The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced earlier this month the Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Incentive Program (AIP) launched in March 2019 contributed to a significant increase of animals placed into private care.
However, in a separate report, the BLM said it would take two decades and cost more than $1 billion over the first six years alone to slash wild horse populations to sustainable levels necessary to protect U.S. rangeland.
In the first 12 months of the AIP, the agency adopted 6,026 animals, compared with 3,158 during the previous full fiscal year. That increase of 91 percent revives and accelerates an upward trend of adoptions that began in 2015.
The AIP, which began mid-way through the Fiscal Year 2019, helped the agency to achieve a 15-year record for total placements that year of 7,104 animals. Total placements include animals adopted, sold, or transferred to another public agency.
Besides an increase in overall adoption numbers, the first year of AIP also saw a sharp rise in the number of first-time and repeat adopters, as well as the number of individuals who adopted multiple animals.
In all, there were 2,923 first-time adopters, 932 repeat adopters, and 1,280 multiple-animal adoptions, all of which represent substantial increases over previous years.
“We’re excited that the public has responded so strongly to this innovative program,” said Acting Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Casey Hammond. “The successful use of incentives to increase adoption rates is a win for all involved—saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, reducing the overpopulation of wild horses and burros on the range, and helping these animals find homes with families who will care for and enjoy them for years to come.”
The AIP seeks to increase placements of wild horses or burros by paying individuals $1,000 for each untrained animal they adopt. Payments are made in two installments: $500 within 60 days of adoption, and $500 within 60 days of receiving a title (approximately one year later). By contrast, it costs an average of $1,850 per year for the BLM to care for a wild horse or burro in an off-range corral facility.
Each animal successfully placed into private care is estimated to save taxpayers approximately $24,000 in lifetime off-range holding costs. That amounts to over $170 million in lifetime savings generated during Fiscal Year 2019 alone, in no small measure due to the AIP.
Cost, population will climb
Despite the cost savings and the number of adoptions, in a recently released report, the BLM stated the costs of reigning in the wild horse and burro populations across the country’s public rangelands “could be staggering,”
As of March 1, 2019, the BLM estimates a minimum population of slightly more than 88,000 wild horses and burros within the 177 herd management areas (HMA) on public lands. This number is more than three times higher than the national total appropriate management level (AML) of 26,715, with more than 80 percent of the 177 HMAs now exceeding AML.
If nothing were done to reduce the annual growth rate of these herds, by 2040, the BLM estimates the on-range populations of wild horses and burros could increase to over 2.8 million.
The federal land management agency “anticipates it will take up to 20 years to reach the AML of 27,000 wild horses and burros on the range across the West by annually removing 18,00-20,000 animals.”
“Because the BLM is statutorily prohibited from euthanizing healthy unadopted animals and/or selling animals without limitation to reach AML, the bureau is projected to expend hundreds of millions of dollars in future years to hold unplaced animals.”
To achieve the goal of reducing populations, the report cites several measures needed to reduce the population. They include:
• Annually gather (through both helicopter and bait/water trap methods) between 20,000 and 30,000 animals, and either remove them permanently from public rangelands or return them after application of some form of long-term temporary or permanent fertility control;
• Annually place an estimated 6,000-7,000 animals into private care;
• Procure additional off-range corrals (especially for preparatory activities) and off-range pastures to care and feed for the increased number of animals removed from the range; and
• Identify partner organizations able and willing to facilitate private care placements and house/care for as many of the 18,000-20,000 permanently removed off-range animals as possible.
The report states, “Over the next 15-18 years, even with private care placements increasing, off-range holding (corrals and pastures) costs could rise dramatically from about $65.5 million in FY 2020 to about $360 million by the time AML is achieved.”
Kaitlynn Glover, executive director of the Public Lands Council and National Cattlemen Beef Association Natural Resources, said the report “provides clear and welcome recognition of the hard decisions that are necessary to protect our rangelands and the animals themselves.”
Nevada Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Doug Busselman said accelerated roundups and sterilizations are long overdue. — Charles Wallace, WLJ correspondent
