News brief
With about , researchers are looking for options to address the overpopulation.
A released recently by the U.S. Geological Survey and Colorado State University shows gelding wild horses didn鈥檛 really affect their behavior 鈥� or have a long-term impact on herd size.
CSU Researcher Sarah King, who led the behavioral aspect of the study, says they gelded 42% of the stallions in the herd in the Conger Herd Management Area in Utah.
鈥淲e really thought that it would maybe have big impacts on their behavior and they would just act like bachelor male horses,鈥� said King, part of the university鈥檚 Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory. 鈥淪urprisingly, we found it had almost no effect on their behavior at all.鈥�
She says some stallions have a harem of mares, and the gelded harem stallions stayed with their mares. They still defended the harem, fought and showed reproductive behavior.
But by the end of the four-year study, almost all of the harems had disbanded.
鈥淎gain, [it鈥檚] one of these questions that everybody is like, 鈥榃e castrate males to control their behavior, so their behavior is controlled鈥� without actually looking at it,鈥� King said.
Though many domesticated stallions are gelded, she says there isn鈥檛 a lot of research on how it impacts their herd dynamics.
In the first year after the surgeries, the herd鈥檚 birth rate decreased. But it bounced back after a couple years.
King says this could be due to the number of stallions gelded in the population, mares mating with non-gelded stallions outside their harem or bachelor stallions sneaking in. King thinks gelding may have a larger impact on overpopulation if it鈥檚 coupled with female fertility control. Next, the team will look at DNA data collected from the herd to better understand the herd鈥檚 dynamics and foaling rate.
鈥淯nderstanding the behavior of animals is often undervalued in how it can be used to manage animals and also to conserve them,鈥� King said in a . 鈥淥nce we understand how and why animals are using the landscape, it can really affect management decisions and what will affect fertility and reproductive behavior.鈥�
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, 九色网 in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the .
