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Last Updated on Saturday, 22 October 2011 01:00

Written by Christy Martinez

Rock Springs – A process that began a year ago in October 2010 has reached the point where a scoping report will soon be released for the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP) revision.

Although the process began last October, a Federal Register notice was not released until February 2011, which kicked off the public RMP revision process with a 60-day scoping period through April 11 and four meetings throughout the area managed by the BLM’s Rock Springs Field Office, which oversees approximately 3.6 million surface land acres and 3.5 million acres of mineral estate in southwest Wyoming.

“The scoping report is for the public’s information, as a summary of the results of the combined scoping and comment period,” says RMP Lead Lynn Harrison, who works in the Rock Springs Field Office.

Following the release of the scoping report, the BLM office will begin alternative development through a series of meetings with cooperating agencies.

“We will take into consideration any planning issues that came up, as well as internal BLM issues,” says Harrison. “There’s a good contingency of cooperating agencies from all five counties in the planning area.”

Those counties include Fremont, Uinta, Sweetwater, Sublette and Lincoln. Harrison says the cooperating agencies include conservation districts, multiple state agencies, including the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, as well as the Wyoming U.S. Geological Survey and federal agencies including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, with a focus on historic trails.

Harrison says her agency had already internally identified multiple planning issues that would be considered in the revision, and she says public comments supported those same issues.

“Wild horses are an issue identified both internally and externally, and we’ll address them and pay close attention. The wild horse program is dynamic, and it has policy changes coming about, so we’ll no doubt revise the plan as needed prior to going final with the RMP,” she says. “That is something that will be dynamic and ongoing throughout the revision process.”

Harrison says it’s too soon in the process to identify the revision’s affects on grazing permittees.

“We’ve just started the alternative meetings, and that’s really where we start getting into the relationship between the resources and the resource users, special designations and socioeconomics,” she says.

The next opportunity for public involvement in the Rock Springs RMP revision will be when the draft RMP is released for public comment, which won’t be until Fall 2012. When it is released, the public will have 90 days to review the document and make any comments, changes, or suggestions.

For more information, the public is encouraged to contact Harrison or Serena Baker at 307-212-7399. Christy Martinez is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Saturday, 13 August 2011 01:00

Written by Christy Martinez

Rock Springs – “The horses are doing a great deal of damage, and we want them removed,” says Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA) President John Hay of a recent request for a court order that would remove wild horses from the association’s private lands.    

The case was filed July 27 in the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne and is a petition for relief to enforce an order of the court in the prior Mountain States Legal Foundation and Rock Springs Grazing Association v. Clark, Secretary of the Department of the Interior case, and to direct the defendants to “remove all of the wild horses that have strayed onto the RSGA lands within the Wyoming Checkerboard” in south central Wyoming.

According to the court case, more than 32 years ago RSGA filed suit to require the BLM and the U.S. Marshal to remove the wild horses that had strayed onto the private lands within a portion of the Wyoming Checkerboard, an area 40 miles wide and 80 miles long that follows the railroad from Tipton to Bryan, Wyo. That area covers approximately two million acres, or a section of land about one-third larger than the state of Delaware.

RSGA owns and leases approximately one million acres of private land within the Wyoming Checkerboard; the association owns multiple sections comprising approximately 550,000 acres and leases 450,000 acres from Anadarko Land Corporation. The federal sections among to those they own and lease are primarily managed by BLM, and RSGA holds their grazing leases, which compose the largest single allotment managed by BLM.

In March 1981 Wyoming’s U.S. District Court held that BLM must remove all wild horses from the RSGA lands “except that number which the RSGA voluntarily agrees to leave in said area.” In agreements reached in 1979 with Wild Horses Yes! and the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, RSGA agreed to tolerate 500 wild horses within their lands. The RSGA and the two wild horse groups also agreed the total number of wild horses in the Rock Springs District should be no more than 1, 500 to 1,600 wild horses, including the 500 wild horses on the RSGA lands. BLM adopted the agreements between RSGA and the two wild horse organizations in its appropriate management levels (AMLs).

Now, according to RSGA, the BLM has not adhered to the original court orders or the underlying agreements.

“BLM has failed to maintain wild horse numbers at the numbers that RSGA agreed to tolerate. BLM has not been able to accurately track and count the wild horses within the RSGA lands, but readily admits they greatly exceed the agreed-upon levels in violation of the court orders, and exceed the AMLs adopted by BLM in the land use plans and a separate consent decree entered into with the State of Wyoming. As a result of the defendants’ failure to meet the agreed-upon numbers of wild horses, the rangeland resources on land owned and leased by RSGA have deteriorated and will continue to deteriorate,” says the RSGA in the court case.

As a result, RSGA has changed its agreement to tolerate 500 wild horses on its private lands to zero, “based on the defendants’ proven inability to meet and maintain the agreed-upon numbers of wild horses and the recent program changes that contradict the previous agreements.”

