The PPJ Gazette

In August of 2018 the Bureau of Land Management began a roundup in the Red Desert Complex of Wyoming. The Herd Management Areas in the Complex are Green Mountain, Stewart Creek, Lost Creek, Crooks Mountain and Antelope Hills. They were planning to remove 2670 wild horses in total, and the last roundup had been in 2011. The BLM stopped about halfway through on August 17 because they had nowhere else to put the rest of the horses they proposed to remove. So 1444 wild horses were rounded up, 25 were released back into Green Mountain including 12 mares who were given PZP birth control. The bulk of the horses removed were from Green Mountain, with about 300 from Stewart Creek. Ten wild horses died during this roundup, including some foals who were literally run to death in the heat.

Now the Bureau of Land Management is planning to continue this roundup. Because it was paused they do not need to do any more Environmental Assessment, any more public comment. They can just start at their convenience, which turns out to be some time in October of this year. They plan to remove over 1000 wild horses – likely over 1500.

Just to state the obvious, come on people, wake up, there is a Pandemic! You are going to ignore that and pretend that chasing wild horses with a helicopter and separating them from their families and homes, killing some, sending most of them to be warehoused for the rest of their lives in a feedlot situation for millions of taxpayer dollars is a priority? Surely millions of dollars being squandered in wild horse roundups happening now in Utah and Nevada and soon in Wyoming could be better used helping people who are at risk people who are losing their jobs, their homes and their lives?

Of course, our government will say this money has been allocated to remove the horses. Yes and that is a problem – it is not a priority! These horses who are on public lands currently are not posing a threat to anything except the cattle ranchers’ greed to put more and more livestock on our public lands. And surely it has occurred to someone that what a great time to remove these horses – when most people are staying at home and trying to stay safe.

Here is the link to the information on the roundup in 2018: https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/herd-management/gathers-and-removals/wyoming/2018/red-desert/gather

The plan this time is to return 150 wild horses to Stewart Creek with the mares being injected with PZP birth control first. There is a group working with the BLM who will be continuing to dart the mares in Stewart Creek to keep the population down.

We do not know where the approximately 1500 wild horses will be sent after the roundup. If they are sent to BLM owned short term holding facilities then it will be easy for members of the public to adopt them, if the BLM allows visitors during COVID. But most of the long term holding facilities are on private land and these do not allow the public to visit.

I have to say in my opinion, we should be focusing on keeping ourselves safe and the Bureau of Land Management should be working on ways to manage our wild horses on our public lands where they belong, not rounding up and removing thousands more this fall.

The wild horses in the Red Desert Complex and beautiful, thriving and much safer remaining with their families in their homes. This should not happen. This needs to STOP.