The Bureau of Land Management has settled a lawsuit over wild horse management brought by Utah trust-lands officials.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that BLM has agreed that the state should have greater influence in deciding whether to remove wild horses from the herds that roam state trust lands. The agency has also promised to make reasonable efforts to clear two tracts of horses every other year.
The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration sued BLM last year, arguing that it was failing in its duty to manage federal protected horses and burros. SITLA argued that the animals were harming the state lands interspersed with BLM-administered public lands.
Ranchers say the horses are proliferating in the absence of predators, overrunning grazing land.