Days Left to Help Save Wyoming's Wild Horses

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently revising land use plans in Wyoming that will have a drastic effect on wild horses in the McCullough Peaks and Fifteenmile Herd Management Areas (HMAs).

The revision of the Bighorn Basin Resource Management Plan (RMP), which is being drafted by the BLM’s Cody and Worland field offices, is being developed to set land use allocations that will affect the area over the next 15 to 20 years.

The current plan includes an additional five HMAs that were designated for wild horses when the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was enacted. The revised plans intend to “zero out” these areas for wild horses to make room for private livestock grazing, despite a proposal to expand the McCullough Peaks HMA by 10,000 acres.

“Currently, BLM authorizes at least 85 times more private livestock than wild horses (the equivalent of 25,404 cow/calf pairs vs. 300 horses) to graze in the Bighorn Basin planning area. All but 22 acres of the McCullough Peaks and Fifteenmile HMAs are open to livestock grazing,” according to the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.

The AWHPC also points out that the BLM is using numbers to determine Authorized Management Levels (AMLs) for wild horses that were set decades ago, making them inaccurate, or “artificially low.”

The BLM is accepting public comments until Wednesday September 7. Please send a letter through the AWHPC or submit a comment directly to the BLM asking them to stop caving to special interests and to increase AMLs for wild horses and restore wild horse populations in areas that have been zeroed out for livestock.

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Read more: bighorn basin, blm, gathers, hmas, mustangs, roundups, wild horses, wyoming

Photo credit: RickC via flickr

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Cindy C.

10:43AM PDT on Sep 29, 2011

Leave wild animals alone!

send a green star

Janet K.

6:32PM PDT on Sep 28, 2011

Ken Salazar should be fired!

Vava W.

6:12AM PDT on Sep 15, 2011

You can tell a lot about a government by how they treat the nation's animals. All animals should be equally protected no matter if they are a pet or not.

Tricia H.

2:34PM PDT on Sep 10, 2011

I cannot believe that our country is killing horses for another country!!! Doubly shame on us!!

Vivianne M.

4:17PM PDT on Sep 9, 2011

These horses and burro's have more right to that land then the cattle people do.
They are making money on it because they don't have to provide the cattle with food when they are grazing on fed. lands.

Veronica B.

1:18PM PDT on Sep 9, 2011

Save the horses

Jackie A.

8:16AM PDT on Sep 8, 2011

Thanks for sharing..:-(

Julianna D.

10:10PM PDT on Sep 7, 2011

Wild horses have much to teach us. For one- how to take care of our domestics- they are genetically the same and yet do not suffer from the same ailments. Surely we humans can provide care superior to no care at all....right?

Margaret P.

9:13PM PDT on Sep 7, 2011

The native Americans had horses long before the Spaniards came.
It was once thought they only had what the Spanish left, but they have found there were horses here before that time.

colleen p.

3:24PM PDT on Sep 7, 2011

Mustangs came with the Spanish. that would be like saying the Clydslaes were here before us, if some Germans moved into town 40 years ago, and you and I moved into their town tomorrow.