Oppose BLM Plan to Eradicate NV Mustangs

Posted by Denise Brown on July 22, 2013

Oppose BLM Plan to Eradicate NV Mustangs from Humboldt Herd Area

Public Comments Are Due by 4:30 p.m. PT on July 25, 2013

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Winnemucca District Office in Nevada is seeking public comments on an Environmental Assessment (EA) for a proposal to remove 161 wild horses from the Humboldt Herd Area (HA). The BLM wants the roundup to occur “beginning July 1, 2013 or as soon as funding and holding space allows.”

The helicopter roundup is being proposed not as an emergency, but rather for alleged “public safety” reasons relating to vehicle collisions and property damage. However, the BLM provides no evidence or details about alleged property damage, and notes that in the past 14 years only six horses have been hit by vehicles on “county roads,” where speed and unsafe driving are likely reasons behind such accidents.

In 1982, the BLM decided that wild horses should be eliminated from this area, but allowed ranchers to continue to graze on the public lands there. In fact, the forage allocated to livestock is enough to sustain 592 horses annually! Despite the BLM’s repeated attempts to eradicate the mustangs, a healthy wild horse population has survived in the Humboldt HA.

Please ACT TODAY to personalize and send the following letter to urge the BLM to cancel all plans to remove wild horses from the Humboldt HA. When you click send, your comments will be individually emailed to the BLM!

Subject: Humboldt HA Gather

Your Letter:

I 
 oppose the roundup and removal of an estimated 161 wild horses from the 
 Humboldt Herd Area (HA). The Proposed Action is not an emergency and 
cannot be justified, particularly in light of the fact that BLM holding 
facilities for captured horses are at capacity. 
The Environmental Assessment (EA) does not provide adequate 
justification for the roundup. Public safety concerns are 
unsubstantiated – no information on property damage caused by horses is 
provided. The number of horse/vehicle collisions – six in 14 years – is 
not sufficient to warrant the removal of these horses. 
Approximately 30 years ago, the BLM decided that horses should be 
eliminated from the Humboldt HA. At the same time livestock grazing was 
allowed to continue on these public lands. In fact, the BLM allocates 
enough forage to privately-owned cattle and sheep to sustain as many as 
592 wild horses in this area. Despite drought conditions, permitees in 
this area continue to graze significant numbers of livestock in the 
Humboldt HA. 
Wild horses have persisted in the HA despite the agency’s repeated 
attempts to eradicate them. Since the area is immediately adjacent to 
the North Stillwater Herd Management Area and the East Range Herd Area, 
wild horses are likely to continue to migrate into this area after the 
proposed roundup. 
Instead of spending tax dollars to eliminate horses from this Herd Area 
so that ranchers can continue to graze cattle and sheep on these public 
lands, BLM should utilize its adaptive management policies to 
re-designate this area for wild horse use. This is in line with the 
National Academy of Sciences recommendation that “Adaptive management 
could provide much-needed transparency for BLM’s management of 
free-ranging horses and burros.” The NAS also advised that BLM’s 
management should be “responsive to public attitudes and preferences.” 
It is clear that the prevailing public preference is for wild horses to 
be left on their rangelands, not stampeded by helicopters, captured and 
removed to holding facilities. As the chair of the NAS Wild Horse and 
Burro Review Committee recently stated, “No one really wants to see more 
 horses in long-term holding just from an economic viewpoint. Secondly, 
this is not the vision that is associated with what the public wants to 
see with the horses on these wild lands.”
The EA is deficient for the following reasons.
1.	Inadequate scoping – the BLM neglected to consult with the public or 
wild horse advocacy groups in determining the scope for the 
Environmental Analysis of the proposed removal plan. 
2.	Inadequate impact analysis – the EA failed to analyze the social and 
economic impacts of the proposed action, including the cost to taxpayers 
 and the impacts to members of the public that wish to see wild horses 
in this area or value their presence on these lands. The EA also failed 
to analyze the impacts of adding 161 horses to a holding system that has 
 reached capacity, and the threat of slaughter that will exist if the 
government decides that it can no longer house and care for them. 
3.	Inadequate alternatives analysis – the EA failed to analyze an 
alternative that would allow the Humboldt wild horses to remain on their 
 rangelands. The final EA should designate an alternative to reclassify 
this Herd Area for wild horse use, utilizing BLM’s Adaptive Management 
mandate. Given that this EA is a wild horse management document, it is 
within the scope to consider an alternative that would forgo removal of 
horses in this area and administer a humane fertility control program. 
Horses should be managed through PZP fertility control. The EA fails to 
consider land swaps as an option to create contiguous habitat for wild 
horses in the HA, as well as public education and law enforcement 
actions to ensure safe driving practices on county roads in the HA and 
minimize horse/vehicle collisions. 
In summary, it is long past time for the BLM to change its approach to 
wild horse management. The proposed removal is not an emergency, and 
cannot be scientifically or fiscally justified and continues the 
agency’s ill-conceived “business as usual” approach. Therefore roundup 
plans for this area should be cancelled.

Samantha Gooch

BLM Winnemucca District Office

Email:HumboldtWildHorseEA@blm.gov

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Oppose BLM Plan to Eradicate NV Mustangs

Oppose BLM Plan to Eradicate NV Mustangs from Humboldt Herd Area

Public Comments Are Due by 4:30 p.m. PT on July 25, 2013

Please ACT TODAY to personalize and send the following letter to urge the BLM to cancel all plans to remove wild horses from the Humboldt HA. When you click send, your comments will be individually emailed to the BLM!

Samantha Gooch

horse book publisher