The Animal Industry reports presented at the quarterly Board of Agriculture meetings include updates from the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses on its safe, proven and reversible fertility control program.
Here are some figures from the past year:
- December 2021 – The database includes 3,245 individually identified horses
- March 2022 – The database contains 3,077 wild horses
- June 2022 – The database has 3,070 horses
- September 2022 – The database has 3,037 pests
The herd appears to be shrinking, as advertised.
The advocates are doing what they do best—getting rid of wild horses—but will they win the approval of the bureaucrats and ranchers?
The June report said they pumped 1,255 rounds of their favorite pesticide into the herd in FY22.
An aerial survey put the population at 3,567 according to the September report but did not indicate if the area inspected coincided with the area hunted by the advocates.
The same report indicated that five vehicle collisions with horses have occurred to date, compared to 27 in 2021 and 46 in 2020.
RELATED: Virginia Range Darting Program a Model for Herd Management?
Western Horse Watchers Association 