Titus Amendment Allocates $11 Million for Wild Horse Birth Control Program

In a significant legislative move, the House of Representatives has approved $102.6 million for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. This includes a crucial $11 million allocation for humanefertility control, a method long advocated by wild horse supporters.

The Senate has yet to take up companion legislation. Thanks to an amendment introduced by Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus and Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, theBLMwill be required to direct at least $11 million from the program’s annual budget for a noninvasivefertility controlvaccine advocates have long favored.

Growing herds of wild horses are a growingpublic landsmanagement crisis facingBLMtoday according to the agency. Overgrazing by cattle and wild horses has led to a grassland full of invasive “cheatgrass” — grasses that are a major cause of wildfire and harm perennial grassland that provides diverse habitat for wildlife.

Thefertility controlregimen Porcine Zona Pellucida (commonly known as PZP)can keep a mare from becoming pregnant for a year, slowing herd growth, and reducing the need forBLMto perform wild horse roundups that lead to the animals sitting in holding pens or getting injured.

Recently, theBLMfunded researchinto the effectiveness of a noninvasive vaccine called GonaCon and found that the treatment has an efficacy rate of 30 to 40 percent in the first year and a 90 percent efficacy rate for the next 4 to 5 years with an estimated cost of about $12,000 per mare for a lifetime.

Rep. Titus called the amendment a “step in the right direction.” “Nevada is home to the largest population of wild horses in the nation,” Titus said in a statement. “Taxpayer-fundedroundupsand removals are not only costly, not only an ineffectual management strategy, but they also endanger the lives of these animals, as evidenced by the recent horrific death of a young mare witnessed during a roundup in Utah.”

Earlier this month awild horse was killedduring aBLMhelicopter roundup in Utah that caused the horse to crash into a pen, breaking the mare’s neck.

Advocates said the amendment addresses concerns raised by theBLM’srecent report to Congressoutlining a plan to accelerateroundupsand remove as many as 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands at a cost of nearly a billion dollars, a move Joanna Grossman, the equine program manager at the Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit focused on animal advocacy, called “inhumane and unsustainable.”

“It’s a promising start,” said Grossman. “We already know that PZP works very well because it’s been used for a long time on a number of herds.”

“Americans do not want to see their tax dollars being used to stampede wild horses by helicopter and then stockpile them in government-run holding facilities.”

Originally posted by Nevada Current