What's New: wyoming

Your comments are needed today to tell the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drop plans to conduct an unnecessary and dangerous radio collar tracking study of wild mares in Wyoming.

The agency wants to conduct an expensive and traumatic helicopter roundup for the sole purpose of placing radio tracking collars on 30 mares living in the Adobe Town Herd Management Area (HMA). The collars are part of a proposed 5-year study conducted in conjunction with the University of Wyoming to study the movement and habitat selection of the horses.

It is clear from the documents that the study is intended to lay the groundwork for the “zeroing out” of the Adobe Town wild horses, because it aims to prove that wild horses from the non-checkerboard portions of the HMA migrate into the checkerboard sections. The BLM is in the process of eliminating wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard to appease the Rock Springs Grazing Association, and wants to prove that wild horses must be eradicated from the entire area in order to keep the checkerboard clear of wild horses.

Ironically, the whole premise for the study is now void since the BLM has cancelled the 2016 Checkerboard roundup, thanks to our legal victory at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Not only is this study unnecessary, but also it presents a danger to wild horses, both from the helicopter roundup that will injure and kill horses and shatter their families, and from the radio collars that are not breakaway, but rather must be released via “remote detonation” if a horse get in trouble.

Finally, the underlying bias of the study is revealed by the University of Wyoming’s research proposal, which “predicts” that the study will show  that horses can’t be kept off checkerboard lands, “disproportionately” use riparian resources, “displace” ungulate species and complicate management of other wildlife species and livestock.

Photo courtesy of Pam Nickoles Photography