National Horse and Burro Rangeland Management Coalition
The National Horse & Burro Rangeland Management Coalition is a diverse partnership of 13 wildlife conservation and sportsmen organizations, industry partners, and professional natural-resource scientific societies working together to identify proactive and comprehensive solutions to increase effective management of horse and burro populations and mitigate the adverse impacts to healthy native fish, wildlife, and plants and the ecosystems on which they depend.
The Coalition was formed in 2012 in response to the steadily worsening degradation occurring on portions of our nation’s rangelands due to inadequate management of “wild” horse and burro populations. For many years, individual organizations concerned with rangeland health have attempted to influence the federal land management agencies’ effectiveness at managing these non-native, congressionally protected animals. When, in 2009, the Secretary of the Interior announced his plans to develop a new horse and burro management plan, these organizations provided individual comments to help improve the program. The Secretary’s plan has yet to be finalized and management has yet to improve.
Frustrated by this inaction and the resulting rangeland damage, a core group of organizations—each with different memberships and purposes, from producer to conservation organizations—recognized they shared a common goal: rangeland health. They understood that rangeland health is essential for a thriving natural ecological balance on the rangeland—and essential to the clean air and water that the entire nation counts on. Thus, they created a coalition to proactively influence the management of the range. Cognizant that there would be diverging views in certain areas, they were determined to focus on areas in which they could collaborate.
The Coalition is developing specific, science-based management recommendations that will help both the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture follow through with goals of improving the horse and burro program and our rangeland health, for the sake of the horses and all multiple uses on the range. The Coalition also serves as a source of information for the public and decision makers, dispelling myths about “wild” horses and burros, providing adoption and volunteer information, and more.