Tack Box Talk
Tack Box Talk
Wild Horses: The story of managing a difficult situation
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In this episode, Dr. Jason Bruemmer, retired CSU professor and current wildlife population management expert for USDA, discussed the current management process for keeping wild horses healthy and in balance. We dive into which horses are managed by BLM and why the horses may be doing well for their own good.
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Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horses Tack Box Talk Series, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University, and today we're actually going to be talking about some of our wild horses here in the U.S,
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Kris Hiney: And so, to talk about the program with them is, Dr. Jason Bremer, who is a Emirate, right, from Colorado State University, and is now working for USDA in this area. So, welcome to the program, Dr. Bremer.
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jason.bruemmer: Thank you, Dr. Hiney. Glad to be here.
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Kris Hiney: So, maybe give us a little background that will get us into what you're now doing with USDA. You were always a repro person at CSU, right?
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jason.bruemmer: Correct. I started, Colorado State University in 1996 in the equine science program, and then retired from there, in 2020 before taking the job
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jason.bruemmer: Here at USDA, working for Wildlife Services in the Population Management Project, which is really fertility control of all wildlife and pest species.
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Kris Hiney: So, all wildlife? What all do you get to try to work on to…
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Kris Hiney: population control, because, I mean, just take me back, your work at CSU, I thought you were trying to get us more horses.
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jason.bruemmer: Exactly, yeah, great question. I was. So, for 25, 30 years, that was my purpose, was to come up with more efficient and effective ways to… to get
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jason.bruemmer: better foals and healthier foals, and when I learned about the… the issue with wild horses and feral horses,
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jason.bruemmer: And that potential solutions could include contraception, just kind of use the same
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jason.bruemmer: science, but reverse-engineered it, so all the things that we worked on to try to increase fertility, I'm now using to come up with what we hope to be clever and effective ways to inhibit fertility in horses and other species.
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jason.bruemmer: But horses are the… the main focus at the moment, but we work on coyotes and…
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jason.bruemmer: Feral pigs, and rats, and mice, and you name it, we'll work on it.
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Kris Hiney: Okay, well, you could get to work on those pigs. I don't… I don't like those at all, so…
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Kris Hiney: So, again, isn't it ironic, though? Like, if you spent an entire career, like, why won't these horses reproduce? And these people bringing you, like, why… why won't this bear have a baby? Why is this stallion… and now, what your work is, the other side, they have no problem reproducing, right?
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jason.bruemmer: Exactly, it almost seems like the solution is just…
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jason.bruemmer: Turn them loose, and yeah, those that are fertile make it, and…
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jason.bruemmer: The fertility of the horses in…
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jason.bruemmer: the wild, so to speak, it's, it's impressive. We have gathered horses in lots of different places, but the most
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jason.bruemmer: potentially accurate, because I literally palpated and ultrasounded them, were those that were in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and 96% of those mares were pregnant, anywhere from 2 to 24 years old.
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Kris Hiney: Okay, well, now I have lots of questions before we get into the… the… talking about the wild horses. You palpated…
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Kris Hiney: Wild horses?
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Kris Hiney: I feel like they would not appreciate that.
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jason.bruemmer: They were, it went remarkably smoother than anybody expected. They were brought into a
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jason.bruemmer: squeeze chute, which was undercover, so it was pretty dark. It's the same one they use for, their bison.
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jason.bruemmer: And it was a padded squeeze chute, and we squeezed them, and I stood to the side, and we didn't have to sedate a single animal. And I think we did, I don't know, 70 mares in a day, and no issues whatsoever. It was…
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jason.bruemmer: It was a long day, but it was a safe day, and we got a lot of amazing data out of all that.
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Kris Hiney: Well, you are a braver man than I am. I would not have thought they would… I mean, because regular mares sometimes are like, hey, don't do that. Exactly, yeah.
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jason.bruemmer: like I said, it went much smoother than we thought,
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jason.bruemmer: From the start, they were brought in
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jason.bruemmer: By helicopters, and the whole bit, and everything was so…
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jason.bruemmer: professionally done and quiet and calm that we had no issues all day long. It was impressive.
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Kris Hiney: Okay.
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Kris Hiney: So, we probably should give us a… give our listeners here a little… little background about the horses that you may be working with, kind of the scope of the issue, etc. Because people do have, kind of, strong feelings about, the wild horses, and so let's narrow down.
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Kris Hiney: What population of horses are you working with through your role with USDA?
