Expanding fertility control throughout the West

The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:

For over a decade, the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) has been a leader in the fight to uphold America’s promise to wild horses and burros by ensuring their lifelong freedom and welfare on our public lands.

Earlier this week, we told you about our groundbreaking Land Conservancy Project, an innovative new program to acquire and restore key habitat so that America’s wild herds can live free in ecological balance with other wildlife. Now, we’ve got another exciting update to share with you.

This month, we received a federal grant from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to support the humane fertility control program that we are implementing on wild horses in Utah’s Cedar Mountain Herd Management Area (HMA)!

The project brings together diverse stakeholders – including the Utah BLM, the ranching permittee in the HMA, and AWHC – with the shared goals of humanely managing the Cedar Mountain horses, stewarding their habitat, and eventually eliminating helicopter roundups and removals in this area. We thank the BLM for its support of this program, which is a model for collaboration in the wild horse conservation space.

Over the last 12 years, AWHC has worked with and supported community groups conducting fertility control on local wild horse herds, and implemented the world’s largest humane management program for wild horses on Nevada’s Virginia Range. We’ve also led successful initiatives on Capitol Hill to secure dedicated funding for fertility control measures, sending a clear message from Congress to the BLM about the need for a fundamental shift in management priorities.

The Cedar Mountain program is the latest expansion of this critical work.

The Cedar Mountain wild horses are truly majestic and magical, living free according to their own rules in this ruggedly beautiful corner of Utah. The herd is brimming with color: pintos, buckskins, and roans abound. But Meredith, these mustangs have been subjected to routine helicopter roundups to keep their numbers in check. This approach has cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and cost thousands of the Cedar Mountain horses their families, their freedom, and, for some, their lives.

We know there is a better way to manage our cherished wild horses, and it is our hope that with the implementation of this collaborative program, the Cedar Mountain mustangs will never have to face the helicopters again. 

Please help us spread the good news about this latest development! Share these posts on social media so we can raise awareness about this exciting progress in the fight to protect our cherished wild horses and burros.

Thank you,

AWHC Team