The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) hopes to launch a wild horse study at the Rock Springs, Wyoming, Field Office.

In an effort to find new solutions to population control on public lands, BLM has launched a 30-day public scoping period to prepare an environmental assessment on a proposed gather of excess wild horses from White Mountain and Little Colorado (WMLC) herd management areas (HMAs). Researching the behavior of spayed mares will be a key component of the gather.

The Rock Springs Field Office proposes to conduct the research study in conjunction with the United States Geological Service in the two HMAs. The research study would place radio collars on a portion of the mares and place radio tail trackers tags on a portion of the stallions in the HMAs. Approximately one year after the radio collars and tags are implemented, a portion of the White Mountain mares would be selected to be gathered, spayed, and studied further to examine their behavior and band fidelity, demography (birth and survival rates), and spatial ecology both pre- and post-treatment. The Little Colorado HMA would be gathered to the high appropriate management level (AML) of 100 wild horses and would be studied as a control group.

Recent population surveys suggest that there are approximately 268 adult wild horses in the White Mountain HMA and approximately 330 adult wild horses in the Little Colorado HMA. Besides being over the appropriate management level, the White Mountain HMA is part of the Consent Decree, requiring BLM to gather horses to low AML