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jason.bruemmer: Well, through the USDA, we work with any, so my job is to develop these contraceptive tools so that regardless of the agency or the entity that has horses that they'd like to control.
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jason.bruemmer: they have some tools to work with. And when I say control, the only horses that
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jason.bruemmer: are not
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jason.bruemmer: subjected to the products that we develop would be, privately owned courses. So what we develop are not veterinary drugs or tools.
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jason.bruemmer: They are managed by the Environmental Protection Agency because they are administered to horses, in the environment, and the EPA is concerned that what we are treating these horses with can't be transferred on to any other animal.
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jason.bruemmer: So if a mare dies of old age out, in the middle of the desert, and, the carcass is
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jason.bruemmer: eaten by scavengers, that whatever the horses have been treated with, that doesn't get transferred in. And so, that's what we're working on, and that's why the EPA manages what we do, and we are not…
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jason.bruemmer: producing drugs, they're not registered or licensed for use, by private citizens. So, even though they would work beautifully, if you had a Mary you never wanted to have pregnant again and didn't want her to be in heat and all those things.
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jason.bruemmer: Unfortunately, you can't use our drugs for that, or our products for that, because they're not drugs. They have to be used on free-roaming, wild, feral animals.
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Kris Hiney: Right. So, do you… did you have to go through, like, tissue testing then to see, like, is there…
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jason.bruemmer: It will, yeah. So everything, they're… the individual components of the products that we make are tested for safety, by the humans that are using them.
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jason.bruemmer: Safety in the animals that are being treated to make sure that there's no adverse effects in the horses themselves. And then in tissues that were, subjected to feed, by
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jason.bruemmer: birds and other species that might, have access to a carcass. But what we work on largely are what are called immunoceptive, so they're vaccines. And the vaccine itself, because it's
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jason.bruemmer: A protein that we're… Using to trigger an immune response.
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jason.bruemmer: Literally, we could eat it, because it's a protein, we'll digest it, and it does nothing. And so, if an individual animal, for whatever reason, died immediately after the vaccine, and
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jason.bruemmer: Coyote took a bite out of that part of the horse's rump, nothing would happen at all, and so they're perfectly safe. The other thing that we've demonstrated is the products we're using are safe for use in pregnant mares.
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jason.bruemmer: So, any horse that's treated.
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jason.bruemmer: And like I just said, if 90-some percent of them are pregnant, and they have a gestation length of 340 days…
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Kris Hiney: Still pregnant. Yeah.
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jason.bruemmer: It's only 15 to 25 days out of the year that they're not pregnant.
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jason.bruemmer: So it needs to be safe for use in a pregnant mare, because we will be treating a pregnant animals.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, okay. So you had said, like, not private horses, but then, we want to clarify, because there are essentially different types of populations of wild horses. So there's
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Kris Hiney: horses that are directly under the control of Bureau of Land Management, right? So, there's those group of horses, but then horses that fall outside of that zone, right, or if they wander further afield.
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Kris Hiney: They're still wild horses, but now managed by other people, so maybe explain how that actually functions.
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, so terminology is very important here, and to stick with the legal definition, only the horses that are in managed areas of the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are truly legally wild horses.
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jason.bruemmer: those…
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jason.bruemmer: animals that are outside of those areas, that are in the U.S. Park Service, for instance, if they're on
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jason.bruemmer: state lands, if they're on other federal lands, on military bases, in Native American reservations, in county parks, or whatever, those are considered free-roaming.
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jason.bruemmer: Or feral, or strays, depending on the state or the county, or in the tribe, sometimes they're referred to as owned or unowned, but only
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jason.bruemmer: horses
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jason.bruemmer: carry the legal definition or designation as wild are those that are managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, and they got that designation through the Wild Horse and Burrow Act in 1971.
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jason.bruemmer: that protected them. None of those other animals are quote-unquote protected. They are still considered
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jason.bruemmer: Really livestock that are loose and are managed in a way that that state or county or
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jason.bruemmer: Municipality or, you know, tribe decides to manage them.
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Kris Hiney: So I think probably most people, and I'm gonna put myself in that category, thought that the Mustangs were always…
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Kris Hiney: BLM courses, but there's a pretty good population that are
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Kris Hiney: just other… a lot of it, like you said, a county park? Like…
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jason.bruemmer: There's just horses.
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Kris Hiney: to have a park, right?
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jason.bruemmer: So the ones I talked about are in Roosevelt National Park, and so they're horses in national parks, and that's one of the few that manages them. Others, aren't supposed to be there at all. They're, in Colorado, they're…
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jason.bruemmer: In state lands, in Nevada, there's a huge issue with them just roaming the state and the city anywhere around Reno.
