Easy Action: Protect Wild Horses & Burros in the Heart of Mustang Country (Battle Mountain RMP)



The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Battle Mountain Field Office is seeking comments on the preparation of a new Resource Management Plan (RMP), which addresses the management of wild horses and burros in 12 Herd Management Areas in central Nevada.

This area accounts for roughly 1.8 million acres of Nevada’s wild horse herd management areas (including one burro herd management area). 

Under the current management strategies, many public lands in Nevada are managed to maximize commercial livestock grazing. Nearly seven million acres of wild horse habitat have been “zeroed out” over the past four decades, leaving Nevada's mustangs and burros with nearly one-third less than the original 22.1 million acres set aside for their use. Allowable population levels in the remaining herd management areas are set at arbitrarily, and sometimes ridiculously, low numbers. In area after area, the majority of resources in designated wild horse and burro areas is allocated to privately-owned livestock. It's time for wild horses and burros to receive a fairer share of resources on the small fraction of public lands that have been designated as habitat for them. The welfare ranching practices that have dominated the management of public lands must be reformed.

The current action will re-write the existing, 25-year old RMP. This is the stage of the planning process when the BLM sets management strategies, allocates resources, and sets “appropriate” management levels for wild horses and burros. Now is the time to raise our collective voices to demand change in the heart of mustang country!

Please take easy action below to send a strong message on behalf of Nevada’s mustangs.  Please customize your comments.  Deadline for comments: February 11, 2011

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This action is no longer active. To view the current list of our active campaigns click here

To send public comments via U.S. postal service or facsimile, use the contact information below.

Battle Mountain RMP
c/o Christopher Worthington
Bureau of Land Management
Battle Mountain District Office
50 Bastian Road
Battle Mountain, NV 89820
Fax: (775) 635-4034 (Attn: Battle Mountain RMP)

The BLM notes: If you wish to withhold your name or address from public review or from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, you must state this prominently in your written comments. Such requests will be honored to the extent allowed by law.


The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. Supported by a coalition of over 40 organizations, its grassroots campaign seeks:

    * A suspension of roundups in all but verifiable emergency situations while the entire BLM wild horse program undergoes objective and scientific review;

    * Higher Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for wild horses on those rangelands designated for them;

    * Implementation of in-the-wild management, which would keep wild horses on the range and save taxpayers millions annually by avoiding the mass removal and stockpiling wild horses in government holding facilities.