RBC | The Bureau of Land Management plans to gather and remove approximately 25 wild horses from private land in Moffat County this month using a bait-trapping technique.
The wild horses are on private land about six miles east of the Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area in northwestern Colorado. The BLM’s wild horse management responsibilities under the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act include removing wild horses that are impacting private land.
Next week BLM secialists will begin selecting locations to use hay and water to attract the horses to specific areas. A small corral will be established around each trapping site over several days to eventually contain the horses. Once captured, the wild horses will be taken to a BLM facility in Rock Springs and be made available for adoption or sale.
The wild horses likely dispersed from Sand Wash, where the estimated population of 621 wild horses is well above the appropriate management level BLM has set between 163 and 362 wild horses.
“We are committed to maintaining a healthy population of wild horses in northwestern Colorado at the Sand Wash Basin over the long-term,” said BLM Little Snake Field Manager Bruce Sillitoe. “In order to be successful, we need to be able to remove excess wild horses that are outside the established herd management area to reduce conflicts with private land or other resources.”
The BLM works with several partner groups in Sand Wash to improve range conditions for wild horses and administer fertility control to slow herd growth.
For information about the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, visit https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro.