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jason.bruemmer: They're horses literally on the streets, and so depending on where they are, it's up to different entities to manage those horses, but none of those
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jason.bruemmer: Literally on the streets of…
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jason.bruemmer: downtown Reno, or the outskirts of Reno, or in the Virginia Range are BLM horses, but they are still
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jason.bruemmer: They still would be potentially managed by some of the tools that we work with.
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jason.bruemmer: Okay. And provide that to the state, the county, to anybody except a private individual that wants to treat your private mare.
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Kris Hiney: Okay, so if they're unowned horses, and they're…
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Kris Hiney: around town, then you… then they might involve services that USDA provide.
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Kris Hiney: So, maybe clarify that. So, the BLM horses are protected, and there's certain things you can and cannot do. The horses that end up outside of that zone.
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Kris Hiney: Are those protected horses, or they can manage them however… They… that municipality…
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Kris Hiney: State, park, whatever, chooses to do so.
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jason.bruemmer: Exactly. And then there's a little bit of gray matte area in there, obviously, if the…
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jason.bruemmer: State, or the municipality, or the tribe, can demonstrate
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jason.bruemmer: or even tries to demonstrate that those animals came from the BLM,
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jason.bruemmer: then again, they're BLM horses that are supposed to still be under their control, right? So if a horse was…
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jason.bruemmer: Potentially born and raised in
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jason.bruemmer: an HMA, a horse management area within the BLM, and then wanders across this imaginary line that they don't know about.
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jason.bruemmer: they're still legally a BLM horse.
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jason.bruemmer: But if you don't know that, and it's, you know, 50 miles away, and ends up
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jason.bruemmer: In your front yard eating your roses.
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jason.bruemmer: deck.
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jason.bruemmer: Could potentially be a different horse.
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Kris Hiney: Okay. And they don't exactly have passports or microchips.
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jason.bruemmer: Just to be like…
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Kris Hiney: Okay, okay.
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Kris Hiney: So… so let's go, kind of tie into your work. So, you kind of talked about population…
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Kris Hiney: management. So, how many horses are we talking about, and why do we need to employ services such as yourself in, kind of, fertility control?
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jason.bruemmer: Good question. So, we'll go back now to maybe narrowing this discussion just to BLM, because they've got probably the best handle on how many horses there are, and
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jason.bruemmer: What they need to do, and there's obviously a federal mandate to manage those horses.
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jason.bruemmer: The Bureau of Land Management in the 70s.
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jason.bruemmer: Surveyed their areas where horses resided, and determined that, at that point, about 20…
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jason.bruemmer: the land could handle 25, 27,000 horses. At the time, the population estimates of horses in those same areas, and these are largely in the western United States.
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jason.bruemmer: could handle about… I mean, there were about 23,000 to 25,000 horses, so things were right on balance.
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jason.bruemmer: That has gone… seriously awry, since then. Since the…
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jason.bruemmer: Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971 came into effect, then those horses were no longer gathered and used as ranch animals or whatever the Mustangers were using when they would go out and capture these horses.
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jason.bruemmer: And so the populations grew, and we estimate that a population of horses will double in size if unmanaged.
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jason.bruemmer: About every 4 years, and that's exactly what's happened. So, today.
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jason.bruemmer: in those same areas, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and to a much lesser extent, the U.S. Forest Service, there are over 80 to 82 or 83,000 horses on that same land that could handle the 25,000 to 27,000.
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jason.bruemmer: And so that's why we need to manage them.
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Kris Hiney: Hey.
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Kris Hiney: So you're saying the BLM is similar to every other horse owner in the country, that you start with a few, and then you get too many, and you call your county extension person and say, why do I have no grass? Is that kind of what you're saying?
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jason.bruemmer: Kind of what I'm saying. The difference was they started off with no grass, and they just kept going.
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Kris Hiney: Gotcha. So these are, so maybe talk… the land…
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Kris Hiney: where you're talking about maybe the states and, like, kind of what is that environment that these horses are existing in? Because they're in a lot of different states, and so that could vary from, you know, is this mountainous, to desert, to, you know, plains of Oklahoma, which I know they're not, but… Yeah.
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, we would love to… I'm sure lots of people would love to send them to the Plains of Oklahoma, and…
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jason.bruemmer: But they are largely in the western United States, on, again, Bureau of Land Management land.
