Wyoming

Today the Bureau of Land Management Wyoming State Office issued an official Record of Decision (RoD) and approved Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment for wild horse management within the Rock Springs and Rawlins Field Offices. The BLM prepared the amendment per the terms of a 2013 consent decree with the Rock Springs Grazing Association, that targeted wild horses in the area known as “the checkerboard.”

Wyoming

The official approved decision:

• The Rock Springs Field Office (RSFO) portion of the Adobe Town HMA will revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses. In the Rawlins Field Office (RFO) portion of the HMA, all checkerboard land and the portion of the HMA north of the existing Corson Springs southern allotment boundary fence (see Map 3) will revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses. The remaining lands (within the RFO) will be retained as an HMA and managed with an AML of 259 – 536.
• The entire Great Divide Basin HMA will revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses.
• The entire Salt Wells Creek HMA will revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses.
• The boundary of the White Mountain HMA would remain the same as Alternative A and would include checkerboard land. This HMA would be managed with an AML of 205 – 300. The White Mountain HMA would not be managed as a non-reproducing herd; however, population growth suppression strategies would be implemented to limit population growth rates for this herd.

Appropriate Management Levels (AML) under this plan amendment would be 464 to 836 wild horses, a roughly 60 percent decrease from previous AMLs of 1,481 to 2,065, for all of the HMAs in the checkerboard. 

BLM says “Population management tools will be used to help manage wild horse populations and reduce the frequency of gathers” (after the large scale removals are completed to zero out areas and reach their numbers goal). Those tools include multiple substances (vaccines) and sterilization. 

We know many of you have a deep abiding love for the checkerboard horses and felt you would want to know as fast as possible. We will have more for you on this developing story as new information is cleared for release. (A group of orgs have filed against this gift to the Rock Springs Grazing Association).

You can access BLM decision and documents here: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2009946/570

Thank you for keeping us in this fight!