BLM holds off on plan to return 186 mustangs to range in NV

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is holding off on plans to return 186 wild horses to the range in central Nevada pending the review of an appeal filed by a rancher and rural county opposed to the move. The agency originally had planned to return 104 mares treated with a fertility control vaccine and 82 studs to the sprawling Fish Creek Herd Management Area (HMA) near Eureka on Friday. They were among 424 horses removed from the HMA during a roundup that ended earlier this week. The bureau routinely thins what it calls overpopulated herds on public land across the West, sending horses that aren't adopted to pastures in the Midwest for the rest of their lives. Rancher Kevin Borba and Eureka County commissioners, who filed the appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals on Friday, oppose the return of any of the 424 horses to the range. Borba said the BLM has drastically reduced his livestock allotments in the HMA while allowing well over twice as many wild horses in it as it can support...more