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jason.bruemmer: the ones that we're talking about. They're certainly outside of that as well. And those environments differ greatly, like you said. The majority of the 80-some thousand that are out there are in the state of Nevada, and Nevada has, obviously, a diverse
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jason.bruemmer: ecosystem, but the majority of that is high desert, arid lands. They are in the mountains. They are certainly on what grass is out there as well.
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jason.bruemmer: But yeah, they're everywhere from California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Arizona.
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jason.bruemmer: Here in Colorado, I can't remember all 10 states, but those are… whoever Bureau of Land Management, has a HMA, obviously that's where the horses are. All of that, if your listeners are interested in, if you go to the Wild Horse and Burrow,
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jason.bruemmer: page for the Bureau of Land Management. There are maps of where these horses are. They will give you lists of the known populations in each one of these areas. They include
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jason.bruemmer: All kinds of really interesting information about when they're going to do the gathers, how the gathers are going to take place, when and how horses can be adopted or purchased.
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jason.bruemmer: work on the advisory board on how they decide which animals are managed and how they choose to gather in which areas. And the same thing is true for the burros, as well. So whenever I say horse, it's horse and burrow that are all part of this.
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jason.bruemmer: the Wild West and Borough Act in 1971 that is what
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jason.bruemmer: put BLM in charge of these animals.
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Kris Hiney: Okay.
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Kris Hiney: So how…
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Kris Hiney: And maybe, again, because USDA would deal with the other municipalities, the other entities with wild horses, so maybe we'll stick with BLM for a little bit. So how do they…
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Kris Hiney: Pick herd size, or what are they doing?
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Kris Hiney: So, you said fertility is part of it, and if the herd size can double every 4 years.
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Kris Hiney: Well, I did my math, so clearly they're coming off the range, too, because the, you know, going from 25,000 to 80,000 isn't doubling every 4 years. So, what are the other tools that they use to kind of try to keep a population
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Kris Hiney: Healthy, or even what is the target population? How do they determine that?
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jason.bruemmer: So the target population is still based on that
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jason.bruemmer: the assessment of what the land can manage. And each of the HMAs, the horse management areas, has a number that goes with it, which is referred to as the AML, or the appropriate management level.
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jason.bruemmer: And so each of those HMAs and the managers in those HMAs, it's their job to target the AML.
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jason.bruemmer: And that's what the protection means, is that those horses are,
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jason.bruemmer: protected, they are expected to always be on an HMA.
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jason.bruemmer: there has to be, horses out there, so DLM is not in any way, shape, or form trying to eliminate populations. They're just trying to get them to the appropriate management level so that that land can be used,
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jason.bruemmer: And is healthy for the wildlife that are there, for the recreational users that have access to that, and on those certain portions of land that might have grazing rights, that those are also,
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jason.bruemmer: in place.
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Kris Hiney: Okay.
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Kris Hiney: So, how much is… Controlled by, you know, is there a relative proportion of…
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Kris Hiney: removal versus fertility? How would they balance all that out?
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, the number one… the largest number of animals are managed by gathering and removing.
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jason.bruemmer: And every attempt made to,
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jason.bruemmer: Adopt those animals and find long-term or permanent
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jason.bruemmer: care for them elsewhere. Animals that are not adopted and… or are not sold through those programs ultimately end up in long-term holding facilities, which are private
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jason.bruemmer: pasture lands, many in Oklahoma, as you know, and, those horses will live out the rest of their life, in those facilities.
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jason.bruemmer: Which… is fine for the horses, but for the taxpayer, that's a big cost.
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jason.bruemmer: I don't know what they pay the managers now to hold those horses, but I'm sure it's somewhere on the…
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jason.bruemmer: Well, I can tell you that over 70-75% of BLM's entire budget is spent just on
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jason.bruemmer: feeding the horses that have already been removed from the range. So that obviously takes from their budget and their ability to remove any more, or to try to use contraceptive techniques or anything else, because, they're caring for the horses that they've already got. They've got
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jason.bruemmer: They're getting to the point where there are almost as many horses in long-term holding as there are out on the range.
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jason.bruemmer: There are more than 60-some thousand horses in long-term holding now, and as I said, there's about 80-some thousand out on the range, so those numbers are about to…
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jason.bruemmer: to meet one another, and BLM's big concern now is they're running out of room
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jason.bruemmer: places to put the horses once they've removed them, and if…
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jason.bruemmer: They leave fertile horses on the landscape, then again, every 4 years, that number's gonna double. So, it's a… it's a wicked, wicked problem, trying to get them off and what you do with them.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, because the ones… I do know the ones they remove, right, so they keep mares separate, and they don't keep, like, they're not allowed to reproduce.
