Wild Horse Policy Scrutinized With Wyo. Roundup

A new federal policy to control wild horse herds is putting more emphasis on fertility control and less on removal to manage the animals throughout the West.

During a recent roundup of nearly 700 horses in southwest Wyoming, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management injected six dozen mares with a fertility control drug before returning them to the open range.

The BLM policy now calls for scaling back its removal of wild horses from 10,000 to 7,600 a year.

There had been a plan to spay all mares and geld all stallions before releasing them, but the fertility control plan was eventually put into use.

Still, many ranchers say that the number of wild horses, estimated at 38,500, is more than 40 percent above the BLM’s target. They say that fertility control likely won’t do enough to limit rangeland damage caused by the wild horses.