Hundreds Of ‘Stray’ Horses Rile Up Ranchers In Southwest Wyoming

CowboyStateDaily.com - Full Article

Hundreds of stray horses are causing problems In southwestern Wyoming, and nobody’s sure what to do about them.

Mark Heinz
June 23, 2023

Hundreds of horses that nobody claims are running loose in southwest Wyoming, and their fate seems uncertain.

Nobody even seems to know how many there are, but estimates for this rogue herd run as high as 800.

Rancher Vance Broadbent said it’s frustrating, because he’s had some of those horses on grazing allotments he leases from the Bureau of Land Management. But the horses apparently don’t count as mustangs, or wild horses, so the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) isn’t claiming responsibility for them.

“We’re still having conversations with the BLM, as far as what can or can’t be done,” Broadbent – who ranches in Sweetwater and Uinta counties – told Cowboy State Daily...

Read more here:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/23/hundreds-of-stray-horses-rile-up-ranchers-in-southwest-wyoming/

Contrary To What BLM Reports, Horse Advocates Say Winterkill Hit Wyoming Mustangs Hard

CowboyStateDaily.com - Full Article

The BLM’s estimates of a thriving Wyoming’s mustang population are off, some wild horse advocates say, and that winterkill hit mustangs hard in some areas.

Mark Heinz
June 16, 2023

Wyoming’s mustangs suffered mass die-offs this winter, and there are probably about only half as many left as the Bureau of Land Management estimates, wild horse advocates tell Cowboy State Daily.

A BLM spokesman said the agency is double-checking its mustang population estimates.

Death On The Range

“I spent the first half of May documenting death and counting live horses,” Angelique Rea of Thermopolis, who has monitored and photographed mustangs for years, told Cowboy State Daily.

Chad and Lynn Hanson of Casper, founders of the Wyoming Mustang Institute, said they made a grim discovery when they checked on mustang herds this spring.

“We found the dead horses in Stewart Creek along (U.S. Highway) 287 south of Bairoil, and along Mineral X and Crooks Gap Road,” Chad Hanson told Cowboy State Daily...

Read more here:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/16/contrary-to-what-blm-reports-horse-advocates-say-winterkill-hit-wyoming-mustangs-hard/

Wyoming: Winterkill Wiped Out Deer & Antelope Herds, But Wild Horse Population Is Exploding

CowboyStateDaily.com - Full Article

There are more than twice as many mustangs in Wyoming as there should be, according to the Bureau of Land Management, and the past harsh winter that decimated some antelope and deer herds didn’t do much to reduce their numbers.

Mark Heinz
June 14, 2023

Wyoming’s mustangs seem to have pulled though this past harsh winter well — maybe too well. There are more than twice as many on the range as the state is supposed to have, says a Bureau of Land Management official.

“We are not seeing the same level of mortality (among mustangs) that other ungulates are seeing,” according to preliminary estimates of the winter death toll, said Kris Kirby, the associate state director of the BLM’s Wyoming headquarters.

In parts of Wyoming, winterkill decimated mule deer and antelope herds.

Meanwhile, there are an estimated 8,181 mustangs roaming across roughly 5 million acres in 16 herd management areas that the BLM oversees in Wyoming, she said. The agency’s target population is 3,725 horses...

Read more here:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/14/winterkill-decimated-wyoming-antelope-and-deer-herds-but-wild-mustangs-are-flourishing-too-much/