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jason.bruemmer: All of the stallions are gelded. That's also part of the regulations. They're still kept separate, the mares are kept, separate. Any foals that are born.
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jason.bruemmer: Are, again, there's an attempt to… to adopt those out, but the colts that are born are all castrated as well, so there is no,
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jason.bruemmer: There's no growth within the… They're remote facilities.
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Kris Hiney: But I know how long horses can live. Now, I do know, like, under really good management, you know, 20, 30 years is not a problem. Do you have any idea how long these guys live? Is it the same as our…
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Kris Hiney: You know, more intensely managed horses, lifespan of these guys?
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jason.bruemmer: Anecdotally, yes, those that are in long-term holding facility are probably living 8 to 10 years longer than they would if they were still out on the range, because of the reasons you talked about. They have access to clean water, and they're fed daily, and they're managed
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jason.bruemmer: like that. They're vaccinated and things that obviously the horses on the range don't have access to.
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jason.bruemmer: And what few predators are out there, right, are certainly not
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jason.bruemmer: In the long-term holding facilities, either.
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Kris Hiney: Right.
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Kris Hiney: I mean, there could be a few, but I mean, it takes a pretty good-sized predator on a horse.
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jason.bruemmer: There's really two known predators, one that,
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jason.bruemmer: has gotten a lot of attention, and that's the, you know, the mountain lions. And there are certain mountain lions that have become specialists at taking horses, but they really can't take a horse much larger than a yearling.
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jason.bruemmer: The… an adult horse is still pretty, pretty difficult for a cat to… to take.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, I would… I would… I would think so, so… okay. So, how many, how many do you estimate right now are… are being treated with, fertility, or… or maybe even how…
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Kris Hiney: How often do they see these horses, or get even close enough to…
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Kris Hiney: to do this? Is this a regular surveillance protocol? Do you put them all in a pen and start vaccinating them? Like, how does that…
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jason.bruemmer: That's… that's a great question. Logistically warm.
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jason.bruemmer: Again, that's… Every time there is a… Management Operation by BLM.
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jason.bruemmer: There is a detailed plan, put forth that
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jason.bruemmer: Is up for scrutiny by the public.
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jason.bruemmer: And they will describe how many horses they have, what their target in, potentially removing, whether they are going to
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jason.bruemmer: Contracept the animals that they don't remove.
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jason.bruemmer: How they're gathered, whether it's through a bait trap or a water trap.
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jason.bruemmer: or the use of helicopters or the like. And then…
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jason.bruemmer: again, within each HMA, the BLM works to manage the animals that are out there. I can speak a little bit more clearly about those here in Colorado, because I know about those as a resident of the state, and having been involved a little bit in
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jason.bruemmer: some of the management of those four HMAs. The… Literally, day-to-day,
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jason.bruemmer: Contraceptive work, or done entirely by volunteer groups.
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jason.bruemmer: That are supportive of and supported by the Bureau of Land Management.
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jason.bruemmer: So, they allow these volunteer groups to, dart is the
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jason.bruemmer: the idea here in Colorado that they're not recaptured, that these volunteers
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jason.bruemmer: identify the horses based on their colors and markings. They know when they were treated, when they need to be retreated, what contraceptive agent they're using.
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jason.bruemmer: And the two that are available are both deliverable by dart, and so the volunteers are out there in these thousands of acres trying to identify individual animals, and
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jason.bruemmer: treat them appropriately. And that's all captured in pictures and charts, and that's… all that information goes back to the BLM, and so they know what's… what's happening.
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Kris Hiney: So… so now I'm darting them. How close are you to darting one? And I would assume if you get, like, you dart one and they're like, we're out, like, the whole herd takes off.
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jason.bruemmer: It's… they get pretty savvy to it. Early on, it's…
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jason.bruemmer: remarkable how little they run. When a horse is darted.
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jason.bruemmer: oftentimes, they might look up, they might feel like they've just been stung by a bee or something, and then they go right back to grazing. They may jump and go 10, 15 yards. But if you do that several times.
