Tuesday, November 18, 2008

BLM will delay decision on management of mustangs and burros

From The Horse: Government Delays Decision on Euthanizing Wild Horses

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will round up fewer wild horses and try to shuffle funds within the agency to hold off for now on euthanizing large numbers of the animals in an effort to control herds and spiraling costs, an official said Monday.

Deputy Director Henri Bisson said maintaining the wild horse and burro 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."
read the whole article...

Update: Government entertaining other options, including an offer from billionaire couple Mr. and Mrs. T. Boone Pickens to create refuge for some horses. read more...


This is the latest update on this story, which I blogged about twice before (1, 2). Personally I'm happy to hear that they'll take more time to consider possible solutions. I hope that a neuter and release program will be considered, as well as tourism opportunities ("Come and see the American West on a safari! See our Mustangs, Bison and more!"). I'm no economist, but when the dollar is low against foreign currency, that might get some interest.

2 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

I'm glad to hear they are at least holding off on the executions for a while, until cooler heads prevail. I'm with you on the neuter and release program.

Grey Horse Matters said...

p.s. thought you might be interested to know that in the Washington Post today there is a story about 30,000 BLM horses being rescued by Madeleine Pickens (T.Boone's wife) they are adopting all of these horses and burros and are in the process of looking for land to put them on. So that's great for now, hopefully someone will figure out how to not let this happen again. You can check out the story at the 7MSN blog.