Under pressure, Utah BLM fast-tracks plea to round up wild horses

Under pressure from ranchers and southern Utah elected leaders, the Bureau of Land Management’s Utah office is fast-tracking proposed roundups of wild horses on the state’s parched southwestern ranges. In an environmental assessment posted Thursday on the BLM website, the agency said it wants to remove 607 horses this summer from the Bible Springs Complex northwest of Cedar City, an area now home to an estimated 777 horses but able to sustain only 170. Utah BLM managers, according to an internal memo, also want to gather 400 horses from the Sulphur herd management area that stretches from northern Iron County, north along Beaver County’s western border and into Millard County. That herd has exploded to about 718 horses, nearly three times as many as the 250 horses the BLM says the land can handle. The "gather," as the BLM calls its roundups, is needed to protect the range from further degradation by wild horses, the document says. The BLM will take public comment for 30 days, but wants to be poised to round up the horses this summer — if it gets the go-ahead from Washington. Environmental assessments typically take a year...more