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jason.bruemmer: And because the individuals doing the darting have to be very, very careful, right? We don't want one horse's head anywhere near where the rump of the horse that's being darted is in place. So, those volunteers take great time
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jason.bruemmer: To make sure that each and every animal that they're…
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jason.bruemmer: Targeting, literally, is in a safe spot, and there's no potential of hitting another horse that
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jason.bruemmer: in the wrong location. They get…
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jason.bruemmer: pretty wise to your being there, and they also get a pretty good idea that 40 yards is about as close as…
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jason.bruemmer: You need to be, or closer, and they stay about 45 or 50 yards away, so it's…
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jason.bruemmer: You know, we know that horses are pretty good at that.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah.
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Kris Hiney: Can't you develop some other kind of feed-through system? Just put some bait out and, like…
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, we've been working on that, and there's clearly some issues with that.
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jason.bruemmer: Most of the contraceptives that we…
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jason.bruemmer: might use in that form would also work really well for elk and deer and anything else that got ahold of it, and so…
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Kris Hiney: Oh, wow, there's that.
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jason.bruemmer: We need it to be CC-specific, we haven't come up with that just yet. There is,
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jason.bruemmer: a company in northern New Mexico, that has developed a really cool machine that, the horses are attracted to. They come into a bait station, and this, machine will
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jason.bruemmer: Recognize that it's a horse and not an elk or a bear or something else.
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jason.bruemmer: And it has a chip reader in it, and so if the animal comes up and it's never been there before, it immediately gets a RFID chip.
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jason.bruemmer: And so it will be recognized from that point forward, and then the managers can decide which of those animals to treat. There's cameras, so you can tell if it's a stallion or a mare.
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jason.bruemmer: And the idea is if a mare comes in and she hasn't been treated, then she'll get a vaccine,
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jason.bruemmer: to contracept…
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jason.bruemmer: And then, depending on what the boost schedule is, if she comes back for feed again in the right time, then she'll get the booster. If she comes back too soon, it's really cool, the little cover comes across the top of the hay so that there's no reason for her to stay there anymore, and she'll back away and let the next one come in.
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jason.bruemmer: So there's tech… we're working on things technologically so that…
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Kris Hiney: Hey!
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jason.bruemmer: That might be out there. So…
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, there's… there's some cool things that are happening.
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Kris Hiney: Okay. Now, if it was my horse, and the thing closed, there was no food, my horse would not let the next one in. They'd be like, I'm waiting to see this thing open again.
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jason.bruemmer: They… they stand there for a little bit, but there's…
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jason.bruemmer: They don't seem to be too terribly interested in looking at a metal grate when.
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Kris Hiney: Ugh.
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jason.bruemmer: You know, there may be water somewhere else.
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Kris Hiney: Okay, I guess mine are greedier, but…
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Kris Hiney: So curious if… if there are volunteers that are… do they… do they go through, like, some training? I mean, because you can't just have, like… or maybe you do, have people that are like, hey, I just want to do this because it's fun. Like, surely there's kind of some control over all this.
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, there is definitely safety training involved in the use of the dart projectors.
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jason.bruemmer: then depending on which contraceptive they're using, there's additional training that's required for that. If they use PZP,
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jason.bruemmer: They are required to go to Montana for a training there. PZP is a restricted use
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jason.bruemmer: Pesticide, and so they have to have a pesticide applications license.
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jason.bruemmer: Because it's a pesticide. If they're using Gonicon, that is not a restricted use, and so that training is not required for that.
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jason.bruemmer: Also in how to handle those vaccines. The PZP requires mixing on-site, and it's a fairly tedious
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jason.bruemmer: technology technique where they take two syringes that are attached to one another and have to push the vaccine back and forth between these two syringes 100 times to get it to emulsify so that they can use.
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Kris Hiney: No.
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jason.bruemmer: Gonacon, which is made by the USDA, it's already sent pre-emulsified in a package, so there's a difference there. One has to be kept.
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jason.bruemmer: at 5 degrees, the PZP is kept frozen until use, and then if you don't use it, then you have to start all over again. So, all that kind of training goes into it, but that's all laid out.
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jason.bruemmer: step-by-step and, in great detail, again, in those plans that are put out by the BLM when they do that.
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Kris Hiney: It's a pretty intensive process, then, so… Cool.
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jason.bruemmer: it's not an easy thing. Plus, they're also required to… to,
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jason.bruemmer: Recover the darts after the horses have…
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jason.bruemmer: been vaccinated, and like you said, if you hit a horse at 40 yards with a dart, then it may take
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jason.bruemmer: 30 seconds to a minute or so before that dart falls out and that horse takes off.
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jason.bruemmer: They can go a long ways in a minute, and…
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Kris Hiney: Trying to find that horse.
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jason.bruemmer: Before you can do another one is… is not easy.
