New off-range facility part of the 10-year federal wild horse, burro plan to gather 130,000
A new off-range wild horse and burro corral will be built near Sutherland after the Bureau of Land Management signed a record of decision Aug. 19 approving a contract with local ranching outfit G & R Livestock.
The corral could house as many as 1,000 animals on approximately 20 acres of private land, part of a plan announced in July 2019 by the agency to contract for three new off-range facilities, one in Utah and one each in Wyoming and Colorado. A fourth off -range corral is set to be expanded. That facility is in Axtell.
The corrals are meant to help the BLM manage as many as 8,500 animals, all cared for by private entities overseen by the federal agency ahead of hoped-for future animal adoptions.
“The facilities will be staff ed by contractor personnel and overseen by BLM staff with the knowledge, skills and ability to safely and humanely handle wild horses and burros and provide appropriate veterinary care,” according to a BLM press release announcing the new facilities.
The wild horse and burro population is estimated to be about 95,000, or triple what experts believe wild lands can sustainably hold.
Currently the BLM holds 50,000 wild horse and burros in a network of off-range corrals.
“Many of these animals are awaiting placement into private care through adoption or sale,” the BLM reports.
The new corrals are part of a Trump Administration commitment to spend $1 billion over the next decade capturing and holding up to 130,000 wild horses and burros, whose populations can double in as little as four or five years.
According to an Associated Press report on the BLM’s new contract awards, the agency spends $50 million annually to control the West’s growing wild horse population, which ideally should rest in the range of 27,000 animals.
The monetary value of the contracts are not made public for commercial reasons, according to the federal agency, though disclosure of that information is likely subject to Freedom of Information Act requirements.
Greg Smith, who owns G & R Livestock with wife Randie, said he was happy his Delta company won the BLM contract. He said the outfit already operates an existing feed yard for cattle. Smith acknowledged “there are some unknowns” with executing the BLM contract and did not want to comment further until the project was farther along.
Several weeks ago the BLM gathered some 600 wild horses off the Swasey range, a number about 10 times the size of what the agency deems appropriate for the area. About 200 of the animals are housed at an existing BLM corral in Delta. The remaining 400 animals were shipped off to the corral in Axtell. A gather in the Confusion range in the west desert area of the county was planned for September but has been moved to November. Another 560 horses could be taken off that range then.
Wild horses from the Swasey range are steered into a corral during a Bureau of Land Management gather in July. More than 600 horses and burros were taken o the range. About 200 sit in a corral in Delta today, but will be availbale for adoption starting Sept. 18.
Lisa Reid, a local BLM public affairs specialist, said adoptions from the recent Swasey gather will begin as early as Sept. 18.
Asked what the difference is between the existing Delta corral and the one planned for Sutherland, Reid said the new facility would act as more of a warehouse for wild horses, closed to the public, feeding stock over time to adoption facilities such as the existing Delta corral. Facilities like the one planned in Sutherland would provide deworming, veterinarian care and a host of pre-adoption services for animals.
Reid said more facilities like it are needed if the BLM is going to successfully reach its goal of gathering 130,000 wild horses over a 10-year period. In fact a call for new bids for similar off-range corrals in western Nevada and southwestern Idaho was made in March.
Reid said additional facilities in Utah are also needed. She said Millard County could benefit from more such operations.
Proponents and opponents both provided public comment on the BLM’s private corral plans, including after a preliminary environmental assessment was completed earlier this year for the request for bids last year.
The Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office and Beaver County Commission were among groups offering positive comments on the issue.
“The creation or contracting for off range corrals is a critical first step in the achievement AML (appropriate herd management level) on the public lands,” the public lands group offered. “When an animal gather takes place the BLM will need a place to sort, inspect, and provide care for the animals. The State is very supportive of these facilities coming on line to help the BLM.”
Beaver County officials agreed.
“We believe it is necessary to develop these holding facilities and the locations that have been chosen are very appropriate,” the county commission commented. “We assert that the management of wild free-roaming horses and burros requires the BLM to constantly manage the population and herd size of these animals and that gathering excess animals as they approach AML is compulsory and necessary for health of the animals and the rangeland.”
Wild horse advocates expressed opposition to the plan, citing a number of concerns, including the safety of the animals, the use of taxpayer money and the proliferation of confined animal feeding operations.
The American Wild Horse Campaign, for example, urged the BLM to abandon its corral plan altogether.
“Instead of moving forward with this action, the BLM should be looking into how it could implement comprehensive field-darting fertility control programs that will save the agency, and taxpayers, money while managing the horses humanely,” the group commented. “The EA (environmental assessment) must consider the social preference of American taxpayers, 80 percent of whom want wild horses protected and managed humanely on public lands.”
The public has 30 days from Aug. 19 to file an appeal of the BLM’s record of decision for the Sutherland facility. That correspondence can be sent to the agency’s Fillmore field manager, Michael Gates, BLM Fillmore Field Office, 95 East 500 North.
A copy should also be sent to the US Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor, Intermountain Region, 125 South State Street, Ste. 6201, Salt Lake City, Utah 84138.
