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America’s
Disappearing Wild Horses
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Enter
Senator James McClure (R-ID), head of the Committee for Energy and Natural
Resources and for Interior and Insular Affairs. Himself a man of the West,
and believing the horse to be a useless free-loader on public lands, he
set out to help rid of them.
Wild
horse populations increased until the advent of the “Cattle
Kingdom.” Ranchers no longer viewed horses as necessary
tools for moving cattle, but as nuisance animals and competitors
for grasslands upon which their cattle fed—marking the
beginning of the mass slaughter of horses—which continues
today.
In
1812, Spanish cattle ranchers slaughtered 30,000 horses in
the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, claiming they were
robbing cattle of vital grass. Almost two centuries later,
the massacre continued as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
capitulated to pressure from the powerful cattle ranchers’
lobbying efforts, and sent thousands of horses to slaughterhouses
every year.
The
development of weaponry also inflicted suffering on horses.
Noted zoologist and author Desmond Morris, in his book Horse
Watching, notes that—in just one day’s fighting
during the first world war—7,000 horses were killed.
Morris further states that of the one million horses sent
to the front during WWI, only 62,000 returned —causing
one philospher to note, "On the backs of horses, we conquered
nations."
They
were the backs of once wild horses. |
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A
stacked deck of officials was appointed to the BLM based on McClure’s
ability to fund the agency, and—as some activists describe it—a
“new kingdom emerged.” New trucks. New positions. And a new
plan.
In
1975, determined to remove the wild horses but unable to capture them
on horseback, the BLM amended the 1959 law (prohibiting motorized vehicles
for captures), thus allowing them the use of aircraft, such as helicopters.
It also couldn’t settle on whether the 1971 Act referred to the Secretary
of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the enforcement
of the law. The lands—and the rules—were split: the BLM and
the Forest Service came under Interior regulations; USFWS came under Agriculture.
In short, the BLM has the power to use motorized vehicles to capture wild
horses but it can’t kill them; Fish & Wildlife Service can kill
horses; it just can’t use motorized vehicles to catch them.
In the summer of 1993, the BLM estimated
the wild horse population in Nevada alone to be 24,000 horses. In order
to force the government into conducting an independently derived count,
activists logged more than 250 hours in the air, along with Michael Blake,
author of Dances With Wolves, counting wild horses. They were determined
to show that the BLM’s figures of “excess” horses were
inaccurate at best. They found 300 skulls and only 8,300 free-roaming
horses.
Today the BLM still estimates Nevada’s
wild horse population to be roughly 24,000. It recommends the removal
of more than 9,600 animals—1,300 more than horse defenders and Blake
could even find on the entire Nevada desert.
By its most recent figures, the BLM
estimates the total American wild horse population to be about 36,000
animals (of which 80 percent can be found on 70 percent of Nevada’s
lands alone). Further, the BLM estimates an “appropriate management
level” of 12,000, thereby suggesting the removal of some 24,000 horses
throughout the entire West.
The
Name and the Lands Game
Why is there such determination to rid our public lands of wild horses?
For many—the livestock lobby, government agencies, and even environmental
and wildlife protection organizations—the wild horse isn’t a
wild animal at all, but a domesticated animal gone feral. This mongrel
of a horse is not, they argue, native American wildlife. Considered an
“exotic,” it competes for habitat with such species as elk and
pronghorn antelope, and it decimates rangeland used by domestic livestock.
It must be controlled, removed, and, if necessary, gunned down.
Wild horses are eyesores, habitat
destroyers, and misfits. In cattlemen terms, they are “sonsofbitches;”
in the BLM terms, they’re “shitters.” History, on the other
hand, will bear them out as scapegoats.
But the wild horse removal is a tragically
grim and deadly tale of systematic elimination. Those entrusted with the
power to enforce the people’s law have been using it to the detriment
of the horses—and doing so behind the people’s backs. In fact,
the BLM refers to roundups as “gathers,” making them more palatable
to public opinion.
Despite numerous attempts by vested
interests to cripple the 1971 Wild Horse & Burro Act, not a single
amendment has passed. Americans have made their intentions known over
and over again: They want wild horses—these feral, exotic, “sonsofbitches”—left
in the public domain. And they wrongly believe the government is granting
their wish. The Act states, “It is the policy of Congress that wild
free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding,
harassment, or death.” And yet, unabated, the BLM, the Department
of the Interior, and the Forest Service continue to engage in all those
acts without reprimand.
When the law was passed in 1971, wild
horses and burros were assigned to 305 Herd Management Areas (HMAs) and
given some 80 million acres of public land in 16 states to call their
home. Agency regulations—not legislative amendments—have stripped
the horses of their homeland; they are now managed in 186 HMAs on less
than 44 million acres in just ten states.
“This government is taking our
horses without our knowledge,” Michael Blake told the press. “This
government and the criminals it employs are taking wild horses when and
where they please. They are taking them in the dark of night. The wild
horses not going to the slaughterhouse floor—where their throats
are cut for money—are travelling to points of incarceration.”
In fact, some 10,000 wild horses are
currently awaiting their fate in holding facilities such as in Palamino
Valley in Nevada, and Susanville in northern California. It’s costing
the taxpayer $2.6 million a year to maintain them and another $11 million
a year to allow the BLM to continue to round up, remove, and sell thousands
more wild horses—and all of this without the permission of the law.
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