Wild Horses

Barely a stone's throw from our house in Western Colorado is the Little Bookcliffs Wild Horse Area. I can saddle up and ride to the base of the area in about 10 minutes. A 15-minute trailer haul allows us to get right into the heart of the area, where we almost always see small bands of mares led by a single stallion. In the spring, there are foals to see and occasionally we encounter two or three bachelor studs, pushed out from their mothers' herds but not powerful enough to become herd stallions themselves.
It's one of my favorite places to ride, especially in the winter. Easy access, generally warm temperatures and always interesting things to see.
I mention all this because I received a mailing from a Denver-area group this week telling me of the sad fate of a wild horse herd in the Pryor Mountains of Montana.
"If a new Bureau of Land Management plan to manage this herd is implemented this July," it warned, "24 wild horses in the Pryor Mountains will be captured and removed from their home and lose their freedom forever."
The mailing went on to say that this traumatizing roundup could be prevented if the BLM (which manages millions of acres of federal lands in the West, for you non-Westerners) "would prioritize range improvements (none have occurre in over a decade)."
The mailing asked me to sign a petition to the BLM to stop the roundup. And, naturally, it also sought for a donation to help the group in its efforts to protect wild horses.
I'll do neither.
As one might gather from reading about my affinity for the Little Bookcliffs wild horses, I have nothing against wild horses. They have intrigued since long before I moved to the West 34 years ago.
I have observed the horses and BLM efforts to manage them.
And I think the current federal laws that govern that management are INSANE!
Craziest of all is the fact that, as of last October, the BLM had some 24,500 wild horses and burros in holding pens around the West, feeding them hay, providing them with veterinary services and wondering what in the hell to do with them.
They can't adopt them because there are simply far more horses and burros available than there are people willing to adopt.
They cannot sell them because the federal laws written beginning in the early 1970s prohibit any sale in which the wild horses might end up in a slaughterhouse.
They cannot humanely euthanize them, because that is also forbidden by law.
And they can't put them back on the range because they were removed in the first place to reduce overgrazing and overcrowding.
So they live in large corrals while we taxpayers pay to keep them fed and doctored.
And, when the group that sent me the mailing clucks about the BLM doing little about range improvements,it neglects to mention that over half of the BLM's wild horse budget of $39 million this year -- $20.1 million -- is going to feed and keep those 24,500 horses and burros in the corrals. Imagine the range improvements that could be made if that much additional money were available, not to mention the manpower devoted to caring for the corraled horses.
Several times in recent years, Western congressmen of both parties have attempted to pass legislation that would allow some changes in the way captured wild horses are handled. But they have been shot down before they even make it out of committee by the emotional supporters of wild horses who attack any prospective change in the law as an attempt to eliminate wild horses from the range.
I love the wild horses near my house, and I don't want to see them, the herd in Montana or any of the others around the West removed from the range. But I believe the BLM should be allowed to sell or euthaize those captured horses that have no prospect of being adopted, with the stipulation that any money saved in caring for the corraled horses be devoted to range improvements in wild-horse areas.
Then, instead of round-ups every few years followed by attempts to adopt out the captured horses that always meet with limited success, the BLM should begin a process of neutering most of the wild horses on the various ranges, allowing only a select few to breed annually.
Until that happens, the horses will continue to turn out more foals than their ranges can support and the BLM will have to round them up or allow them to starve.
And until groups like the one that sent me the mailing acknowledge the problems with the current law -- created in part through the well-meaning support of groups like this -- they won't get my money or signature on petitions.