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Kris Hiney: Wow.
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Kris Hiney: Well, this sounds all terribly complicated.
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jason.bruemmer: That's why we solved the problem that we have.
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Kris Hiney: Gotcha.
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Kris Hiney: So, do you foresee, like…
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Kris Hiney: is this just, like, a wall crashing towards the BLM with, like, if the population keeps growing outside of managed land, as well as…
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Kris Hiney: Because we're not really decreasing the pie, isn't it just, like, trying to maintain a status quo, or are they still building in population numbers?
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jason.bruemmer: They're still building in population numbers, and so, yeah, there's gonna be a critical tipping point very soon, particularly when they run out of long-term holding facilities for these animals. And all of it is, again, dependent on funding, and if
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jason.bruemmer: the funding…
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jason.bruemmer: stays static, and the populations grow, that's a problem. If the funding goes down, and the population grows, that's a bigger problem.
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jason.bruemmer: So… We've… we've got to come up with some kind of solution, and…
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jason.bruemmer: Unfortunately, adopting all these horses is not one of those. There's just not enough good homes to put all these horses in.
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Kris Hiney: Well, and I would say, like, you have to be… and, you know, you could argue with me if you want on this, but I would say that you gotta be at least a fairly competent horse person
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Kris Hiney: If you're going to train.
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Kris Hiney: a horse, and I would say that if you get a yearling, you kinda need to know how to be a competent horse person to… to train it, and these can be more complicated the longer they've been out, right? What is the age that these horses are typically adopted out?
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jason.bruemmer: My understanding is that That the younger the horses are, the more likely they are to be adopted.
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Kris Hiney: They're more like a horse, right?
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jason.bruemmer: Right, they're more likely.
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Kris Hiney: I mean, they are horses, maybe that's a stupid thing.
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jason.bruemmer: But, like, your regular horse.
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Kris Hiney: Of course.
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jason.bruemmer: Sure, if you're gonna put the time and energy into breaking a…
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jason.bruemmer: an animal like this, you know, you'd like to have a 2- or a 3-year-old that you're gonna have for the next 20 years. If you adopt a 15-year-old, and then you've only got him for, you know, 8 or 10 years, the…
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jason.bruemmer: the horses that I've seen go through some of the…
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jason.bruemmer: Internal training are amazing. Where the research that we're doing is taking place in Nevada. It's at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, and the inmates train these horses.
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jason.bruemmer: And…
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jason.bruemmer: the horses that leave that facility that are trained, are going to the New York Mounted Patrol, they go to Border Patrol, they're in lots of different, sheriff's posse around the West and around the country. And so, it's certainly doable, but it takes
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jason.bruemmer: it's a full-time effort. The prison has a full-time trainer who works just with the inmates on these horses, and I don't know how many they do at a time, but again, it can't possibly keep up with the thousands that they remove.
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jason.bruemmer: And so again, most of them end up in long-term holding, but they're very trainable, and they do some amazing things. And you've seen the Mustang makeovers and those kind of things, but it takes a special person, like you said, to put the effort forward to get these horses trained, and…
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jason.bruemmer: You know, used to being…
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jason.bruemmer: back to being a domestic animal that their ancestors were. So it's… it's in there.
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jason.bruemmer: And that's the… maybe the good… the silver lining here is that all of the horses out there
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jason.bruemmer: Our descendants of…
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jason.bruemmer: Very highly trained, very domesticated animals. And so, you know, that's… they've been selected for that, and it can be done.
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Kris Hiney: Do they do any purposeful, like, selection of who stays and who goes to be… because you hear about the ones that are more… now, and we did do a podcast that a Spanish Mustang has nothing to do with a real Mustang, that's actually another nomenclature for something else.
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Kris Hiney: But there is, right, there are some horses that look a little different than other… is there any kind of…
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Kris Hiney: Trying to improve herd health through genetic selection, or keeping what people like, or is it just… he was within 40 yards…
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, I…
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jason.bruemmer: can’t speak to that, specifically. I'm sure those decisions are made, again, as part of each and every plan that the BLM puts forward as to which animals are going to be treated and how and why.
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jason.bruemmer: But I don't know what those parameters are.
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jason.bruemmer: Okay. When they do come into the facilities, obviously,
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jason.bruemmer: to… to adopt them out, or to sell them, or to which ones are going to go where. You do have, some pretty talented horsemen and women that are looking at that, and say, you know, that one looks like it's big enough, and
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jason.bruemmer: got the feet for working on the streets of New York, and so we're going to try that one to be a street patrol horse, and this one's smaller and more agile, and maybe a better border patrol horse, or whatever. So, at that point, I think those kind of decisions are made
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jason.bruemmer: Again, by very… Well-intended horse professionals that really want to place as many of these as they can.
