Fish Springs herd horse Copper in captivity in Palomino Valley after being captured in the East Valley.

Mary Cioffi/Special to The R-C

A resolution stating Douglas County’s support for the local wild horses and the Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates was approved by commissioners on Tuesday.

The advocates are a Gardnerville community organization working to protect local wild horses.

The resolution includes support for advocates’ effort to prevent wild horses from going into neighborhoods and roadways through a public-private partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and private property owners to construct fencing along the Pine Nut range — including around the Fish Springs area of Gardnerville ­— to keep wild horses out of neighborhoods and roadways.

“Residents of Douglas County take great pride in the Fish Springs wild horses and are passionate about the protection and preservation of the Fish Springs wild horse population,” the resolution says.

“Over the past six years, the advocates have been working to secure a long-term agreement with the BLM to humanely manage the wild horses living in and around the Fish Springs area of Gardnerville,” the organization said. “In 2018, the Trump administration’s Interior Department, in an effort to have the federal government be good neighbors with the local community, decided not to move forward with the planned massive roundup of wild horses living in and around the Fish Springs area.”

This provided an opportunity for the BLM to work with the Advocates to develop a partnership to work together moving forward. The advocates are actively engaged in the care and management of the local wild horses and looks forward to creating a partnership with the BLM.

There are around 80 wild horses living in the Pine Nut Mountains east of Carson Valley.

An attempt to reach an agreement with the BLM fell through last fall, and traps on private property resulted in the capture of 21 horses in the Fish Springs herd.