BLM Hearing On Wild Horse Management Planned For Billings

The Bureau of Land Management will be holding a public hearing in Billings in a couple of weeks on the use of motorized vehicles in managing wild horses and burros.

Jerrie Bertola, the Wild Horse and Burro Program lead for Montana and the Dakotas, says the BLM uses motorized vehicles to get population estimates and collect monitoring information as well as general management.

“So if we need to gather and remove excess horses, we would need to use vehicles to transport them to a holding facility from a trap site location within the Pryor Mountain Horse Range.”

Bertola says hearings like this are a standard procedure and occur every year.

In Montana, according to last year’s surveillance numbers, there were 165 wild horses on the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range near Billings.

Bertola says the public can use their own vehicles to visit the horse range, known for its wild mustangs, at any time so long as they stay on existing roads and trails.

The public hearing will take place Friday, February 2, at 10 a.m., at the BLM Montana/Dakotas State Office in Billings.