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Kris Hiney: Right.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and I would assume those that are more aesthetically pleasing and better conformation are a little easier to adopt. Because, I mean, I have seen some that I was like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah.
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jason.bruemmer: Clearly…
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Kris Hiney: Yeah, clearly.
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jason.bruemmer: really, I think if you look at the website and the online auctions that the BLM does and the online, adoption programs.
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jason.bruemmer: Like any other horse thing, color sells.
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jason.bruemmer: you know, the Palominos probably go sooner than the brown horses with no white markings and those kind of things, and then confirmation plays a role in that as well, but…
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Kris Hiney: Gotcha.
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah.
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Kris Hiney: So it's a… it's a tricky problem that…
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jason.bruemmer: Problem.
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Kris Hiney: And again, like, from your perspective, there's… there's still value for… for these horses, right? So we still want, wild horses, I mean, again, they're just…
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Kris Hiney: if you're listening to a horse podcast, you probably like horses, and so everybody, like, even when my horses are running around, like, you just stop and watch them run around, because it's kind of a cool thing when they do that. Do you still have the feels when you see some of these guys?
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jason.bruemmer: Oh, you can't help it, yeah. It's… it's… it's an amazing thing to watch when they're out running around, when they're healthy, and there's grass, and all those kind of things. It's…
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jason.bruemmer: equally…
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jason.bruemmer: Disturbing when you see those that aren't healthy, and they don't have access to feed, and when you see the environment that they're in is deteriorated for them, and for the elk and the deer, and the sage grouse and everything else that's trying to live in that same landscape.
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jason.bruemmer: Yeah, it's… The highs are high and the lows are awful.
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Kris Hiney: Yeah.
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Kris Hiney: Well, I want to make sure that people know where they can go to find more information if they're interested in adopting. I believe there's also places where, if they're taking a trip out west, where you can see them as well. So, different ways to maybe be involved, whether you want to own one, visit one, or maybe help support programs, such as what you guys do. So tell us, where should they go for their best information?
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jason.bruemmer: I'm gonna say their best information would still probably come directly from the BLM.
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jason.bruemmer: Because they've…
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jason.bruemmer: it's their job to manage it, and they've been doing the very best they can, and can use all the help that they can get. So, if you just go to BLM.gov backslash, I think it's WHB for the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
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jason.bruemmer: you should be able to find almost all of the information you want there. The other thing that I would suggest, and I will send this to you, Kris, that you can post with this, is I'm part of the FREES
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jason.bruemmer: Group, and that stands for Free Roaming Equid Ecosystem Sustainability Group.
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jason.bruemmer: It is made up of land managers from BLM, from the Forest Service, from tribes, from people in research like myself, from
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jason.bruemmer: municipality folks. It's all run through the Utah State University Extension Service, and we have a summit every one to two years. Our next one is in Boise, Idaho, this October
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jason.bruemmer: 5th through the 8th.
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jason.bruemmer: And it's open to the public, and the idea is to have
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jason.bruemmer: Very frank conversations about, what's going on, how management, can improve,
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jason.bruemmer: The last one we did was all about all of the rest of the environment and how the horses and their,
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jason.bruemmer: Presence in the ecosystem affects everything from butterflies to bison.
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jason.bruemmer: And so, there's always reports by the state agencies and the federal agencies that are managing these horses in these western states.
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jason.bruemmer: And so I'll send you the link to do that. People can sign up and come, and there's almost always a field trip where we will go out in that particular area and see…
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jason.bruemmer: horses, or try to see horses, or areas that they've been, and that will also be the case for this one in Idaho, which.
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Kris Hiney: Okay.
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jason.bruemmer: kind of a nice place to be in October.
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Kris Hiney: Very good. All right, well, we'll put that information in the show notes. Again, and I know the horses are controversial, but it is…
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Kris Hiney: important to recognize there are people working on this program that have dedicated their life to the well-being of the horse, so we definitely appreciate your time today, Dr. Bremer. And yeah, it was good talking to you about this kind of interesting…
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Kris Hiney: program.
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jason.bruemmer: Thank you for having me, Dr. Hiney, I appreciate it.
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Kris Hiney: You bet! And so this has been another episode of our Tack Box Talk Horse Stories with a Purpose.