BILLINGS, Mont.—Dozens of wild mustangs descended from the mounts used by Spanish Conquistadors would be rounded up from their mountain range next year and put up for adoption under a plan announced by federal officials.
The roundup from Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range would reduce the size of the 150 horse herd to between 90 and 120 animals. The Bureau of Land Management said the roundup, or “gather”, is needed to keep the horses from outgrowing their 38,000-acre range in a remote, arid region along the Montana-Wyoming border.
Established in 1968 as the first public wild horse range in the United States, the Pryor range has emerged as a contentious battleground in the nationwide debate over horses that run free on public lands.
Some wild horse advocates contend the government’s periodic roundups are destroying the herd’s storied genetics. Others side with the federal government in saying the horses’ numbers need to be reined in, to prevent overgrazing and starvation.
The Pryor herd is widely known among horse lovers for its colorful ancestry and a series of documentary films on the animals that appeared on public television.
During the last roundup, in 2009, 57 wild horses were removed from the herd.
That roundup and others across the country helped stoke a backlash against the government’s handling of the country’s 38,000 wild horses and burros, the offspring of animals first introduced to North America by European explorers.
More than 10,000 horses and burros were removed from public lands in fiscal year 2010. The government estimates that existing ranges have enough room for only about 27,000 horses and burros.
In recent years, the BLM has turned to treating the horses with infertility drugs as an alternative way of controlling the animals’ population. Those treatments have been given to the Pryor horses since 2001, under a program that was expanded this year and now includes most of the herd’s roughly 75 mares, said BLM spokeswoman Kristen Lenhardt.
But it’s still uncertain whether infertility treatments alone will stabilize the size of the Pryor herd. In the interim, Lenhardt said, roundups will be needed to keep a balance between the horses and other range uses, including grazing and providing habitat for different species of wildlife.
“The purpose of the (infertility treatments) is to hopefully slow the growth rate and hopefully increase the length of time between gathers,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of time.”
Through a lawsuit pending in federal court, several Colorado-based advocacy groups have argued that the Bureau of Land Management has not met its obligation under federal law to protect the horses.
Among the most vocal of those critics is Ginger Kathrens, a filmmaker who has documented the Pryor herd. She said that the BLM was “jumping the gun” by proposing another gather just as the infertility program has been expanded. She said the 90-120 target population level—referred to by the BLM as an “appropriate management level,” or AML—was too low.
“They are using a ridiculously low AML as an excuse to further gut the most popular and genetically unique herd of mustangs in the West,” Kathrens said. She said reducing the herd to below 120 horses would “permanently compromise the genetic viability” of the herd.
Attorneys for the government are asking a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to dismiss the lawsuit brought by groups including Kathrens’ Cloud Foundation. The suit also challenges a fence that was re-built and extended last year to keep the animals on the range and off adjacent land within the Custer National Forest.
The Pryor herd’s lineage has been traced to horses brought to the continent by Conquistadors in the early 1500s. Horses that escaped their European owners or were abandoned formed wild herds that later became mounts for Indians and European settlers who eventually brought them to the Northern Plains.
In the 1950s, the government reduced the size of the Pryor Mountain herd and later sought to remove all the horses but was blocked by litigation from local residents. In 1968, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall dedicated a portion of the Pryors as a public range.
Unlike past roundups in which helicopters were used, Lenhardt said the 2012 roundups would be done by herding or by luring horses into traps baited with food or water.
A public comment period on the proposal runs through the end of August. After that, the BLM will prepare an environmental study of its plan.
