Wildlife advisors take no action on horse removal letter

Wild horse advocates packed the usually quiet Douglas County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife on Tuesday seeking to prevent the board’s approval of a letter seeking to reduce the number of horses on public lands.

The letter was prepared by the Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands, Wildlife and Free-Roaming Horses for the Director of the Bureau of Land Management.

The request to gain agency approval also appears on the March 4 agenda of the Washoe County seeking a recommendation for the Nevada Wildlife Commission to sign onto the letter.

“This organization, on the surface appears to support the efforts of maintaining healthy wild horses,” Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates President Mary Cioffi wrote to the board. “However, historically they have been strongly pushing for the removal of wild horses to the point they would no longer be genetically viable, while supporting the efforts to leave thousands of livestock on the range.”

Cioffi said Wednesday that the advisory board took no action on the letter.

There are around 80 wild horses in the Fish Springs herd that roams the Pine Nut Mountains.

“The horses are healthy, with good body scores and the forage is more than sufficient to maintain this population,” Cioffi said.

In a letter to Douglas County commissioners seeking support, the group sought support from the county to remove horses down to the 11-26 suggested by the Bureau of Land Management.

Cioffi acknowledged horses aren’t under the board’s responsibility.

“We believe the efforts of all the parties should be to restore the range to the pristine condition it once was prior to numerous fires and droughts,” she said.

It has been a decade since the wild horse advocates pioneered an effort to dart mares with a drug that reduced their fertility.

“We have reduced the reproduction rate of the wild horses on our range by over 90 percent in 10 years, in spite of BLM shutting our program for nearly two years,” she said.

One of the largest grazing rights holders in Douglas County is the American Wild Horse Campaign which purchased 3,400 acres of land a year ago.

Photographer JT Humphrey said that the coalition is seeking the removal of up to 43,000 horses from public lands.

“Douglas County’s wild horses are a local treasurer,” Humphrey said. “The public strongly supports their protection, as shown by the hundreds of residents who have turned out at public meetings over the last decade to tell the federal government not to remove our local wild horse herd.”