BLM Seeks Bids for One or More New Pasture Facilities in West
to Care for and Maintain Wild Horses
As part of its responsibility to manage, protect, and control wild horses
and burros, the Bureau of Land Management is soliciting bids for one
or more new pasture facilities located west of the Mississippi River. Each
pasture facility must be able to provide humane care for and maintain
at least 750 wild horses – up to as many as 1,500 – over
a one-year period, with an option under BLM contract for an additional
four one-year extensions. The BLM needs additional space for wild
horses placed in long-term holding facilities, all of which are currently
located in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Details of the BLM’s requirements will be posted in solicitation
NAR070052, which is available at http://www.fbo.gov. Applicants
must be registered at http://www.ccr.gov to be considered for a contract
award. The solicitation ends February 8, 2007.
The BLM manages wild horses and burros as part of its overall multiple-use
land management mission. Under the authority of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming
Horses and Burros Act, the Bureau manages and protects these living symbols
of the Western spirit while ensuring that population levels are in balance
with other public rangeland resources and uses. To achieve this
balance, the BLM must remove thousands of animals from the range each
year to control the size of herds, which have virtually no predators
and can double in population every four years. The current free-roaming
population of BLM-managed wild horses and burros is about 31,000, which
exceeds by some 3,500 the number determined by the BLM to be the appropriate
management level. Off the range, there are about 28,000 wild horses
and burros cared for in either short-term (corral) or long-term (pasture)
facilities. All animals in holding are protected by the BLM under
the 1971 law.
After wild horses and burros are removed from the range, the Bureau works
to place younger animals into private ownership through adoption. Since
1973, the BLM has placed more than 214,000 horses and burros into private
care through adoption. Under a December 2004 amendment to the 1971
wild horse law, animals over 10 years old, as well as those passed over
for adoption at least three times, are eligible for sale. Since
that amendment took effect, the BLM has sold more than 2,200 horses and
burros.
For information about the BLM’s wild horse and burro adoption
program, see http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov ; for information about
the agency’s sale of older wild horses and burros, see http://www.blm.gov/nhp/spotlight/whb_authority.
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