Desert Conservation Area; only two HMAs remain, with less than 300,000 acres and plans to "manage" for 229 burros.

For a complete report and critical analysis of the current crisis facing America’s burros, click here and wait for file to load.

Case Study #2: Nevada, summer 2004 - an AWHPC Investigation
Photos courtesy of Return To Freedom and Laura Moretti- Click to see larger.

In the summer of 2004, according to the BLM, the wild horse situation in the state of Nevada reached a critical point: there was no water on the range; wild horses could not survive the drought and had to be immediately removed or face a certain death. So, with the help of another $7.6 million for the year (on top of its allocated $29 million), the BLM came to the "rescue" by rounding up the animals.

On the range, however, a team of wild horse experts found a somewhat different, disturbing reality. Only the HMAs (Herd Management Areas) that did not have cattle grazing on them were without water; those that had cattle had plenty of water. On all the cattle-free HMAs visited, water tanks and troughs were empty and had been for some time; pipes and pumps had been disconnected. Presumably, when cattle are removed from the HMAs, the water sources are disengaged and abandoned until the next cattle-grazing season. It is on those fenced-off HMAs that horse fatalities were found: seven animals were found dead within a couple of hundred feet of each other; another was found on the Ravenwood HMA trapped by a fence keeping him from a water source; the skeletons of six more were found close together on the Pilot Mountains HMA near dried and abandoned water troughs. Meanwhile, on the HMAs where cattle was left to graze, water sources were readily available.

While wild horses were left to literally drop dead next to well-managed cows thriving on the other side of public-land fencing, the BLM was busy removing from desirable areas horses that even they admit were healthy, thriving and sustainable. Their field managers then lamented the condition of horses in drought-stricken areas and moved in to remove these horses as well, on an emergency basis.

The fact is that it would be less costly to manage horses in the wild than to subject them to traumatic round-ups — including in drought-stricken areas, where water pumps could be left on when public land ranchers remove their cattle to send them to market. After all, public land ranchers get some of their grazing fees back to pay for range improvements such as water wells. Wild horses could be granted access to such subsidized range improvements and BLM could compensate ranchers for any increase in their water bills. Furthermore, it is oftentimes public land fencing that prevents horses from accessing scarce natural water sources.

Wild horses have been relegated to some of the most inhospitable land. Still, they adapt and survive. The first photo in this row shows a typical HMA in western central Nevada. The second shows the desert floor littered with cow manure. In the third and fourth, you will see some of the few wild horses we found (note in the last photo just how vast an area very few horses live in).

Today, the BLM continues to conduct indiscriminate round-ups, zeroing out herds in violation of the 1971 Act. In 2001, it obtained a 50% increase in annual budget to $29 million for implementation of an aggressive removal campaign (in 2005, that budget rose to $39 million). Twenty-four thousand horses were slated for capture; no long-term plan was put in place for these horses after their removal.

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