BLM delays decision to kill wild horses

RENO, Nev. — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management put off a decision Monday to kill large numbers of wild horses to control herds and spiraling costs.

Instead, the agency will reduce roundups and try to shuffle money to maintain its wild horse and burro program through the current fiscal year, a BLM official said.

"We could react quickly based on what the law says," BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson said during a meeting of the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.

But he said maintaining the program for another year will give horse advocates, the BLM, Congress, ranchers and wildlife advocates time to explore possible solutions and let "cooler heads prevail."

"Let's focus on doing something positive before we have to look at last resort tools," Bisson said.

"We're not making any decisions today. We're not making any decisions next week," said Bisson, who is retiring.

"I won't leave a legacy of moving too soon because we didn't give people a chance to think this thing out."

About 33,000 wild horses roam the open range in 10 Western states, half of those in Nevada. The horses and burros are managed by the BLM and protected under a 1971 law enacted by Congress.

The agency, which set a target "appropriate management level" of 27,000 horses in the wild to protect the herd, the range and other foraging animals, rounds up excess horses and offers them for adoption. Those too old or considered unadoptable are sent to long-term holding facilities.

In all, the agency is caring for about the same number of horses in holding pens as there are on the range.

The nine-member advisory board was considering more than a dozen recommendations to help spur adoptions that have slowed in recent years and to curb population growth as a way to reduce long-term holding costs.

Bisson told the same group in June that the agency faces a crisis because of the skyrocketing costs of caring for the horses in long-term facilities where the animals live out their days — some for as long as 20 years.

A report released last week by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the BLM "cannot afford to care for all the animals off the range, while at the same time manage wild horse and burro populations on the range."

It said the BLM this year will spend about $27 million — about three-fourths of its horse and burro budget — caring for the animals. Continuing current practices would require a budget of $58 million next year, escalating to $77 million in 2012, BLM estimated.

The GAO report also noted that the BLM has authority to kill or sell excess horses without restriction from slaughter, but has been loathe to do so.

"The recommendation of GAO is that BLM get in compliance with the law," said the GAO's Jeffrey Malcolm, who also spoke at Monday's meeting. "If we find noncompliance, we're basically duty-bound to report it."

Malcolm stressed if BLM is uncomfortable with its current options, the agency can pursue changes to the law in Congress. But doing nothing, he said, will make a bad problem worse.

"Regardless of what you think the number of horses should be ... the number is always a threshold" that will be met and exceeded, he said.

Some advocates who oppose euthanizing horses say herd sizes are a result of years of mismanagement by the BLM. They also say horses are given short shrift on public lands because they compete with livestock for forage.

BLM received more than 40,000 written comments from the public on the euthanization proposal, officials said.

Bisson projected the agency needs to find $15 million to $20 million elsewhere in its budget to sustain the wild horse program through the year.

Government roundups will be limited to about 5,000 horses and mostly involve animals facing severe hardship because of conditions such as drought.