BLM NEWS RELEASE
CARSON CITY — The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Nevada Department of Agriculture & the Nevada Department of Corrections on Saturday, October 9, hosted the most successful saddle-trained horse adoption event ever held at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center (NNCC) in Carson City.
Seventeen wild horses, gathered in January 2010 from the Calico Complex of BLM-administered public lands in northern Nevada and subsequently saddle-trained for four months by inmate-trainers in the Nevada Department of Corrections program, were offered in spirited competitive bid adoption. Successful bidders from an enthusiastic crowd over 200 people paid a total of $29,900 for the animals.
All seventeen offered horses were adopted after starting bids of $150. The event’s top bid of $8,500, the highest ever bid in the ten-year old program in Carson City, went for a two-year old strawberry roan gelding named “Quick.” Eleven of the horses sold for at least $1,000 each.
The successful bidders officially adopted their new horse and they must show diligent care of each animal for a year before they can apply to BLM to receive a title of ownership. Since 1973, the BLM has placed more than 220,000 horses and burros into private ownership through the adoption program.
The next saddle-trained horse adoption competitive auction event will be held at the NNCC in Carson City on Saturday, February 12, 2011.
More information about these special adoption events is available at: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/carson_city_field/blm_programs/wild_horse_and_burro.html
