Dozens of wild horses rounded up in Nevada and Wyoming are scheduled for adoption later this month in Albuquerque.
The sale is a two-day event held by the US Bureau of Land Management in an attempt to preserve an important part of the West’s heritage (and avoid having to kill the horses).All you need is $125, a decent trailer that’s capable of hauling the horse home, at least 400 square feet of corral space and a four-foot- to six-foot-high fence, said Paul McGuire, a spokesman for the BLM’s Oklahoma and Amarillo field offices.McGuire said all buyers will have to sign a year contract promising not to sell the horse for profit, and that after a year, they can apply for the government title to the horse. As many as four horses may be adopted per person, he said.The Bureau of Land Management and the manner in which it handles the wild horse range throughout the Western United States, however, is not without its controversy. Some wildlife activists and horse lovers feel that the wild equine should be left on their own; they often point out that there’s nothing to prevent buyers from eventually selling the horses for slaughter, their meat fed to zoo animals or packaged as dog food.But McGuire said that’s why the year contract is so important—to prevent such sales from taking place. What’s more, the BLM often has a hard time adopting the horses, whose ages can range from 1 year to 5.The obstacle for would-be owners is having to train them.“If we get rid of half of them, say, 35 of them, then we look at that as very successful,” he tells SFR.There are roughly 129 pockets of wild horses scattered throughout New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Montana and Utah, McGuire said. And it’s the BLM’s duty to maintain and monitor the roughly 50,000 horses that roam 29 million acres of BLM or US Forest Service land.The problem is that the number of wild horses is growing due to their successful reproduction rates, and they end up competing against cattle and other livestock in a range where grasses and grazing have been significantly reduced over the years. Subsequently, the BLM has to either capture the horses and sterilize the males or round them up and hopefully find a home for them through adoption, McGuire said.The adoption will take place Friday, June 26, from noon to 6 pm, and Saturday, June 27, for only two hours, between 8 and 10 am. All adoptions are handled on a first-come, first-served basis, so if you’re really interested in taking one home, then try to show up at the site first thing. It’s located at the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Posse Area, 10308 Second St., NW.For more information, call (405) 234-5931 or toll free at 1 (866) 468-7826.
Santa Fe Reporter