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Has
the BLM considered Birth Control for Utah Mustangs?
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| My Question = Has the BLM considered birth control for the Sulphurs? I would think that having the mares, not getting PG would be healthy for them. In captivity, no one lets their mare breed every year, its too hard on the mare and not good for the foals. I know it is costly, but there have been some tests. Immunocontraception is a viable plan, vets from UC-Davis, CA. have a new vaccine has already been tested on 200 animals in Nevada.? | ||
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| Mr.
Hunter's reply: I
believe you are talking about the wild horses out on the range because ones
in holding are separated. In that case the answer is YES, we are exploring
the use of PZP on mares as a management tool. I feel safe in saying that the
number of mare that have received PZP throughout the 10 western states that
have wild horses and burros is in the thousands. The research on this has
been going on for many years, but is not yet available for general management
use. Currently, the one year treatment has been used with some success, but
it is the two plus year vaccine that the field specialist would really like
to see. The two or more year vaccines have not seen much success. Also, I
have a personal concern with the affects of these treatments on the foaling
seasons. Many cases where the Immunocontraceptive has been used, foaling
seasons has been expanded several months or even to year around. This
expansion to the foaling season means that there is no good time to disturb
the horses. No matter when you gather horses to remove them or give them the
PZP or do other management you are putting foals at risk. We put great effort
in to protecting the foals when they are young and do not gather horses
during the current foaling season, (March-June) except in emergency
situations or when specific horses without foals must be gathered because
they are on private property or have wandered far outside the HMA. Plus, as you mentioned the cost of doing gathers of 80-100% of an HMA & then administering the PZP is very high. The cost of the PZP pales to the cost of gathering most of an HMA and then just releasing them again. Every time you gather, you put stress on the horses and every time you gather the horses it gets harder to gather those same horses. In the Sulphur HMA it is extremely hard to gather 50% of the horses because of the thick trees. To gather 80-100% of the horses in the Sulphur HMA is impossible. This means that the use of PZP as an actual means of controlling the population will not be very effective. However, if we can get a good two year vaccine we could use the PZP to reduce the reproductive rates on the Sulphur HMA for two years from the current 17-20% to 12-15% by treating those horses we gather and release during normal gathers. In short, after years of research it has become apparent to me that PZP is not the answer we had hoped for to control populations, but if improved may be used as another management tool to reduce reproductive rates. |
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