MEEKER, Colo. -Thursday the Bureau of Land Management will begin gathering up to 100 wild horses that have strayed from the designated Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area in northwestern Colorado.
The BLM will primarily use a helicopter-drive trap method to gather the horses from private lands in the Cathedral Creek area south of Rangely. If less than 100 wild horses are gathered from this area, the BLM may elect to gather horses from additional nearby areas outside the HMA east of Colorado Highway 139.
“The BLM is committed to maintaining a healthy wild horse population on healthy rangelands in the Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area," said BLM White River Field Manager Kent Walter. “Wild horses that stray from the established Herd Management Area need to be removed to reduce conflicts with other resources and private land under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act."
The Piceance-East Douglas HMA is a 300-square mile area designated for managing a healthy wild horse herd in balance with other multiple uses. The BLM manages the area for an appropriate management level of between 135 and 235 wild horses. The current population estimate within the HMA is 454 wild horses.
The BLM currently estimates there are 210 wild horses across about 773,000 acres outside the established HMA in the White River Field Office east of Colorado Highway 139, south of Colorado Highway 64 and west of Colorado Highway 13.
The BLM expects the gather to take less than a week. Wild horses removed through this gather will be taken to the Canon City holding facility and be made available for adoption or sale.
Daily updates about the gather will be posted at www.blm.gov/site-page/programs-wild-horse-and-burro-herd-management-gathers-and-removals-colorado-2017-cathedral.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
