Want a horse? Want $1,000? You can get both, as long as you don't mind that the horse in question will be a wild one. With nearly 82,000 wild horses and burros currently living on rangelands across the West, the Bureau of Land Management will give anyone who adopts one $1,000, Boise State Public Radio reports. Wild horses and burros can damage rangelands, and if their numbers get too high—as they currently are—some of them starve. The current number is more than triple what rangelands can support, Insider reports. So the BLM rounds them up and corrals them, adopting out some of the less feral ones. But most corrals right now are at capacity, and adoptions are down. Hence the incentive program. "The incentive is designed to help with the adopter’s initial training and humane care," says BLM's deputy director of programs and policy.
According to the BLM website, adopters must pay a $25 adoption fee and meet the BLM's requirements for adopting a wild horse or burro. After that, adopters will receive $500 after the adoption and another $500 after titling the animal, which typically occurs about a year after adoption, per the Reno Gazette Journal. A person can adopt and maintain up to four animals per year. The bureau runs a Flickr page with pictures of successful adoptions. "I have had Ella for since 2012, and each year we grow and bond more. We are still learning new techniques and experiences daily," writes one adopter, who was 13 when she got her horse. More than 245,000 wild horses and burros have been adopted since 1971.(The idea of slaughtering wild horses sparked uproar.)
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