SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A roundup of hundreds of wild horses from Utah's deserts is set to begin, a move necessary for the health of the land and the wildlife, U.S. authorities say.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management wants to take 480 horses from herds in Utah's Conger and Confusion mountain ranges, leaving just 27 percent of the two herds in the wild, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday.
The BLM says its goal is to capture nearly 31 percent of the nation's 38,365 wild horses and burros this year and make them available for private adoption or send them to pasture in the Midwest.
No wild horses will be slaughtered, the BLM says.
In California, horse advocates unsuccessfully sued to block the capture of about 2,000 animals.
UPI
