Thursday, October 16, 2014

BLM wild horse roundup nets more than expected

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has rounded up several hundred more wild horses in southern Wyoming over the past few weeks than agency officials had estimated would be captured. The BLM captured 1,263 wild horses in the Great Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek herd management areas before the roundup ended Thursday. The figure sparked anger in an animal group that had challenged the roundup. Members of the Friends of Animals group came to Rock Springs last month to protest the roundup. "We've gotten tremendous feedback of outrage from people in Wyoming and all over the country that the BLM is completely out of control," group campaigns director Edita Birnkrant said. Kristen Lenhardt, chief of communications for the BLM in Wyoming, said the agency was obligated to remove all the horses from so-called checkerboard lands where alternating parcels are in federal ownership. The agency is bound by a legal settlement agreement with area ranchers to remove the horses, she said...more

No comments: