High Demand for Trained Horses
By Vanessa Delgado
These days, conversations are nearly impossible without using the words “budget,” “efficient” or “recession.” In BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro (WH&B) program the challenge remains, what is the most efficient way to manage wild horses and burros with a program budget in recession?
The BLM WH&B program faces rising energy prices that have increased feed and transportation costs by $4 million from 2007 to 2008; 33,000 wild horses in short- and long-term holding facilities; and adoption rates that are down 35 percent from 2005 to 2008.
Amid those grim stats, BLM Colorado is making great headway using existing programs to keep adoption numbers up and costs down.
Cañon City houses BLM’s largest wild horse and burro holding facility, and is one of five facilities in the nation with a Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP). The WHIP is a cooperative agreement between BLM and the Colorado Department of Corrections, in which wild horses receive personal and extensive training as part of an inmate rehabilitative program.
“The WHIP program is a great way to offer trained horses to people who may not have the experience, time, or the facilities to train an animal on their own,” said Fran Ackley, Colorado’s BLM Wild Horse and Burro program leader. “Right now we have more demand than we can satisfy, which I think really speaks to the worthiness of the horses and the value of the training program.”
The WHIP program was formed in 1986 and was the first of its kind. The facility takes in horses from throughout the country and can hold up to 2,000 horses and burros. This holding capacity will soon jump to 2,500 after construction to expand the facility is complete in July.
Contrary to the declining adoption numbers, the demand for trained horses has steadily increased, according to Ackley. Nationally, the WHIP is also one of the least expensive facilities for BLM to house wild horses and burros considering the low costs of inmate labor.
“The inmates also benefit by learning meaningful and marketable work experience they can use when they are released,” Ackley said. “On average seven to 10 horses are trained every month and are ready to be adopted.”
BLM manages about 33,000 wild horses and burros across 10 western states. Excess horses and burros are gathered by the BLM and placed into short-term holding for adoption or sent to long-term holding facilities where they are cared for in a pasture.
BLM manages horses in Herd Management Areas (HMA) under terms of the 1971 Wild & Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act, which restricts horses to acreage where herds roamed in 1971. Colorado has four HMAs: Little Book Cliffs in the Grand Junction Field Office, Spring Creek Basin in the Dolores Field Office, Sandwash Basin in the Little Snake Field Office, and Piceance/East Douglas in the White River Field Office.
For information about the Wild Horse and Burro Program visit:
BLM Colorado
www.blm.gov/co/st/en/BLM_Programs/wild_horse_and_burro.html
BLM National
www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro.html
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