Friday, March 7, 2025 | 2 a.m.
A diamond-shaped yellow sign comes to view along the road to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It has a four-legged animal on it, signaling to watch out for wild horses and burros.
The Bureau of Land Management estimates there are 73,520 of the animals spread out on the range across the West. Nevada had the highest population with about 38,000 as of last March.
The BLM’s inaugural Wild Horse and Burro Week runs through Sunday, including the “Burro Palooza” adoption event featuring several burros at Oliver Ranch within Red Rock Canyon. Most of the available burros are untrained, officials said, and priced at $125 on a first-come basis. Some trained horses will also be available, priced at $500 each.
“The burros are very in demand,” said Jason Lutterman, a public affairs specialist for BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. “They are underrated, and a lot of people don’t know too much about (them).”
Burros, or donkeys, can be work and pack animals, guard animals and pets.
“Not only do they make incredible companion animals but they’re workers and they want to work,” said Dolores Garcia, public information officer with the BLM in Arizona.
The horses and burros, which are rounded up throughout the West by the BLM to control their population, will only be sold to qualified individuals who must demonstrate their ability to give humane care for the animal, the BLM said.
Burros are also adopted for burro racing or long hikes, Garcia said. In Arizona, burros are seen at weddings and events as beverage animals with drinks in coolers on either side of them.
“They’re great companion animals for on your ranch or your farm, whether it’s to companion another burro, a horse or even other small animals,” Garcia said. “Some of them will keep a burro…just because they are known to bring notice to danger.”
The animals being auctioned have been housed at off-range corrals operated by the BLM that are designed to support the intake of burros and wild horses, Lutterman said.
The animals are vaccinated, transitioned to a diet of hay, and receive a freeze mark on the left side of their neck that identifies them as being processed by the BLM. The agency requires anyone adopting an animal to have at least 400 square feet of corral space, access to food and water, and 6-foot fences for horses and 4½-foot for burros.
Once the animals are adopted, the BLM will do compliance checks for a year to make sure the adopted animal is getting good care, Lutterman said. Once the year is up, the adopter can apply for title to the animal, which requires a signature from a veterinarian or inspector that shows the animal is in good health.
Individuals can adopt up to four animals per year, and there is no limitation on how many years someone can participate.
Roundups cause concern
Two feral burros are seen in the Mojave Desert within the BLM’s Needles, Calif., field office.
Photo by
U.S. Bureau of Land Management via AP
Nevada has 83 herd management areas managed by the BLM in accordance with the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The act calls for officials to manage, protect and control the animals on public lands through roundups.
The herd management areas are determined by BLM, which decides how many wild horses or burros can live on the land without disrupting recreation or ranching.
When the animals are gathered for population control, “We always try to do it the best we can to keep the animals as safe as we can as we gather them,” Lutterman said.
That’s not always the case, says the advocacy group American Wild Horse Conservation.
The group has documented helicopter roundups across the West with photos, videos and notes, said Amelia Perrin, a communications manager with the group.
In 2024, they were able to cover 75% of the roundups, noting that in some of the exercises the animals were chased for miles, she said.
“Helicopters really just separate wild horses from all they hold dear,” Perrin said. “Their family and their freedom.”
Many people argue the BLM should allow wild horses and burros to roam unabated, but that’s not feasible, said Tracy Wilson, the Nevada director of American Wild Horse Conservation.
The group, she says, is pushing for humane action during the roundups.
“The reality is that with any species of animal, when you draw a boundary around them … you now have to manage the population of the animals within that boundary,” Wilson said.
The group is calling for more transparency from the BLM, asking the agency to install cameras on the helicopters and bait traps used in roundups. Most traps are set behind a hill, Wilson said.
“If it is as safe as they say…then there is no reason we shouldn’t be able to see it,” Wilson said.
The BLM does not have plans to include cameras on helicopters because of safety concerns, Lutterman said. It wants to make sure there are no additional risks interfering with gathering operations.
“A lot of times when we’re at these gathers, there’s a risk of horses even seeing a reflection of sunlight from cameras or binoculars,” Lutterman said. “If a horse sees that and gets off track, we might have to try and gather that horse again.”
The BLM launched the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program in 2016 establishing standards for the gathering process to be more safe and humane, Lutterman said. Part of the process is survey flights to scope where the animals are congregating.
Animals are never moved faster than the slowest animal in that group can move, Lutterman said.
If there are foals — a baby horse — involved in a roundup, the guidelines are that the group of horses can only be moved at the pace of the foal. If a foal gets separated, the animal is reunited with its mare as soon as possible, which tends to be when they are in a holding facility.
Gatherings don’t occur when temperature is above 95 degrees or below 10 degrees, Lutterman said. Occasionally, gatherings start at the break of dawn, so they are not operating during the hottest part of the day.
Instead of helicopter roundups, American Wild Horse Conservation wants to see more fertility control to cull the herds.
In some herds, the BLM will gather the animals to give them a fertility control treatment before releasing them back into the wild, Lutterman said.
The BLM does fertility control for a herd close to Reno, a herd outside of Tonopah called the Reveille Herd Management Area and a herd in Northern Nevada.
“(There’s) the focus that there’s a better way than what we’re doing now,” Wilson said. “We’re pushing for change.”
The Sun’s Hillary Davis contributed to this report