Fees, permits and base properties are discussed in this report by the Congressional Research Service.
In FY24, the BLM issued 17,045 authorizations for grazing, with 88% written for cattle, yearlings and bison, 6% for horses and burros, and 6% for goats and sheep.
Footnote 158 equates the resource loading of burros with that of cattle and horses while the customary relationship puts the ratio at 2:1, 2 burros = 1 horse = 1 cow/calf pair.
The report gives the acreage identified for grazing but does not give the AUMs sold thereon for a recent fiscal year.
Western Horse Watchers believes the figure is around nine million annually for BLM allotments, equivalent to 750,000 wild horses on 155 million acres or 4.8 wild horses per thousand acres.
Your faithful public servants claim that rangeland health will suffer if horse populations exceed one animal per thousand acres.
RELATED: CRS Looks at Costs of Wild Horse and Burro Program.
► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.
Western Horse Watchers Association 