How the BLM and Other Federal Agencies "Manage" the Land
Mack the Knife
By MARTIN GRIFFITH
SPARKS, Nev. – One of most stirring symbols of the American West —
mustangs thundering freely across the range — could be heading east.
The government wants to carry out what is believed to be the biggest-
ever roundup of wild horses on federal land, moving as many as 25,000
mustangs and burros to pastures in the Midwest and East out of fear
their fast-multiplying numbers will lead to mass starvation.
The plan is facing heated opposition from advocates, including
celebrities Sheryl Crow, Bill Maher and Ed Harris, who contend the
proposal is itself inhumane and unnecessary. They say the situation is
not as dire as the government has painted it.
"The Obama administration must craft a new policy that protects these
animals and upholds the will of Congress and the public's desire to
preserve this important part of our national heritage," said William
Spriggs, lawyer for the group In Defense of Animals.
He and other advocates spoke out Monday at a hearing on the proposal,
held by a federal advisory panel at a hotel-casino near Reno. The
panel took no immediate action.
The government argues that the mustang population in 10 Western states
is growing so rapidly that the horses are quickly running out of food,
in part because of drought ravaging the region.
The federal Bureau of Land Management says the number of wild horses
and burros on public lands in the West stands at nearly 37,000, about
half of them in Nevada. An additional 32,000 wild horses already live
away from the range in federal-run corrals and pastures, and those are
nearly full.
"We are concerned about the numbers," Robin Lohse, chairwoman of the
National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, said during the hearing.
"Time is not on our side."
The BLM said last year it would have to consider destroying wild
horses because of their escalating numbers and the costs of caring for
them. But earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the
BLM, a part of the Interior Department, would instead ship 11,500 to
25,000 horses from the range to pastures and corrals in the Midwest
and East.
The exact destinations have not been decided, but Salazar believes
Plains states would make the most sense in terms of water and forage,
said Don Glenn, chief of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program. He
said Salazar also wants at least one site in the East.
The relocation plan is part of a long-running feud over wild horses in
the West, where mustangs have roamed ever since they arrived with
Spanish settlers centuries ago.
Ranchers view wild horses as a menace to their grazing land and were
allowed to kill them until 1971, when the practice was banned. The
government has made numerous efforts of its own over the years to
control the population, including using a contraceptive vaccine. But
capturing and injecting mares with the vaccine one at a time has
proved costly and time-consuming.
In recent years, the government has rounded up and relocated wild
horses to other lands in the West. Helicopters are used to drive the
mustangs toward cowboys with lassos. The cowboys then put the horses
onto trucks.
The latest proposed roundup, however, would take the horses outside
the West altogether.
The California-based Defense of Animals strongly opposes roundups,
arguing that the horses are an integral part of the ecosystem and that
using helicopters can traumatize, injure or kill the animals.
The BLM spent about $50 million this year to feed, corral and
otherwise manage the nation's wild horses, up from $36 million last
year. Without contraception or other such measures, mustang herds can
double in size about every four years, authorities say.
One of the most vocal wild-horse advocates is Grammy-winning singer
Sheryl Crow, who has adopted a mustang herself and took her concerns
directly to Salazar in a recent telephone call.
"One of the first things he said was something must be done because
the horses are starving. We don't believe it," Crow said in an
interview with The Associated Press.
<Sheryl Crow, notwithstanding, the BLM's wild horse management program
is typical of the way federal agencies behave. You put unimaginative,
"results oriented" people in charge of a sensitive issue like this,
many if not most of whom are ex-military personnel recycled out of the
Defense Department, and you're going to see heavy-handed management
practices such as have been described in this article.>