Nearly a year ago on Oct. 4, 2010 the association sent the BLM and DOI an official request to remove all wild horses from its lands. The agencies responded on Feb. 7, 2011, but did not agree to remove the wild horses as requested.

According to the court case, RSGA is entitled to and seeks relief in the nature of a mandatory injunction directing the agencies to immediately comply with previous court orders and remove all wild horses from RSGA lands.

Not only have the agencies failed to gather the wild horses from the private association lands, but RSGA also points out that they have instead reduced wild horse gathers and funding for those gathers by 25 percent for the foreseeable future.

The excess numbers of wild horses have caused deterioration of rangeland resources, including loss of native vegetation and damage to riparian areas on both public and private lands, and RSGA says the deterioration of resource conditions results in lower forage production, which harms RSGA shareholders who would otherwise be able to use more forage.

“Since 1995, BLM rules require that RSGA meet or maintain rangeland health standards or face reductions in livestock grazing. RSGA shareholders will face livestock grazing reductions when BLM will not or cannot acknowledge that wild horses are the significant causal factor in the failure to meet or maintain rangeland health standards and will then impose livestock grazing reductions,” says RSGA of the consequences of overgrazing by wild horses.

“We’re very much encouraged by this initiative, because the grazing association has been very patient for a long time, and this is one of the few avenues left to them,” says Wyoming State Grazing Board Rangeland Consultant Dick Loper of the case.

“It looks to me, after reading the lawsuit, that they certainly have a legitimate right and a case that the BLM is in violation of the past court order, as well as their own land use plans and policies,” says Loper.

Loper notes that many affected parties in Wyoming agree that the local BLM offices, as well as the state office, are very sympathetic to the concept that the wild horses need to be managed to AMLs.

“Instead, direction is coming from the nationally-driven program that’s too receptive to political pressure and has a top-down approach,” he comments. “Rock Springs Grazing is taking a real leadership role in this issue.”

Loper encourages other state agencies or people with a dog in the fight to weigh in.

“Some have already indicated they plan to find a way to participate in the lawsuit on behalf of the Rock Springs Grazing Association,” he says. “The Wyoming State Grazing Board would encourage those who can play a supportive role to do so.”

RSGA attorney Connie Brooks says the federal government has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, which will be the first benchmark in the case.

Christy Martinez is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Friday, 03 April 2009 08:57

Written by Christy Hemken

    According to the Bureau of Land Management’s Wyoming Wild Horse and Burro Specialist Alan Shepherd, every manager of wild horses in the U.S. is looking at fertility control to slow the 20 percent reproduction rate.
    Currently the BLM uses a contraceptive program in mares that lasts anywhere from 22 to 24 months after treatment and utilizes porcine zona pellucida (PZP). The treatment consists of a liquid dose and the implantation of three time-released pellets that keep boosting the mare’s system and building up antibodies to prevent her from conceiving.
    The treatment costs around $225 per mare, not including the cost of capture. “If the treatment works, and the mare’s system doesn’t fight it, it can prevent one, two or even three foals from being born, which saves thousands in capture, feeding and adoption fees,” says Shepherd. “If we have to put a horse into long-term holding it can cost $10,000 to $15,000 over its lifespan, if not more.”
    Out of 70 mares recently treated in Utah, Shepherd estimates the agency can prevent 135 foals from being born. “That will save hundreds of thousands for the program in the future,” he says.
    Ongoing research seeks to find a longer-lasting treatment, which Shepherd says would make it more acceptable in some states. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is looking at how mares respond after treatment and the impacts of not conceiving each year.
    “The Humane Society is a big proponent of the fertility control, and they hold the permit from the FDA that allows us to use the treatment,” says Shepherd. Because the treatment is still experimental the FDA requires somebody to hold its permit before it can be used.
    This year there will be treatments in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado and Utah as well as Wyoming if winter gathers are possible.  
    Shepherd says that treating any number over 50 percent of the mares captured will start to make a dent. In recent Utah treatments 70 out of an estimated 100 mares were treated, and he says that percentage should show some benefits.
    Endocrinologist and member of the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Vern Dooley of Powell says the difficulty with wild horses in the West is that they’re never all gathered, making close management impossible. “The real issue is you have to gather enough mares to make the treatment effective,” he says.
    “Our goal is to have 70 percent of the mares on the range treated with PZP,” says Heidi Hopkins-Fedrizzi, HSUS Wild Horse Program manager.
    Although Shepherd thinks the fertility control is a useful tool, he says it’s not going to ever eliminate gathers in general. “You can’t catch all the mares and treat them all, and it doesn’t work on all mares, but it works and it’s been shown that it works.”
    Of other fertility treatments, Dooley says the BLM is considering any and all options. Of gelding wild horses, he says, “Most vets will tell you gelding a horse is not band-aid type surgery. When you’ve got wild horses that are a little harder to manage and geld you’re certainly going to want to observe them for a few days. It’s a much more complicated procedure than simply giving a shot.”
    Dooley says there has been some work done on bloodless castration procedures and sterilizing male mammals through various methods. “There really isn’t anything available at this point outside of doing a vasectomy or a castration,” he notes. “Those are difficult procedures to accomplish out in the field.”
    BLM has given some consideration to maintaining herds composed entirely of geldings. “They’re considering every possible notion we could do to minimize us having to deal with the horses and having to harass them in any manner and at the same time not do damage to the resources, which is BLM’s first objective,” says Dooley.
    “There are some people that think it only natural to let the horses go ahead and starve to death, but the problem is that before they start starving to death they’ve hammered that grassland and that has long-term implications on the resource,” says Dooley. “BLM will try to manage in such a way that we don’t destroy the grassland.”
    Currently, 33,000 horses reside on BLM ranges in 10 Western states. Another 30,000 reside in long-term holding facilities at a cost of 74 percent of the agency’s $37 million budget.
    Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Friday, 03 April 2009 08:50

