ELY – The Bureau of Land Management Ely District, Caliente Field Office on February 16, 2021 concluded a wild horse helicopter gather. The gather was located within and outside the Silver King Herd Management Area (HMA) located in Lincoln County, Nevada.
The BLM gathered 284 and removed 256 wild horses. A total of 25 mares will be released back onto the range on March 12, 2021. Mares identified for release were treated with the fertility control vaccine GonaCon-Equine to slow the population growth rate of the remaining population within the HMA. GonaCon-Equine is a temporary fertility-control vaccine that can prevent pregnancy in wild horses for up to two years.
The purpose of the gather was to prevent undue or unnecessary degradation of the public lands associated with excess wild horses, and to restore a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship on public lands, consistent with the provisions of Section 1333(b) of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Removing excess animals would also enable significant progress toward achieving the Standards for Rangeland Health identified by the Mojave-Southern Great Basin Resource Advisory Council.
The BLM transported wild horses removed from the range to the Palomino Valley Wild Horse and Burro Center in Reno, Nev., to be readied for the BLM’s wild horse and burro Adoption and Sale Program. Wild horses not adopted or sold will be placed in long-term pastures where they will be humanely cared for and retain their “wild” status and protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Additional gather information is available on the BLM website at https://go.usa.gov/xAtAF.
GonaCon is the end of the line for these mares… they are virtually sterile, and worse yet, some experienced stallions will not accept them into their bands. This is because they can sense they are infertile.
The science regarding this social disruption is already well published (Dr. Cassandra Nunez, et. al.).
And as someone who has lived among wild horses for the past 7-years in the wilderness studying them, I have seen how one mare that was treated was rejected, and another who was unable to conceive wasn’t able to have any social ranking in the herd.
As with the first amre mentioned, this second, mare was about 10-years old and in good shape and should have had seniority (lead) over other younger inexperienced mares, yet that was not allowed by the band stallion (or other mares in the band) who showed her little favor beyond allowing her in the band as an omega.
This practice of treating wildlife (wild horses) with chemicals is draconian and is only needed because the DOI/BLM/USDA has systematically killed-off all the evolved predators (mountain lions, bears, wolves, bob-cats and coyotes), which for millennia keep wild horse herd populations in-check will concurrently engaging in the critically important process of ‘Natural Selection’ which preserves the genetic vigor of the wild horses (or any species for that matter). The BLM and their associated agencies are solely responsible for wild horse over-population and should take full blame and responsibility for that obtuse mismanagement. Instead, they continue down their path of failed-management methods by chemically treating native species American wild horses. The BLM must be held accountable!
MORE about my research, a published Study, photos and videos at: http://www.WHFB.us
William E. Simpson II – Naturalist