Your Tax Dollars at Work: BLM Targets Herd for Third Time

On September 19, 2018 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began an “emergency” roundup in the Dolly Varden Springs area of the Antelope Valley and Goshute Herd Management Areas (HMAs). The BLM will use bait/water trapping, no helicopters, to roundup and remove 900 horses from the area.

The Antelope Valley HMA is located approximately 52 miles south of Wells. The area consists of 496,356 acres of BLM land and 6,553 acres of a mix of private and other public lands for a total of 502,909 acres. The BLM allows for an Appropriate Management Level (AML) of only 115-259 horses within the HMA. In the Antelope Valley HMA, horses have been part of the range environment in the Great Basin since contemporary livestock grazing began in the mid 1800’s. The dominant colors are bay, sorrel, black, brown, buckskin, gray and dun.

The Goshute HMA is located southwest of Wendover, Nevada. The area consists of 266,045 acres of BLM land and 1,232 acres of a mix of private and other public lands for a total of 267,277 acres. The BLM allows for an AML of only 74-123 horses within the HMA. The predominate colors among the Goshute horses are solid colors consisting of bays, sorrels, dark browns and blacks. A small percentage are buckskins, duns and palomino. The Goshute horses are not large, the average height being around 14 hands.

The Dolly Varden Spring sits on private land. Wild horses have been able to drink from the spring and enjoy the water that runs off the private land for decades. Now, the BLM claims that there is not enough water and forage to support the horses. The following photos, taken by Love Wild Horses’ photographer Jeanne Nations earlier this month, show healthy horses enjoying water.

Photo by Jeanne Bencich Nations for lovewildhorses.org

Photo by Jeanne Bencich Nations for lovewildhorses.org

Photo by Jeanne Bencich Nations for lovewildhorses.org

 

The BLM is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to roundup and remove 900 horses from the Dolly Varden, Antelope Valley and Goshute HMAs when the agency was just in these HMAs conducting removals in July. On July 12, 2018 the BLM concluded an “emergency” roundup in the Goshute HMA that removed 135 horses, and on July 31, 2018 the BLM concluded another “emergency” roundup near Deer Spring in the Antelope Valley HMA that removed 265 horses. Now, only about two months later the BLM has returned to remove 900 horses from the area under the claim of yet another “emergency” roundup.