The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act was created to maintain horses on public lands, but is that the case anymore? According to a policy forum article, A Critical Crossroad for BLM’s Wild Horse Program, states that currently there are 45,000 horses in captivity, and only 33,000 on the range. If the government continues this management operation captive horses are estimated to cost the government over 1 billion dollars by 2030. The cost for managing the horses is straying form the original plan, according to the article more than half of the 2012 budget was used to maintain the already captured horses. A graph explaining the issue better can be found in the article.
Articles, citations, reports, websites, and multimedia resources focused on rangeland ecology, management, restoration, and other issues on American rangelands.