Jack,

Wyoming’s 375,000-acre North Lander Complex is home to a beautiful herd of nearly 3,000 wild horses who roam across four Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Herd Management Areas. 

Photo: Chad Hanson, with permission from Chronicle Books.

However, the BLM recently implemented a 10-year plan that could potentially reduce this herd’s numbers down to the brink of extinction.

The unscientific Appropriate Management Level (AML) for this herd is a mere 320-536 wild horses  – all the while allowing 24,715 cattle and sheep to graze during the most sensitive time of the year in the North Lander Complex. 

As the first step of this plan, starting in less than 30 days, the BLM will round up a jaw-dropping 2,766 wild horses, return a mere 40 to the range, and funnel the remaining animals into the BLM’s holding system, where 64,000 wild horses and burros already languish.

Wild horses provide numerous benefits to their habitats. It’s unacceptable that these animals are set to be inhumanely removed from their homes while livestock grazing by private ranchers remains the dominant use on the public lands where they roam. Please join us in speaking up against this disastrous plan by sending a letter to the BLM demanding it reevaluate its 10-year plan for the North Lander wild horses!

In addition to rounding up thousands of these innocent animals, this plan also authorizes the gelding (castration) of up to 95% of captured and returned stallions, as well as the implementation of unproven Intrauterine Devices (IUDs) in returned mares and the widespread use of the unstudied vaccine Gonacon. 

If implemented, permanent stallion sterilization and untested IUDs could irrevocably fracture this herd’s genetic viability, affecting its long-term health. The BLM must abandon its use of permanent sterilization from this plan. 

Please join us in speaking up for the North Lander wild horses by sending a letter to the BLM to reevaluate its plan!

Thank you,

Team AWHC