White House Asked to Halt Experiment on Nevada Wild Horses
The following update is from American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
On September 24, 2015, AWHPC’s law firm, Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks, filed a complaint on our behalf with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) against the BLM to stop a precedent-setting plan to use an experimental fertility control vaccine on wild horses in the Antelope HMA in eastern Nevada. Unlike the PZP fertility control vaccine, which has been studied and used for more than two decades, the vaccine in question, known as GonaCon, has never been adequately studied in horses. The National Academy of Sciences itself concluded, “Further studies of behavioral effects of [GonaCon] are needed.”
The long-term effects of GonaCon on horses are unknown, but include potential behavioral impacts that will change the social dynamics and organization of wild horse herds, and miscarriage if the vaccine is administered to mares in the early stages of pregnancy. The agency’s plan to use GonaCon for the first-time ever on wild horses under BLM management without scientific study is unjustified. As a result, AWHPC is calling upon the CEQ to prohibit the BLM from using GonaCon in wild mares in the absence of a formal scientific study that accurately collects and analyzes data on the physiological and behavioral effects of the vaccine on horses.