Federal land managers will remove a herd of approximately 120 wild horses from its range in the oil and gas country just southwest of Rangely by 2007.
The horses will be placed in the Bureau of Land Management’s adoption program or in long-term holding facilities because the 123,000-acre area is not suitable for the long-term management of a herd, White River field office manager
Kent Walter said Thursday.
Wild-horse advocates say the decision is in keeping with a BLM trend.
“The BLM is zeroing out herds or reducing them to ridiculous levels in Colorado and across the West,” said Andrea Lococo, a consultant with the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute. “This agency considers what is needed for cattle and some game animals, and wild horses are getting the crumbs.”
BLM officials say an environmental study indicated that the agency’s limited resources would be better spent managing other public land uses in the herd area. Those include energy developers and two livestock permit holders grazing some 1,200 head of cattle. About 850 oil and gas wells are in the herd area and more are in the works.
This area, west of the Douglas Divide and Colorado 139 about 50 miles north of Grand Junction, was
never sanctioned by the BLM, even though wild horses historically roamed there, spokeswoman Mel Lloyd said.
The BLM concluded that only a small herd of 29 to 60 horses could be managed within the West Douglas Creek Herd Area and still be in year-round balance with vegetation and other land uses. But such a small herd would require intensive management, including the introduction of mares to keep it genetically viable.
BLM officials say at least 150 horses are needed for a herd to sustain genetic vigor on its own.
However, roughly three-quarters of all wild horse herds in the country have fewer than 150.
The bureau was mandated in the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act to give wild horses the same priority as
other public land uses and to manage them as self-sustaining herds, Lococo said.
Walter said he believes his office’s resources are better focused on a second herd of up to 235 horses just east of Colorado 139 in the Piceance/East Douglas Herd Management Area, which encompasses 195,000 acres.
With the removal of the West Douglas Creek Herd, Colorado will still have four herds, roughly 800 horses, all on the Western Slope.
Wild-horse range in Colorado has shrunk by more than 40 percent to roughly 400,000 acres in the past few decades.
There are approximately 28,000 horses and 4,000 burros in 10 Western states.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
