Feds Plan to Remove More than 100 Wild Horses from Hardtrigger & Black Mountain Herd Management Areas
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is continuing its longstanding mismanagement of America's wild herds with its proposal to roundup and remove 107 horses -- more than half of the estimated population -- from Idaho's Black Mountain and Hardtrigger Herd Management Areas (HMAs). The action by the BLM's Boise District Office (BDO) will leave behind only 96 wild horses in this 114,000-acre public land area. The BLM allows just 96 - 190 wild horses to live in the Hardtrigger and Black Mountain HMAs and estimates that 203 horses currently live in the area. Meanwhile, the agency authorizes many times that number of privately-owned livestock to graze in these federally-designated wild horse habitat areas.
The BLM has issued its Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) and is seeking public comments on the proposed roundup. The agency is portraying this action as a Catch-Treat-And-Release (CTR) operation in which horses will be captured and released after mares are treated with the PZP fertility control vaccine. However, more than half of the animals to be captured will not be released. They will be permanently removed from the range even though the area exceeds the "allowable management level" by just 13 horses!
The BLM is mandated to seek suggestions from the public about its proposed action -- now is our time to register opposition to the roundup and to demand better and more humane management of these herds.
Please take a moment to submit your comments below and urge the BLM to forgo the removal of any horses and to instead humanely manage the herds on the range.
Steve Leonard is the primary contact for questions and comments regarding this proposal - his telephone number is 208-384-3300.
Click below to watch video of a few of the beautiful horses living in the Hardtrigger HMA.
The wild herds of this area are believed to be descended in part from cavalry re-mounts, and are primarily bay, brown, and black, with some chestnuts, pintos, paints, roans, grays, duns, grullos, and a few Appaloosas.
January 2012: Two horses were shot to death in the Hardtrigger HMA. The BLM has issued a $1,000 reward to solve these murders.
Previous Roundups: The BLM conducted a roundup in November 2010 during which 149 horses were captured, 36 foals were removed (including one foal who was killed due to a "congenital deformity of the pastern") and 55 mares were administered the PZP fertility-control drug. In 2007 another roundup of these herds occurred.
