An independent report released today by The National Academy of Sciences is critical of the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States and urges changes to its current roundup policies. The Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of management actions on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on rangelands, the report by the 14-member panel of the National Research Council states. Evidence suggests that horse populations are growing by 15 to 20 percent each year, a level that is unsustainable for maintaining healthy horse populations as well as healthy ecosystems. BLM's current policy regarding the removal of wild horses, may be causing more harm to populations than the BLM's intentions, the report says. The panel says there are promising birth control methods available to help limit this population growth as well as science-based methods for improving population estimates and predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands...more
When the sign is right, cut'em.
Or better yet, ship them to Roswell.
No comments:
Post a Comment