Idaho wildfires burned most food in wild horses’ habitats, prompting emergency roundup

MSN.com - Full Article and Video

Story by Nicole Blanchard

The Bureau of Land Management’s Boise office announced Monday that it will gather nearly 100 mustangs from Southwest Idaho rangeland after wildfires burned the vegetation the wild horses need to survive.

In a news release, officials said the Owyhee and Four Rivers field offices would begin an emergency roundup next week. They plan to gather about 40 mustangs from the Sands Basin Herd Management Area near Marsing and about 50 from the Four Mile area north of Emmett.

BLM officials said there is not enough vegetation in either area to support the current mustang populations.

According to the news release, both herd management areas were “nearly completely burned” by lightning-caused fires. The Jump Fire, which ignited near Jump Creek in Owyhee County on Aug. 5, burned nearly 26,000 acres. That include a large swath of the 11,700-acre Sands Basin mustang habitat, which BLM officials said can support between 33 and 64 horses.

The Paddock Fire, which started during the same thunderstorm, burned nearly 190,000 acres. Some of that included the 18,800-acre Four Mile Herd Management Area, which can support between 37 and 60 horses...

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Wild horses' fate is poised for US appeals court showdown

Reuters.com - Full Article

By Jenna Greene
September 16, 2024

Sept 16 (Reuters) - It’s hard not to be moved by the beauty of wild horses galloping across a western plain, hooves pounding and manes flying. Little wonder such images are featured in ads selling everything from beer to homeowner’s insurance. But where some see wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West,” as Congress put it in a 1971 law, opens new tab protecting the animals, others decry them as pests -- voracious grazers that reproduce rapidly and compete with livestock for forage on unfenced tracts of private land.

A showdown over the fate of wild horses in Wyoming and beyond is looming at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Mustang advocates are challenging a recent lower court decision they say will allow, opens new tab the federal government to decimate the free-roaming herds, rounding up nearly 5,000 animals and warehousing those that are not adopted in long-term holding facilities.

The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, “is trying to pull a fast one” in seeking to remove the horses from vast swaths of public land intermixed with private parcels, said Bruce Wagman, of counsel at 100-lawyer Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila.

Working at a reduced “low bono” rate on behalf of clients including wild horse conservation group Return to Freedom, Wagman told me that given the ever-growing mustang population, “We’re past the point where we can just say ‘Leave them alone...’”

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https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-wild-horses-fate-is-poised-us-appeals-court-showdown-2024-09-16/

Wild Horses Find Sanctuary at Skydog Ranch in Oregon

BendSource.com - Full Article

Over 300 wild horses and 50 burros saved after their capture now call 9,000 acres of breathtaking, rugged land in Prineville home

By Tiffany Neptune

Witnessing a wild horse run free is an experience unlike any other, but these sights are more rare as more horses are captured from their lives in the wild. As uncertain fates await those still roaming the American West as well as the mustangs and burros already detained, some, like the hundreds who graze the lands of Skydog Ranch & Sanctuary, are given another chance at life.

Upon learning more about the branded neck of her second horse, a mustang named Buddy, Clare Staples mounted a personal campaign to educate herself about mustangs in the West to understand exactly why the wild horse (mustang), population continues to diminish and what is ultimately happening to them. That led her to found Skydog, creating a wild haven for horses and donkeys (burros), to escape neglect, starvation, abuse and death.

As a child, "I would run away to the stables and take care of these horses and muck all day just to be able to be around them. I would breathe them in and bury my face in a horse's neck and everything would be OK," Staples said, recounting her less-than-happy childhood.

Taking stock of her life at 50, Staples realized she sought more than material grandeur, sharing, "I really felt like being of service and having a purpose were the keys to a happy life and a joy that was more sustainable." She effectively turned away from a glamorous Malibu, California, existence, dedicating everything to reunite wild horse families and save equines in need...

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https://www.bendsource.com/news/wild-horses-find-sanctuary-at-skydog-ranch-21079421

Permanent Sterilization of America’s Wild Horses Proposed

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

Leading conservation organization American Wild Horse Conservation has raised alarms about the latest federal budget proposal.

By: American Wild Horse Campaign | March 15, 2024

American Wild Horse Conservation is sounding the alarm over the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Fiscal Year 2025 budget request seeking $170,917,000 to fund its Wild Horse and Burro Program. This marks a $29 million increase over FY 24 appropriated levels, with $15 million allocated toward a mass permanent sterilization program, including 20 new full-time employees for its implementation.

The proposal, outlined in the BLM’s Budget Justification for FY 25, was released days after Congress cut the BLM’s FY 2024 budget by $5.9 million while preserving $11 million in 2024 funding for reversible, humane fertility control implementation.

“Permanent sterilization contradicts the BLM’s legal mandate to protect America’s wild horses in self-sustaining, free-roaming herds. It also disregards Congressional directives to implement a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines,“ said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of AWHC. “The BLM should deliver on existing commitments to expand humane fertility control, rather than waste Congress’ time and taxpayer resources on a far-fetched scheme to destroy the nation’s wild horse and burro populations by mass sterilization...”

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https://horse-canada.com/horse-news/permanent-sterilization-americas-wild-horses-proposed/