Arkansas Online

West’s wild-horse roundups expand by 50%

RENO, Nev. — Federal 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 — about 6,000 additional animals primarily in Nevada, Oregon and Colorado.

The Bureau of Land Management said the emergency roundups that began Sunday in Oregon and Monday in Nevada concentrate on places where “chronic overpopulation” of the herds “already has stretched the available food and water to its limits.”

“As one of the agencies charged with the responsibility to protect and manage America’s wild horses and burros, the [Bureau of Land Management] is prepared to take emergency action where we can in order to save the lives of these cherished animals,” Nada Wolff Culver, the bureau’s deputy director for policy and programs, said Monday in announcing the effort.

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.

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.

However, horse advocates say the emergency roundups that will continue into September are being driven by pressure from ranchers who don’t want the mustangs competing with their livestock for limited forage and water.

“Profit-driven interests ravage the landscape, and we blame the horse,” said Laura Leigh, president of the nonprofit group Wild Horse Education.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said ranchers already have made voluntary changes to reduce and rotate grazing on federal lands during a drought “more pervasive and dramatic than we have seen in years,” said Kaitlynn Glover, the association’s executive director of resources.

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2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/281612423449231

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