1,000-Horse Roundup Planned in Utah After Virus Outbreak

More than 1,000 wild horses living on tribal and federal lands in eastern Utah will be rounded up to prevent the spread of a deadly virus that has cropped up at a much higher rate than usual, officials said Thursday.

The Ute tribe and Bureau of Land Management made plans for the roundup after 29 of 200 horses tested this spring on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation were found to have equine infectious anemia.

The infection rate of 15% far exceeds the norm, according to state veterinarian Mike Marshall. The typical rate is one in 7,000, and in Utah about two to four domestic horses tested each year have the disease.

“This is certainly the biggest incidence we’ve seen in Utah, probably in the intermountain West,” Marshall said Thursday. “There is no treatment for this. Once the animal has this, it’s either going to become very weak or die.”

Spread by mosquitoes and horseflies, the virus causes death in about 30% of cases. Horses found to have the virus, which is not transmittable to humans or other animals, will be killed.

Corralling the animals will not be easy.

The roundup will cover an area of 600,000 acres with all kinds of terrain. An estimated 500 of the horses to be rounded up are on 300,000 acres of federal land; an additional 600 live on an estimated 330,000 acres of the million-acre reservation.

The horses are in separate herds and live at elevations of up to 8,000 feet.