FOAL Assists BLM in 2018

The Bureau of Land Management announced last week that its continued partnership with a local nonprofit group benefited both wild horses and their habitat last year.

The Friends of a Legacy organization, or FOAL, helped to provide for healthy wild horses and healthy rangeland in 2018, in part by funding the BLM’s fertility control field darting program of 62 mares within the McCullough Peaks Herd Management Area. The wild horse advocacy group also contributed $8,500 to clean and refurbish three reservoirs within the HMA, which provide valuable water for wild horses, cattle, pronghorn, deer and a host of other wildlife.

The BLM Cody Field Office has partnered with FOAL since the non-profit group formed in 2005. Annual field darting with the fertility control vaccine known as PZP has been used in the McCullough Peaks herd since 2011, where it has been found to successfully lower horse birth rates, leading to a more manageable herd that doesn’t over-graze the land.

To date, FOAL has contributed more than $45,000 in PZP and the darting supplies needed to administer it. The BLM and FOAL dart 50–80 mares annually, resulting in a birth rate of only 9 foals each year, on average, since 2011. An average of 30 foals were born in years prior to the annual field darting.