BLM Ignores Public Comments, Proceeds with Wyoming Wild Horse Roundup

Rock Springs, WY (January 13, 2014)- As of Friday’s deadline, more than 12,000 citizens had submitted comments opposing the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) plan to conduct a wild horse roundup in the Great Divide Basin Herd Management Area (HMA) this summer.

Over the past 13 months, theBLM’s Rock Springs Field Office has received over 40,000 comments from American citizens opposing the agency’s plan to wipe out wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard, a two million-acre swath of public and private land in the southern part of the state. The Divide Basin roundup is a part of the massive wipeout plan.

“TheBLMis blatantly ignoring tens of thousands of public comments while galloping ahead with its plan to destroy nearly half of Wyoming’s remaining wild horse populations,” said Suzanne Roy, director of the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation), a national coalition of more than 60 organizations. “The public overwhelmingly supports wild horse protection. But, theBLMis taking its marching orders from the Rock Springs Grazing Association, a special interest group whose members view mustangs as competition for cheap, tax-subsidizedlivestockgrazing on public lands.”

The strong public sentiment is reflected in national public opinion polls indicating that72% of Americans support protecting wild horses onpublic landsin the West, while only29% want to ensure that public lands are available for livestock grazing.

TheBLMintends to conduct a helicopter roundup to remove 164 wild horses from the Great Divide Basin HMA,even though the population is well within the established Allowable Management Level of 412-600 wild horses.The action will also eliminate wild horses from the public-private checkerboard portion of the HMA, which comprises nearly half of its 779,000 acres.

The HMA includes fourlivestockgrazing allotments, which are authorized byBLMto use 17-26 times more forage than are the federally-protected wild horses in Divide Basin.

The Divide Basin roundup is the next stage in theBLM’s implementation of aconsent decreebetween the agency and the Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA), which, if fully carried out, will eliminate wild free-roaming horses from the 3,100-square mile Wyoming Checkerboard. The plan will reduce Wyoming’s free-roaming wild horse population by almost 46%, from 3,685 to 2,070. An additional 205-300 would be sterilized (castrated or spayed) and returned to the range.

The consent decree settled a lawsuit filed in 2011 by the RSGA against the Interior Department andBLM. The year prior, a high-level Interior Department officialadvised the RSGA to file the lawsuitas a strategy for getting funding for more wild horse roundups. In 2013, theBLMsettled the case by giving the RSGA everything it was seeking.

The Divide Basin roundup follows the November 2013roundup inBLM’s Salt Wells HMA, which removed 586 wild horses and “zeroed out” (eliminated all wild horses from) the vast majority of the HMA, which is comprised of checkerboard lands.

More information on the RSGA vs. DOI case can be foundhere.

The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation)(AWHC) is a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. AWHC is a campaign founded and sponsored byReturn to Freedom(RTF), a national non-profit dedicated to wild horse preservation through sanctuary, education, and conservation. RTF also operates the American Wild Horse Sanctuary in Lompoc, CA.