The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting public comments on an Environmental Assessment (EA) of a five-year plan to continuously remove an undisclosed number of wild horses from the Triple B, Maverick-Medicine and Antelope Valley Herd Management Areas (HMAs) in northeastern Nevada. This removal of wild horses is being proposed under the guise of "drought," yet privately-owned livestock are still permitted to graze on public lands in the areas.
Previously the BLM indicated that it planned to remove up to 613 horses in this Proposed Action. Now, due to the lack of holding space, the BLM is not specifying how many horses will actually be removed. The current Proposed Action includes continuous removals over the next five years -- through 2018! This long-term removal plan is unnecessary and unacceptable.
The BLM estimates that just 1,085 horses currently reside in the HMAs, meaning that there are fewer than 200 horses over the "Allowable Management Level" set by the agency.
Please voice your opinion by personalizing the sample letter below. When you click the "send your message" an individual email will be sent to the BLM on your behalf.
The BLM is accepting comments on this proposed wild horse removal via email or postal mail at the addresses noted below. Comments must be received no later than 4:30 p.m. (PDT) on Thursday, October 4, 2012.
Attn: Three HMA Water-Bait Trapping EA
BLM Elko District Office
3900 Idaho Street
Elko, NV 89801
Email: BLM_NV_ELDO_TripleBMaverickMedicine@blm.gov
If you have any questions on this matter, please contact Bruce Thompson, BLM Elko District Wild Horse and Burro Specialist, at (775) 753-0200 or Ruth Thompson, BLM Egan Wild Horse and Burro Specialist at (775) 289-1800.
The BLM's press release, Environmental Assessment and other related documents for this proposed action are available online. The BLM press release states that the agency has hauled water to the area, yet no specifics, such as the number of times water has been hauled, or the number of different locations to which water has been hauled, is not disclosed.
The BLM has set an artificially low Appropriate Management Level (AML) of just 472-889 wild horses for the 1.7 million acres in the Triple B, Maverick-Medicine and Antelope Valley HMAs, yet authorizes up to nine times that number of livestock to graze the same area. A major grazing permitee in the area is rancher Pete Goicoechea, the Minority Leader of Nevada's State Assembly.
Just last year (2011), Triple B was the location of a brutal and massive BLM roundup, which removed 1,269 wild horses from this 1.7-million acre public lands area in northeast Nevada. Although the agency is proposing to utillize bait/water trapping -- a less traumatic alternative to helicopter stampedes -- for the proposed action, we must still oppose the removal of wild horses from this area.
Triple B HMA: The BLM only allows 250-518 wild horses on 1,225,000 acres/1,914 square miles (larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined!).