Consistent with its mission to protect wild horses and burros in the wild and preserve them for future generations of Americans to enjoy, the American Wild Horse Campaign’s Land Conservancy Project is an innovative new program that aims to preserve and enhance habitat for America’s wild horses and burros to support self-sustaining wild populations in ecological balance with other wildlife. In this way, the project advances the cause of wild horse and burro protection while enhancing other important land conservation initiatives in the West. 

The program will focus on the following three critical areas: Land acquisition, habitat restoration, and humane management

The availability of funding in these three areas will strategically place AWHC at the forefront of wild and burro conservation by expanding and enhancing safe habitats for these iconic animals and establishing  AWHC as a strategic partner for the protection of wild herds. As such, the program promises to shift the paradigm of wild horse advocacy away from conflict and confrontation toward collaboration and conservation.

Land Acquisition

Federally-protected wild horses and burros live on public lands in Bureau of Land Management Herd Management Areas  (HMAs) and U.S. Forest Service Wild Horse Territories (WHTs) that are surrounded by and interspersed with private land. The acquisition of private lands in these areas presents numerous opportunities to enhance wild horse and burro habitat and alleviate conflicts that can sometimes arise between private landowners and wild horses, burros, and other wildlife species. Further, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act authorizes individuals controlling lands within areas occupied by wild horses and burros to allow wild horses or burros to use these lands. 

Land acquisition in these areas offers AWHC the opportunity to collaborate with federal land managers on habitat restoration and humane management of wild horse and burro herds, and to work with state agencies as well as local governments to support conservation and open space preservation goals while enhancing ecotourism opportunities for local economies. 

Habitat Restoration

Most of the West’s rangelands are in degraded condition due to overgrazing of livestock, mining, and oil and gas development. These activities have damaged riparian areas and drained aquifers, and, along with fire and drought, have depleted habitats for all wildlife, including wild horses and burros.

AWHC’s Land Conservancy Project aims to bring back habitats by restoring meadows and protecting creeks and springheads to provide life-sustaining access to water and reseeding areas with native grasses. 

Our habitat stewardship activities also address horse/human conflicts that arise when suburban or industrial development encroaches on wildlands. For wild horses, these conflicts can also result in capture and removal from their homes on the range. Many times,  solutions as simple as cattle guards and fencing can resolve such conflicts and keep wild horses safe and free on the range.

AWHC has a strong track record of addressing habitat challenges in Northern Nevada, where we are working in the Greater Reno Area with local governments, developers, and businesses at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center to improve habitat, preserve wildlife corridors, build water sources, and manage traffic safety hazards. Such improvements benefit other wildlife species as well. At the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, for example, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, coyotes, foxes, multiple species of birds, and other animals have been seen drinking from the water sources placed in the area for wild horses. 

Humane Management

For over a decade, AWHC has been a leader in the fight to reform federal management of wild horses and burros by advocating for a shift away from roundups and removals toward humane fertility control vaccine programs. Over the last 12 years, AWHC has mentored the creation of local organizations to steward local herds, provided technical and financial support to local fertility control programs, and implemented the world’s largest humane management program for wild horses on Nevada’s Virginia Range. In 2023, we also began a fertility control program in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Utah and Ensign Ranches for the protection of the Cedar Mountain wild horses near Salt Lake City. 

The acquisition of private land in and around federal wild horse and burro habitat provides AWHC with a strategic vantage point to implement new or support ongoing fertility control programs and reduce the need for the roundup, removal, and warehousing of these animals in off-range holding facilities. 

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