Environmental Assessment and Gather Plan: Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range: FY2001 Wild Horse Population Gather & Selective Removal

Bureau of Land Management

INTRODUCTION With passage of the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971, Congress found that: “Wild horses are living symbols of the pioneer spirit of the West”. In addition, the Secretary of the Interior was ordered to “manage wild free-roaming horses and burros in a manner that is designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands”. From the passage of the Act through present day the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Billings Field Office (BiFO), has endeavored to meet the requirements of the Act. The procedures and policies implemented to accomplish this mandate have been constantly evolving over the years. Throughout this period, BLM experience has grown, and the knowledge of the effects of current and past management on wild horses and burros has increased. At the same time, nationwide awareness and attention has grown. As these factors have come together, the emphasis of the wild horse and burro program has shifted. Program goals have expanded beyond simply establishing “thriving natural ecological balance” (setting appropriate management levels) for individual herds, to include achieving and maintaining genetically-viable and self-sustaining populations. This document has been prepared to outline current information defining the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd, present the justification, methods and procedures to be used in gathering wild horses, and to assess the environmental impacts of removing excess wild horses from the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (PMWHR). The Proposed Action section and Standard Operating Procedures for Removal and Safety (Attachments 1A and 1B) of this environmental assessment serve as the 2001 Operational Gather Plan and address the herd Appropriate Management Level (AML), management goals for establishing AML, as well as technical and logistical aspects of the proposed action. The proposed action would reduce the horse population to a number within the Appropriate Management Level (AML), initially determined by the Herd Management Area Plan (June 1984), and subsequently revised by the Revision of the Herd Management Plan (July 1992). Recommendations for reducing the population size with subsequent impacts on herd composition will consider research results, within the last decade, pertaining to genetic viability of the Pryor herd and multi-species forage utilization on the horse range, as well as long term trends (~25 years) for Pryor wild horse population health and overall range condition.