Too Many Horses at the Water Trough

The West has a horse problem, and no, it is not that anyone forgot to close the barn door.

By the numbers: Federal land managers estimate more than 85,000 wild horses and burros are roaming western public lands. Detailed 2026 program data put the population at 85,466 animals against a maximum Appropriate Management Level, or AML, of 25,592. That is more than three times the agency’s target while drought tightens the same forage and water supplies used by wildlife and livestock.

No easy pasture: Wild horses have few natural predators and herds can double every four to five years. Livestock grazing on federal land, meanwhile, is controlled through permits and leases covering about 155 million acres. When forage shrinks, permittees can face reduced use because of drought, wildfire or range conditions. Excess horses do not arrive with the same paperwork.

Holding pattern: Removing animals is not cheap either. About 58,000 horses and burros were living in off-range holding facilities in May, and holding accounted for roughly two-thirds of the program’s fiscal 2024 spending. Gathers, fertility control and adoption all remain pieces of the management puzzle.

Why it matters: Ranchers, wildlife and wild horses are all drawing from a finite range account. If populations stay far above federal targets during drought, the pressure shows up in water, forage and management costs. The challenge is lowering that pressure without turning a protected symbol of the West into a budget line nobody knows how to manage.