The Truth About the Sulphur Springs HMA
There has been quite the misconception going around on the message boards about the BLM Sulphur Springs Herd Management Area. This is the correct information about the subject and I have used a map from the BLM to try to help everyone understand more fully the actual situation out on the HMA.
This is what the area looks like and what the horses live in.
This is the original map put out by the BLM before I added my clarifications.
As you can see they mark the areas on the map differently. The various springs are marked with a dark blue dot, and the fences are marked with a purple line (note that the fence does actually run all along the entire Utah Nevada border) and the peaks of both Mountain Home and Indian Peaks are a pink triangle, the Highway is a light blue line and the HMA is the pink polka-dot area.
You will notice that the fence is not all the way along the border on this map but it has been repaired and runs the full length of the border. You will also notice that there are two fence lines that pretty much do separate Mountain Home from Indian Peaks.
I have put some marks on this copy of the map to show the differences that a lot of people do not understand, between the “North & South End” of the HMA and the “North & South End” of Mountain Home.
The BLM refers to “North” and “South” horses which are all on the “North End” of the HMA. This being that the BLM is only referring to the “North End” and “South End” of just Mountain Home, not the entire HMA. The BLM do not gather Mountain Home horses and Indian Peak horses together. They may gather both during the same time but the horses are kept separate the entire time. This last gather in the summer of 2006, the BLM did gather horses all along the Utah - Nevada border but they were all kept separate. When they were done gathering the Mountain Home Sulphur Horses, they shipped all of the Sulphur horses to the Salt Lake facility and then packed up their camp and moved South to a new area and did not put any other horses in with the Sulphur horses. This has been done this way at every gather. I have been present at both the 2003 and the 2006 gathers and even though two different contractors did them, the horses were shipped to Salt Lake the same way so I would like to end the gossip about the Sulphur horses being mixed with other Non-Sulphur horses, this just plain does not ever happen.
As you can clearly see on the map, there is a vast difference between Mountain Home and Indian Peaks. The entire Sulphur Springs HMA is an enormous 142,000 acres that are covered with Juniper, Cedar and Pinion Pine trees so thick you can not even get through it in some places. The Sulphur Springs horses are primarily located on Mountain Home and gathered at the Southern End. There are more horses located in the middle to the South End than anywhere else, which is due to the fact that the water is mostly located at the “South End” of Mountain Home.
So in reality most of the Sulphur horses that have been gathered are actually from the “South End”. By no means does this make them any more or less Spanish Sulphur Horses. All of the horses that are brought off of the Sulphur Springs HMA and adopted out as Sulphur horses are definitely all SPANISH SULPHUR HORSES and qualify for any Sulphur Horse registration no matter which you choose.
Here is another map from the BLM that will help show where the horses really are. You can see where the horses are located by the pink square w/ white horse. It is very clear that the horses are located on the North, South & East of Mountain Home and then really far South on the middle to South end of Indian Peak.
If anyone has more questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.
June 9, 2010 - Sulphur Horses out on the Sulphur HMA
Upper & Lower Sulphur Springs