Written by Christy Hemken

Casper — According to Dick Loper of the Wyoming State Grazing Board, the reorganized Wyoming Wild Horse Committee aims to advise and provide input to ensure that what needs to be done, does get done with Wyoming’s wild horse population.
    “We’ve reorganized the ag-based horse committee, which is sponsored by the Wyoming State Grazing Board, to work with the ag industry on the issue of wild horses,” says Loper.
    Although the group hasn’t been active for a while, he says it became active again because of budget problems with the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. “They’re having a difficult time coming up with sustainable budgets, and the amount of money going into long-term facilities is bigger and bigger each year,” he says.
    “We decided to become more active because of the BLM’s consent decree with Wyoming, of which they are out of compliance,” says Loper, noting there’s been communication between Wyoming’s Attorney General and the Wyoming BLM office.
    “Our group will do what we can with the Attorney General, the Wyoming Department of Agriculture and the local BLM to try to encourage the BLM to follow through on their plans to get back in compliance,” he explains.
    Wyoming Wild Horse and Burro Program Lead Alan Shepherd says the state BLM’s goal is to get back into the roundup schedule that was missed last fall. “We’ll continue with what we need to do for the 2009 year with a two-stage approach,” he says.
    Gathers this summer will include 750 horses from the North Lander area, which is north of Jeffrey City and Sweetwater Station. This fall the BLM plans to gather the Red Desert area, which runs from Jeffrey City south to Rawlins in the Green Mountain area, which includes five Herd Management Areas (HMA’s). Two Big Horn Basin areas will also be included, McCullough Peaks and the 15-Mile HMA near Worland.
    “Those roundups will take close to 900 horses, including this year’s foals,” says Shepherd. “If we get to accomplish those, that should put us back into compliance.”
    Loper worries that because of the dire situation in Nevada, where the BLM is only rounding up horses in extraordinary crisis situations, Wyoming will lose its roundup money for 2009. “We in Wyoming don’t have horses dying for lack of forage and water, but we’re trying to manage our numbers so we don’t get into that position,” he says.
    Loper says he’s concerned Wyoming will lose its funding before the state BLM gets a chance to conduct fall roundups. “While there’s an appreciation for their emergency situation, it’s frustrating in Wyoming to lose those funds to Nevada.”
    “We felt it was time to get back involved in the process,” says Loper of the Committee. “We’ll try to help on the publicity part of it and try to move the horses that are rounded up to good homes as best we can.”
    Loper mentions a previously existing Wyoming pilot program where private individuals could go to the BLM and put in for a number of horses to maintain on private property. The BLM would pay those landowners $1,800 per horse if they’d agree to keep the horse at least five years.
    “That saved the government and the public a lot of money, because if you put that same horse in long-term holding it would cost $11,000 or $12,000 over the life of that horse,” says Loper. “We’re going to try to revive that pilot project because we know it would be less expensive and get horses into better homes.”
    Shepherd says he’s not sure if the pilot program will be reinstated, although it will be an option discussed at an upcoming 10-day meeting of the national Wild Horse and Burro Program leads and Washington, D.C. staff. He says the purpose of the meeting is to discuss budgets and strategy and how the BLM will deal with budget shortcomings and the volume of horses it has. A member of the Wild Horse and Burro Program Advisory Board will also be present at the meeting.
    The Wyoming Wild Horse Committee is composed of Chairman Rick Myers of Baggs, rancher Niels Hansen of Rawlins, Don Schramm of the Rock Springs Grazing Association, Beaver Rim rancher Jack Corbett, Cody rancher Mark McCarty and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture and the Wyoming Livestock Board.
    Loper says the Wyoming Livestock Board is involved because of the growing problem of privately owned horses being let loose on public lands. “We’re now seeing in Wyoming these branded horses that people can’t or won’t take care of,” he says.
    He says the Committee is trying to become geographically spread across the state with any ranchers involved with wild horses. “We’re trying to be as helpful as we can to keep horses within the management numbers in Wyoming,” he notes. “We’ll be actively involved as this moves forward because we want the horses to be managed in concert with the other multiple uses on public lands.”
    Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .