BLM Summer Roundups Underway
The American Wild Horse Preservation has a detailed list of the BLM summer roundups. Please visit their website to read more about each of the locations and impact on these groups of equines.
Triple B HMA and Silver King HMA bait/water removal, Ely, Nevada
Estimated Start: July 27, 2016
The BLM is planning to remove up to 100 “excess” wild horses from outside the Silver King HMA, and to remove 130 “excess” wild horses from in and around the Triple B HMA.
As of August 8, no horses have been captured. BLM reports that it is acclimating the horses to the bait traps before commencing capture operations.
Blawn Wash Roundup, Western Utah
Estimated Start: August 10, 2016
The BLM plans to conduct a helicopter roundup to capture and remove approximately 150 wild horses from State, private, and BLM lands in the area of the Blawn Wash Herd Area located in Beaver County. The BLM “zeroed out” this area for wild horses, after giving away the most productive habitat area to the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), and then determining that the remaining habitat area could not support horses. SITLA leases the land for livestock grazing and in 2015 sued the BLM seeking more wild horse roundups.
Three Fingers HMA Helicopter Roundup, Vale, OR
Estimated Start: August 23, 2016
The BLM plans to capture 100 wild horses and return 50 horses — 25 studs and 25 mares — to the range. The BLM’s current “appropriate” management level is just 75 to 150 wild horses on 61,000 acres of public land and the estimated current population is just 202 mustangs. The BLM is claiming that the roundup is necessary because wild horses are grazing outside of the HMA in areas affected by the 2015 Soda wildfire, which burned close to 280,000 acres in Oregon and Idaho. The agency claims that the horses are interfering with restoration plans in the fire area. However, the agency’s own decision record states that only 15 wild horses from the Three Fingers HMA have roamed outside the HMA.
The agency also claims it wants to “prevent further deterioration” of rangeland resources by removing 50 wild horses while continuing to authorize the grazing of over 1,600 cattle in the two allotments that overlap and surround the HMA.
Of interest: The permittees for these grazing areas provide beef, via the Country Natural Beef coop, to Whole Foods, a company that claims to source its meat products from humane and environmentally responsible sources. Captured horses will be sent to the BLM’s Wild Horse Corrals in Oregon, where many of the mares are expected to be used in the BLM’s gruesome and controversial sterilization experiments.