Wild horse and burro advisory board meeting postponed

The Bureau of Land Management has postponed a National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting that was scheduled for March 27-28 in Salt Lake City. The meeting was postponed after a board member threatened to sue the agency after it provided 15 days’ notice instead of 30 days, which is required for non-urgent matters. BLM did not designate the meeting as urgent when it originally announced the meeting on March 13.

The terms of three board members are expiring on March 31, and without them the board fails would fail to meet quorum and cannot make recommendations to the BLM. A new meeting schedule will be determined after the board’s new members have been selected. The board has made a series of recommendations since September 2016 encouraging the BLM to reduce on-range populations and use the full suite of tools allowed by federal law.

The Wildlife Society and the National Horse and Burro Rangeland Management Coalition submitted testimony to the board’s last meeting in October 2017, encouraging the use of multiple management tools to control on-range horse and burro populations.

The advisory board was formed to represent stakeholder interests and provide recommendations to the departments of Interior and Agriculture on the management of wild horse and burro populations. Members are appointed by the Interior and Agriculture secretaries and represent a variety of stakeholder interests, humane advocacy groups, wildlife associations and livestock organizations.

Read more from the BLM.