Ever Wanted to Shoot a Horse? Now's Your Chance

Exploding wild horse population in Oregon and other states increases demand for dart-born birth control vaccine.

Last week, the federal Bureau of Land Management released its annual estimate of the number of wild horses and burros living on federal lands.

The number jumped 15 percent from 2015—there are now an estimated 67,027 such animals.

Oregon hosts the fifth largest number of wild horses—3,785—and the fifth largest number of burros, although there are only 56 of them.

In 1971, Congress ordered the BLM to do a census every year and to also estimate the number of wild horses and burros federal lands could support. That number is a little under 27,000, which means there are 40,000 more animals than can sustainably graze federal land.

Related: Myths and facts about wild horses.

The goal was to move animals into adoption so they could be cared for on private land but over time, animals have multiplied far faster than the number of people willing to adopt them.

The feds are now holding 45,000 horses and burros in off-range pastures and corrals at an annual cost of more than $49 million.

In order to rein in the population growth—which at current rates officials say will lead to the herds doubling every four years—the feds rely on a birth control vaccine that can be either injected by hand or delivered by a dart shot out of an air-powered rifle.

The Science and Conservation Center, based in Billings, Mont., trains volunteers interested in helping vaccinate wild horses. The non-profit offers a two-and-a-half day training program for people who'd like to track and vaccinate horses with rifle-born darts.

"It is not unusual for some people attending the course to never have held a rifle of any kind and this can slow the training process down. This is particularly true for those who have never looked through a rifle scope before," the center's website says. "So, if you fall into that category, we strongly advise you to find someone with a scoped rifle and to learn how to handle/hold it and use the scope effectively. You don't have to actually shoot, but you do need to be comfortable looking through a scope."

A front-page Wall Street Journal story today (warning: paywall) reported on the challenges of tracking and shooting vaccine darts at the animals, who are both skittish around humans and range over vast swaths of the unpopulated West.

"You can't act like you're stalking them or hunting them," Jim Havens, a retired LAPD detective told the Journal who now tracks and shoots vaccine-laden darts at horses in Nevada. "You have to get them used to you being around and hanging around them."

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