LAKESIDE – After 37 years managing wild horses and burros, the Bureau of Land Management is considering euthanasia to control the growing population – something that could change the mood for this weekend's adoption event in Lakeside.

EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune At Pillsbury Ranch in Lakeside, Joan Embery spent some time with a wild burro she adopted. The Bureau of Land Management allows the public to adopt wild horses and burros at the ranch this weekend.

“The ideal situation for people who care for the wild horses and don't want to see them euthanized is to step up and adopt them,” said Joan Embery, who with her husband, Duane Pillsbury, owns Pillsbury Ranch, where the adoption will be held.

But not everyone believes that adopting the animals is the right way to avoid euthanizing them. One wild-horse advocacy group says the animals, protected under federal legislation enacted in 1971, should continue to roam free.

The adoption at the Lakeside ranch is one of dozens of events being held by the BLM this year across the country to try to reduce the numbers of horses and burros being cared for by the federal agency.

More than 30,000 wild horses and burros are cared for at BLM facilities, at a cost of more than $26 million a year. The overpopulation has become so severe that, for the first time, the agency is considering euthanizing wild horses.

DETAILS Wild horse and burro adoption When: Viewing 1 to 5 p.m. today; adoption 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and 8 a.m. to noon Sunday. Where: Pillsbury Ranch, 13036 Willow Road, Lakeside. Cost: $125 per animal. Requirements: Prospective owners must have at least a 400-square-foot corral with shade. Phone: (800) 951-8720 or (866) 4MUSTANGS Web site: wildhorseandburro.blm.gov

The agency has set of target of reducing the number of horses it cares for to about 27,000. A decision on how to do that – either euthanizing or eliminating roundups – is expected sometime this fall.

Groups advocating on behalf of the horses say the BLM has mismanaged the animals by putting them into corrals instead of letting them live in the wild and controlling their fertility. The BLM says that more than 33,000 horses and burros roam rangelands in Nevada and nine other Western states, including California.

Virginie Parant of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said the horses have lost 19 million acres of rangeland in 10 Western states since they became protected under the 1971 law.

“The American public wants those horses out there,” Parant said.

She said offering the horses for adoption is not a good solution because they are free-spirited, wild animals.

“They need an experienced trainer with these types of horses,” Parant said. “A lot of horses end up abused or neglected or returned to BLM.”

When the federal law was enacted, the horses' numbers were diminishing because they were being hunted for commercial purposes and humans were encroaching on their rangeland. The law allowed the use of helicopters to herd the horses and burros, then put them in corrals.

Because of their federal protection and lack of predators, the number of horses has grown. Rising costs for their feed and transportation has increased expenses by $4 million in the past year, the BLM Web site says.

More than 235,000 horses and burros have been adopted since the BLM's program began. Art DiGrazia, with the BLM's wild-horse program in Ridgecrest, said the agency holds adoptions in San Diego County because it has a thriving equestrian community.