2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 77 - Animals and Livestock › Article 18 - General Animal Regulations › Section 77-18-5 - Wild horses; conformation, history and deoxyribonucleic acid testing; Spanish colonial horses; birth control.

A. As used in this section:
(1) "public land" does not include federal land controlled by the bureau of land management, the forest service or state trust land controlled by the state land office;
(2) "range" means the amount of land necessary to sustain a herd of wild horses, which does not exceed its known territorial limits;
(3) "Spanish colonial horse" means a wild horse that is descended from horses of the Spanish colonial period; and
(4) "wild horse" means an unclaimed horse on public land that is not an estray.
B. A wild horse that is captured on public land shall have its conformation, history and deoxyribonucleic acid tested to determine if it is a Spanish colonial horse. If it is a Spanish colonial horse, the wild horse shall be relocated to a state or private wild horse preserve created and maintained for the purpose of protecting Spanish colonial horses. If it is not a Spanish colonial horse, it shall be returned to the public land, relocated to a public or private wild horse preserve or put up for adoption by the agency on whose land the wild horse was captured.
C. If the mammal division of the museum of southwestern biology at the university of New Mexico determines that a wild horse herd exceeds the number of horses that is necessary for preserving the genetic stock of the herd and for preserving and maintaining the range, it may cause control of the wild horse population through the use of birth control and may cause excess horses to be:
(1) humanely captured and relocated to other public land or to a public or private wild horse preserve;
(2) adopted by a qualified person for private maintenance; or
(3) euthanized; provided that this option applies only to wild horses that are determined by a veterinarian to be crippled or otherwise unhealthy.
History:
Laws 2007, ch. 216, § 1.
ANNOTATIONS
Effective dates.
— Laws 2007, ch. 216 contained no effective date provision, but, pursuant to N.M. Const., art. IV, § 23, was effective June 15, 2007, 90 days after the adjournment of the legislature.
Duty of the livestock board to test and relocate horses pursuant to this section.
— The legislature intended to require the livestock board to test and relocate wild horses captured on public land as provided in 77-18-5(B) NMSA 1978.
Wild Horse Observers Ass'n, Inc. v. N.M. Livestock Bd.
, 2016-NMCA-001, cert. denied, 2015-NMCERT-010.
Where the wild horse observers association (association) filed a complaint for declaratory relief, claiming that the New Mexico livestock board unlawfully treated a group of undomesticated, unowned, free-roaming horses in Placitas, New Mexico as "livestock" and "estray" rather than as wild horses under the Livestock Code, 77-2-1 to 77-18-6 NMSA 1978, the district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim was improper where the association averred that the Placitas horses are not domesticated, that they are not owned and never have been owned, that the horses are unbranded, unclaimed, and free-roaming, that the livestock board has captured and auctioned at least twenty-five horses and that the auctioned horses were taken from public land, and that the horses have not been tested to confirm whether they are Spanish colonial horses, as required by 77-18-5(B) NMSA 1978. These facts, taken as true, adequately state a claim that the Placitas horses fit the criteria of "wild horses" under 77-18-5 NMSA 1978, and that the livestock board unlawfully failed to test and relocate the wild horses it captured.
Wild Horse Observers Ass'n, Inc. v. N.M. Livestock Bd.
, 2016-NMCA-001, cert. denied, 2015-NMCERT-010.
Wild horses captured on private land.
— Where the New Mexico livestock board (board) sought to classify certain horses corralled by a private citizen onto private property as estray livestock, rather than as wild horses, and where plaintiff filed a complaint for declaratory relief and emergency injunctive relief, asserting that the board exceeded its authority and unlawfully treated the subject horses as estray livestock, a petition for declaratory relief seeking an order declaring the subject horses to be wild horses, and a temporary restraining order preventing the board from impounding or selling the subject horses, and where the district court found that the board failed to comply with its statutory duties under § 77-18-5(B) NMSA 1978, the district court did not err in concluding that the subject horses were wild horses, because the subject horses were not and were never domesticated, and wild horses whose habitat includes public lands do not lose their wild status when captured on private lands, but the district court erred in concluding that when the board wrongfully took possession of the subject horses on private land, the board should have exercised its duties under this section; the board's duty to test the conformation, history, and DNA of a wild horse is only applicable where a wild horse is captured on public land. The board's duty was to return the subject horses to the public land they inhabit.
Wild Horse Observers Ass'n v. N.M. Livestock Bd.
, 2022-NMCA-061.