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U.S. NEWS Saturday 28 april 2018

U.S. agency may offer $1,000 to

people who adopt wild horses

By SCOTT SONNER posing more bad ideas, owners often topped 9,000
Associated Press including mass roundup annually in the early 1990s,
RENO, Nev. (AP) — U.S. land and slaughter to cover for but have fallen to 3,000 or
managers are proposing their incompetence,” said fewer in recent years.
offering $1,000 to anyone Suzanne Roy, executive di- A new incentive program
willing to adopt wild horses rector of the American Wild offering providers $1,000
gathered from public lands Horse Campaign. Laura at the point of adoption
to alleviate a backlog of Leigh, president of the Wild “would save money for
mustangs in government Horse Education horse pro- the taxpayer and the BLM
corals and shrink what they tection advocacy group, program in the first year of
say are badly overpopulat- said the report ignores the implementation alone,”
ed herds across the West. impact of cattle and sheep the agency said. “Over a In this May 25, 2017, file photo, wild horses that were captured
Overwhelmed by what it grazing on public range- period of 25 years, holding from U.S. rangeland stand stand in a holding pen, at the U.S.
characterizes as a $1 bil- land and relies heavily on that same animal in an off- Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Center in
lion problem, the Bureau recommendations made range corral would have Palomino Valley about 20 miles north of Reno, Nev.
of Land Management pro- at a meeting in Salt Lake cost the taxpayers nearly Associated Press
posed the novel approach City last year organized $46,000.” Ranchers whose wildlife, including the im- resources on the range and
to Congress on Thursday by livestock interests. “The livestock compete with the periled sage grouse. program costs that are spi-
and also made requests to agency repeatedly scape- horses for forage praised “We have been in a stale- raling out of control,” said
sterilize, euthanize or sell for goats” the horses while the agency for developing mate on this issue for years Ethan Lane, the National
slaughter tens of thousands “ignoring extreme deficits a range of options to save in Congress and the result Cattlemen’s Beef Associa-
of animals. Under any sce- within the much larger live- taxpayers money and bet- of that stalemate is un- tion’s executive director for
nario, the agency plans to stock grazing program, di- ter protect rangeland for healthy horses, degraded federal lands.q
use short-term fertility con- verting personnel from the
trol on the horses whose (horse program) to placate
population it expects to other concerns, prioritiz-
grow to 100,000 by 2019. ing existing funding based
But it also recommends any on political pressure not
approach include perma- rangeland needs,” she said
nent sterilization, something Friday. The federal agency
most horse advocates find estimates 83,000 wild horse
as objectionable as lifting and burros were roaming
current congressional pro- public rangelands in 10
hibitions on selling the hors- western states last year —
es for slaughter. more than three times the
The $1,000 adoption bonus 26,715 animals the agency
is included in the four man- says the land can sustain.
agement alternatives the “As currently managed,
agency is mulling as it seeks by the summer of 2019,
a way to address what it there will likely be well over
admits is a costly, difficult 100,000 wild horses on BLM-
challenge. managed land, with up
“Conflict levels are often to 20,000 more the year
high and the program is after,” said the agency,
controversial and politically which says it has the ca-
sensitive,” the agency said. pability to round up about
The head of one of the na- 20,000 animals annually.
tion’s largest horse protec- Last year, the agency spent
tion groups immediately nearly 60 percent of its $81
condemned the package million budget on animals
of alternatives as “a road- that have been removed
map for destruction of from the range and esti-
America’s wild free-roam- mates “the cost of caring
ing horses and burros.” for the 46,000 un-adopted
“BLM, the agency whose and unsold animals cur-
terrible mismanagement of rently in holding will top $1
this program has brought billion over their lifetime.”
us to this place, is now pro- Free adoptions to qualified