About 100 wild horses captured in a Bureau of Land Management population management roundup over the past few weeks will be released back onto the range next week to maintain wild populations at sustainable levels.
The BLM will release mares that have been treated with a fertility control drug and groups of stallions into several pastures of the Fox Hog Herd Management area in northwest Nevada.
According to the BLM members of the public are welcome to watch the releases on Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 22 and 23. Those interested should be at the BLM Litchfield Corals, 21 miles east of Susanville on Highway 395, at 7:30a.m. each day.
Members of the public can also join the BLM staff departing from the Surprise Field Office, 602 Cressler St.in Cedarville, Calif., at 8:30a.m.
Observers must provide their own transportation. High clearance vehicles are recommended. Much of the travel route will be on gravel roads. Participants should plan on six hours of round-trip travel time.
On Tuesday, two groups of horses will be released into separate areas along the Lost Creek Road off Nevada State Highway 34 southeast of Cedarville.
In the first release, BLM officials plan to return nine stallions and six mares to the range; the second should consist of 23 stallions and 21 mares.
On Wednesday, crews plan to release 27 stallions and 18 mares into an area just off Highway 34 near Hog Mountain.
“These releases will bring the Fox Hog Herd Management area to the low end of the appropriate management level of 120 to 226 animals,” said Allen Bollschweiller, manager of the BLM Surprise Field Office in Cedarville. “Over the coming years, the herd will grow toward the upper range of the population level, but the use of fertility control treatments on the mares will slow the growth rate for up to two years.”
Horses have already been returned to the Bitner and Nut Mountain herd management areas and those populations are estimated to be within appropriate management levels of 15 to 25 and 30 to 55 wild horses respectively. More horses will be released later into the High Rock Herd Management Area. Dates are pending.
On Nov. 12, the BLM completed gather operations for five herd management areas managed collectively as the High Rock Complex. The project was designed to reduce the wild population to a range of 258 to 451 animals in the complex. The BLM manages wild horses under provisions of the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, a federal law that protects the animals and requires that their populations be controlled.
