Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Wyoming wild horse auction
I went back out to the Riata Ranch near Cheyenne today for the second day in a row. I was there on Friday photographing folks looking at wild-born horses that were to be auctioned off by the Bureau of Land Management. Today was the auction itself and several ranchers showed up to bid on the young horses, including Erich Pröll, an Austrian filmmaker who bought two horses to take back to a ranch he owns near Linz in northern Austria. The BLM captures several young, wild-born horses every year and auctions them off in an effort to control the wild-horse population in the west. Horses don’t have many predators in the wild and, unlike wild game like antelope and deer, the government cannot use hunting seasons to control the population. The first horse sold for $750, to Pröll, but several went for less than $300.