By Scott Sonner, AP

GARDNERVILLE — Residents of a rural Northern Nevada town are volunteering in the first public-private partnership of its kind providing water for wild horses on the range and shooting the mares with contraceptive darts to help shrink the size of the herd.

Leaders of the Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates in Gardnerville say their goal is to keep the mustangs off neighborhood lawns and out of government holding pens.

Working with the Bureau of Land Management, the nonprofit group is using the contraceptive vaccine PZP with the help of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign to try to reduce the herd’s population and eliminate nuisance complaints that could lead to more roundups 50 miles southeast of Reno.

Board member Robin Havens says it’s a commonsense approach that’s much cheaper than housing tens of thousands of mustangs in government corals.