11-27-2010 Elko Daily Free Press

BLM plans vaccine-focused gathers

ELKO — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management this week announced plans for 11 gatherings of wild horses in the current fiscal year for fertility control, including eight in Nevada.

The BLM expects to apply the vaccine known as PZP during these 11 "catch, treat and release" gathers to roughly 890 mares, according to agency. The mares will be released back to their herd management areas.

None of the seven herd management areas in the gatherings of mares is in the Elko BLM District, according to spokeswoman Lesli Coakley, but the Elko BLM will be involved in a gathering in Antelope Valley 60 miles south of Wells in mid-January.

"Our gather is not a 'catch, treat and release,'" she said Wednesday.

The Elko and Ely BLM districts will be working together on the Antelope Complex Gather. The BLM's environmental assessment for that roundup estimates the agency will gather roughly 1,298 to 1,659 wild horses.

The seven HMAs in Nevada where the vaccine is the focus include Pine Nuts Mountain, Pilot Mountain, New Pass-Ravenwood, Bald Mountain, Callaghan, Rocky Hills, Augusta Mountain and Clan Alpine. The gathers stared in October and continue through next September.

"These 'catch, treat, and release' gathers are an innovative way of working to control the population growth of wild horse herds," said national BLM Director Bob Abbey. "If these fertility-control treatments prove successful, we can lengthen the time between some gathers, saving taxpayer dollars by holding down gather and holding costs."

Porcine Zona Pellucida, or PZP, which makes mares temporarily infertile, is not available for commercial use. The BLM uses the PZP vaccine in cooperation with the Humane Society of the United States under Food and Drug Administration rules that apply to research on new animal drugs, according to the agency's Washington office.

The BLM said this vaccine was first tested on the wild horses of Assateague Island off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, where a reduction in mare pregnancy rates was observed.

The BLM stated that it currently manages more than 38,000 wild horses and burros that roam public rangelands in 10 Western states, and the current estimate is that nearly 12,000 of them exceed the appropriate management level of 26,600 for the West.

Off the range, there are 37,800 other wild horses and burros at short-term corrals and long-term pastures, including roughly 11,400 in corrals and 26,400 in Midwestern pastures, the BLM reported.