Do you remember President Barack Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which was meant to get old gas guzzling cars off the road? If I recall correctly, one could receive around $5,000 to trade in their old rig. The program didn’t do much other than help folks out to buy a new car.
Now the BLM is proposing the idea to give wild horse adopters $1,000 to adopt a feral horse. Desperate times call for desperate measures and BLM is getting desperate to get rid of the growing feral horse problem in the West.
The BLM provided Congress with a plan late last month, giving them four comprehensive options on how they will deal with the 86,000 horses running loose on federal land. Then there are another 45,000 in BLM-sponsored holding facilities. Congress has taken away several of BLM’s tools—unrestricted sales and euthanasia are held hostage every year through appropriations bills. BLM wants their tools back.
In the past we haven’t talked much about other feral horse populations, especially on Indian reservations. A story came out last week that over 100 horses expired around an empty dirt water tank on the Navajo Reservation. It hasn’t rained in that country in northern Arizona for a while. It is estimated the Navajos have 70,000 horses and burros on their reservation, and who knows what the other reservations have in horse inventory? In the big picture there could be several hundred thousand feral horses out there. You must admit that this horse problem is getting bigger than some prairie dog towns, and something must happen.
Congress is the foremost problem when it comes to managing these horse populations. I don’t think that anyone wants to completely rid the West of feral horses, but when you’re running three times the Appropriate Management Level of wild equines, something’s going to happen. Without drastic measures we will see the landscape degraded beyond any reasonable use, and there will be more dead horses littering springs, dirt tanks and every other water source. This isn’t humane.
Or, we can take care of the healthy horses roaming the management areas and ensure a healthy, vibrant population of horses that folks would want to adopt, like the Beaty Butte herd in Oregon. This herd is being managed for the horses’ positive attributes to propagate something special.
But to properly manage a herd some are going to have to go—think of it like prairie dogs. So, what does America want? This issue is so emotional and political that rational thinking has become challenging. The entire U.S. Congress must make a hard decision. However, the whole Congress has a say in what happens in the 11 western states, and the only regions of those states that are impacted are rural areas, places where the votes are thin and that most people never see.
If we don’t take care of these western range lands better, the multiple-use management mandate won’t matter. The ground will be denuded, won’t support cows, sheep, or feral horses. The recreational community and hunters won’t want to go there because it’s ugly and there is nothing to support wildlife. It will become unhealthy habitat any way you look at it. The energy and mining industries will be the only thing left that will want to use the federal lands resource.
This idea about public lands is a misnomer; it doesn’t belong to all of us. Simply because no one has any title to it. The federal government can still lock you out, or not permit your use, or restrict your access. The only resource the federal government believes in sharing is “Other People’s Money”—it’s a bureaucratic addiction.
Now the BLM wants to get serious about the feral horses. By the time they get to it there will be over 100,000 of the beasts running wild on federal ground. They presented Congress with a four-option plan, which all include unrestricted sale, euthanasia, paying people $1,000 to adopt, sterilization, and, yes, commercial slaughter.
All the BLM is asking is for Congress to give them all their tools back, so they have a fighting chance in managing the resource as the law says. They need to get the horses and burros out of there now! Before the land is destroyed. A note to Congress: There isn’t time to do a bunch of studies and research on the horse problem. You need to lay off the BLM and let them do the work they were charged with…and give them all their tools back. — PETE CROW
“Without drastic measures we will see the landscape degraded beyond any reasonable use, and there will be more dead horses littering springs, dirt tanks and every other water source. This isn’t humane.”
