One of the frustrations common to people who work long term with wild horses and on wild horse issues is the ease by which some politicians, particularly Harry Reid, will rail upon BLM in order to get cheap sound bites. Reid and others claim that BLM is holding thousands of unadoptable horses, that BLM isn't capable of running an adoption program and that their latest laws are necessary to either protect the thousands of starving wild horses, or control the thousands of wild horses that are so rapidly reproducing that they are taking over the range, depending upon the audience to which they are speaking.

In fact some of the more cumbersome elements that complicate BLM's adoption program involve requirements within laws created by Congress. Furthermore, what would motivate BLM personnel to get creative and try to produce better results when no matter what they do certain politicians will use the agency as a convenient whipping boy in order to drum up support for whatever wild horse scheme they are currently trying to advance? BLM certainly isn't perfect, however the people who work for the agency deserve credit when they do something right and criticism should be focused on specific areas that need improvement over which the agency actually has control.

Wild Horse Groups Will Support Rational Solutions

There are three fundamental areas within the greater wild horse issue; range management practices, holding facility inventory, and quality of adoptions. While not all of the various wild horse groups specifically agree on every point, a generally accepted platform is as follows.

• Manage the ranges based on the "big four" principles;
  1. Base range management decisions on established science, not politics.

  2. Maintain current and accurate counts of all animals and livestock using the range.

  3. Objectively assess range capacity.

  4. Follow established laws when making range decisions

• Preserve protections for animals leaving public custody;
  1. Reinstate laws applying to all animals that fall under Public Law 92-195 prohibiting the exploitation of said animals for their wildness, sale and export for slaughter, and rendering into commercial products (except as necessary for the disposal of carcasses), and reinstate appropriate penalties for violating such laws.

  2. Ensure that such laws apply to all animals that are transferred out of public custody by means of any new or expanded sale or adoption schemes.

  3. In keeping with the spirit of Public Law 92-195, preserve BLM's discretion to restrict the number of animals sold or adopted to individuals or entities when the Bureau has reason to believe that an intended recipient is not capable of properly caring for animals requested, and in instances where the intended recipient has had a history of animal neglect or abuse or has previously violated the rules of any BLM animal adoption or sale program.

  4. Any and all expanded sale or adoption programs must remain "under one roof" so that violators of one program can't simply turn to another program in order to acquire additional animals.

  5. Maintain sensible minimum adoption fees. (If anything, the $125.00 minimum fee is obsolete.) BLM already has the discretion to drop fees for older, blemished, "special needs" and otherwise less desirable animals.

  6. Require formal "rule making" guidelines for such practices as fee waivers and waivers of the four untitled animal limit. There are reasonable circumstances, such as with reputable and qualified charitable and public benefit programs, where it could be appropriate to reduce fees and/or increase the numbers of animals allowed. Agreements should be required between entities receiving discounted and larger numbers of horses and the BLM and such agreements should record the purposes for the uses of such animals, maintenance and care obligations, and other details justifying the larger transfers and discounts.

  7. Establish a national "reassignment policy" that will facilitate the reassignment of unsuccessfully adopted animals to new adopters without requiring the animals to be processed back into a BLM holding facility. (Some BLM districts allow approved volunteer groups to take custody of "rebounds," locate suitable successor adopters, and those districts charge a $25.00 paperwork fee to process the reassignment. This involvement by volunteer groups helps ensure a good permanent home for the rebounded animal and saves BLM time and money.)

• Promote Adopter Education

  In 2000 an informal survey was taken of successful adopters who were involved with the Wild Horse Mentoring Program. Volunteers determined that each family unit that had a successful and fulfilling first adoption acquired an average of 3.6 animals over a five year period.

  This statistic represents significant brand loyalty, and the key element for the success of the adoption program appears to involve adopters being prepared to receive and successfully gentle and train their animals.

  The three most important elements for success were determined to be realistic adopter expectations, basic knowledge for dealing with that initial period until the animal could be handled, and peer support and/or a feeling of camaraderie with other wild horse adopters. Therefore adopter education should be a rational component of any adoption program's marketing campaign.