The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service began rounding up wild horses and burros from the Spring Mountains on Wednesday, July 11, and over the next two weeks all 1,200 wild horses and burros in the Spring Mountains will be captured. Once they are tagged the BLM will re-release 112 horses and 121 burros to roam from Red Rock to an area near Pahrump. So far, 125 wild burros have been captured
Burros in natural habitat
The BLM hopes to limit the birth rate to 5 percent per year to hold off the need for another round up of wild horses and burros for at least five years.
© 2012 by Ecirphr
Sources say the released horses and burros will be a large enough group to sustain a community, but small enough to allow them to eat. Only the horses returned to the wild will be given birth control. The Bureau of Land Management hopes to limit the birth rate to 5 percent per year to hold off the need for another round up for at least five years.
The round up costs between $300 and 400-thousand dollars. It's being paid with funds from BLM land auctions. The wild horses and burros not released will be sent to adoption centers. Each one will be marked to let slaughterhouses know the animals are off limits.
The BLM says it's necessary because there are too many animals and not enough food. But wild horse advocates hope to put a stop to the roundup.A herding firm from Utah was hired to collect the animals
"If we were never able to gather the horses or remove excess animals, there would be so many, they would actually starve to death," a BLM spokeswoman said.
The next stop for the burros is a temporary corral and then onto the adoption center.