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Volunteers remove nearly 800 pounds of barbed wire from wild horse area (06-20-12)
CRAIG, Colo. – About a dozen volunteers donated their weekend to helping make the Sand Wash Wild Horse Herd Management Area safer for wild horses.
The volunteers rolled and removed 780 pounds of old barbed wire from three separate areas in the Sand Wash HMA June 15-16. The effort was supported by funding from the BLM Director’s Challenge, which is a national program aimed at improving Western rangeland conditions where wild horses roam and engaging volunteers in the stewardship of public lands.
“We really appreciate the hard work of these volunteers, who made this area safer for not only wild horses, but also native wildlife and human visitors,” said BLM Little Snake Field Manager Wendy Reynolds.
The first site was a 5-acre area that included a stock pond with an old fence dating to the 1960s around its perimeter. The second site appeared to be an old wild horse trap dating to at least the 1940s that included barbed wire strung through junipers to create wings to funnel the horses to a corral. All of the historical integrity was left in place, but the dangerous barbed wire was removed. Finally, volunteers removed the fallen barbed wire from an old, 0.5-mile fence dating to at least the 1950s.
The barbed wire was taken to a local scrap metal recycling facility and the proceeds were given to the Sand Wash Basin Wild Horse Club.
The 158,000-acre Sand Wash HMA is about 45 miles west of Craig, Colo. It is one of four wild horse herd management areas in the state. The Little Snake Field Office manages the area in the BLM’s Northwest District. Wild horses are an important part of the field office and the BLM is committed to maintaining a healthy wild horse herd in this area as part of its multiple-use mission.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, recreational and other activities on BLM-managed land contributed more than $130 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 600,000 American jobs. The Bureau is also one of a handful of agencies that collects more revenue than it spends. In FY 2012, nearly $5.7 billion will be generated on lands managed by the BLM, which operates on a $1.1 billion budget. The BLM's multiple-use mission is to sustain the health and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau accomplishes this by managing such activities as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development, and energy production, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on public lands.
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