Laura Zuckerman, Yahoo News 30 Jul 08;
A proposal to kill thousands of mustangs roaming the western United States has angered animal welfare groups, which say horses are paying the price for years of bureaucratic mismanagement.
Around 33,000 wild horses are spread across 10 western states, while the US Bureau of Land Management, which floated its proposal in June, has said that the total needs to be reduced by around 6,000 horses. That is in addition to an estimated 33,000 excess horses in government-funded holding facilities.
It is the first time federal officials have proposed euthanizing wild horses since federal protections for the animals were introduced in 1971, when Congress described the animals as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."
Federal officials say downsizing the herd is necessary for the healthy management of public rangelands, sagebrush steppe and grasslands ravaged by drought and wildfires.
And they say a hefty portion of their budget for wild horses is now being funneled to pay for holding facilities, where costs have risen along with hay prices.
Authorities have also said the numbers of wild horses on public lands have increased because of fewer participants in the bureau's mustang adoption program, which has been hit by the sluggish US economy.
Soaring feed and fuel costs means fewer buyers of mustangs offered for adoption per year -- the majority at 125 dollars a head -- in a pattern that mimics the flagging domestic horse market.
But the prospect of killing mustangs or selling them for slaughter has angered animal rights campaigners, who say the move is unnecessary and could have been avoided.
Holly Hazard, officer with the Humane Society of the United States, said the bureau's suggestion it may have mustangs put down or sold for slaughter was "totally disturbing and completely unnecessary."
"This is a man-made management debacle," Hazard added.
Hazard said the agency has been slow to employ population-control strategies such as contraception even though animal advocates have for years endorsed the measure as a means of maintaining a stable wild horse population.
Fine art photographer Elissa Kline has been shooting the mustang herd in east central Idaho for almost five years and is among critics of the government's policy that places excess wild horses in holding facilities.
"It's heart-breaking," she said about a program that calls for organizing the animals by sex and age, often separating mares and their foals.
Heather Emmons, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada, home to an estimated 18,000 wild horses, said officials would prefer not to keep the animals in the holding facilities.
"It's not what we want to see," Emmons said. "In an ideal world, we'd love to see 33,000 people come forward (to adopt them)."
The ongoing crisis in Nevada, where officials say the mustang population is nearly 40 percent higher than the number land managers believe ideal for the environment, caused the BLM to call a temporary halt to other planned roundups such as the one scheduled this fall in Idaho.
Doug Busselman, executive vice president for the Nevada Farm Bureau, a powerful lobby for agriculture, faulted the BLM for its unwillingness in past years to aggressively control wild horse numbers.
He said ranchers must abide by government regulations concerning the timing and number of livestock released onto public lands for grazing, adding: "We're held accountable but the BLM is responsible for managing wild horses and they don't have the same accountability."
Tom Miles has been with the BLM for 32 years, serving the past five as head of the agency's wild horse program in Idaho.
Decades as a federal land manager has lent Miles perspective on what he characterizes as the government's no-win position.
"We're managing the land for multiple and often divergent uses, making it difficult to provide for all of them," he said. "Even when you come up with a good plan, trying to accommodate everybody without favoring one over another, someone is going to come away unhappy."
A decision on whether to proceed with the proposal to kill mustangs is expected later this year.
