Wild horses might be killed in the West
Federal officials are considering euthanizing wild horses to deal with the growing population on the range and in holding pens, authorities said.
Wild horses have overpopulated public lands and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management can't afford to care for the mustangs that have been rounded up, said Henri Bisson, the agency's deputy director, in a news conference in Reno, Nev., according to the Associated Press.
Also, fewer people are adopting the horses, Bisson added. The agency is also considering whether to stop roundups to save money.
There are an estimated 33,000 wild horses on the range in 10 Western states, Bisson said, and 27,000 is the maximum the agency can handle. An additional 30,000 are in holding facilities.
Last month, Deanne Stillman wrote in the Times' Opinion section that wild horses, better known as mustangs, are a staple of America's cultural heritage but that federal laws in effect since the early 1970s aren't doing enough to keep the animals from being shipped off by cattle ranchers to the slaughterhouse.
Stillman's new book, "Mustang: A history of the horse in the North America," describes how wild horses became a dramatic fixture on the continent.
Pam Houston, writing this week in The Times' Book Review, sums up some of Stillman's research:
From the jungles of Central America, horses moved north, carrying Catholic priests and tribal scouts across the Rio Grande and into the wild country of the great Southwest, all the way from Texas into California.
Horses broke away from war parties and missions, turned wild, formed bands and flourished in this unfenced, endless land. There were so many horses in the early 1700s that the maps drawn of Texas at the time marked the territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River not as a place but as "Vast Herds of Wild Horses," or simply "Wild Horses."
By the 1840s, Texas ranger John C. Duval reported seeing "a drove of mustangs so large that it took us fully an hour to pass it, although they were traveling at a rapid rate in a direction nearly opposite to ours."
--Francisco Vara-Orta
Photo: Marilyn Newton/Associated Press
Human overpopulation is the cause for global warming, pollution, starvation, wars, wildlife extinctions and water crises! We have the audacity to kill mustangs and wild horses because there are too many of them? Completely inhumane and cruel hypocricy perpetrated by the destructive human race.
Posted by: Brien Comerford | July 02, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Why is it that every time there is a animal situation humans solution is to kill them off. God gifted us with this huge brain, we have sent men to the moon, cured diseases, but we can't find a no-kill way of solving all animal populations. Please let us not let this happen to one of many of our beautiful creatures.
Posted by: Cynthia | July 02, 2008 at 10:36 AM
I am a long time horse lover and I feel that there are other solutions to this problem other then killing the wild horses. There are plenty of people who would adopt them or even purchase them, or donate them to camps, and camps that specialize in special needs riders or other people who just have a farm or ride for the sport.
We feel that there are other solutions to this and KILLING IS NOT THE RIGHT ONE.!
Posted by: Audrianna Harrington | July 02, 2008 at 02:12 PM
The number of mustangs that are allowed to remain and graze on Federal land is very small in comparison to the number of cattle that are allowed to graze Federal lands. If there is a problem with the number of animals, why not reduce the number of cattle grazing these lands and let the mustangs run free? The cattle are raised to be eaten while the mustangs belong to every American and are part of our national heritage. Right now, every American is penny pinching and the animals are the ones who will pay the price. Let's wait awhile before these drastic decisions are made. Let the economy and the horse market recover and then more people will adopt.
Posted by: Evelyn Braile | July 02, 2008 at 08:01 PM
where is PETA??????????
Posted by: peggy thurman | July 07, 2008 at 03:01 PM
I agree -- where's PETA when they might actually do some good?
Posted by: Jane | July 13, 2008 at 03:47 PM
Please don't kill the horses. With all our sophistication surely we can find another way to take care of these animals!
Posted by: Sandra Short | August 06, 2008 at 02:02 PM
R U KIDDING!!! TO MUCH WILD HORSES!!!! TRY NOT ENOUGH. WILD HORSES ARE DISIPEARING QUICKLY AND NEED ARE HELP BECAUSE SOON THEY WILL BE GONE AN PEOPLE LIKE THIS WILL B AND ARE ALREADY TO BLAME! THIS IS CRAZY!!!!
Posted by: Grace O'Callaghan | September 09, 2008 at 03:41 PM
STOP NO WAY SHALL WE KILL
THE HORSES MUST BE SAVED .
COLORADO ,DENVER
Posted by: DONALD KIRK JUREN | November 02, 2008 at 10:54 PM
so just leave the horses, they aren't hurting anyone. they're just like a bear living out there. so lets all go get all the bears too
Posted by: Anthony French | November 17, 2008 at 06:27 AM
Don't kill the wild horses. Simply take out the stallions until you get enough sold off.The stallions are breeding the mares which is making foals that you can not feed.Don't blame the wild horses.
Posted by: Tesse Godwin | December 10, 2008 at 04:57 PM
there is a way to save wild horses but not to tame them and make them ridding horses then they won't be wild horses they will be gest horses but u can buy them and get alot of land and let them eat the grass and leave them be.
Posted by: erin krusienga | June 13, 2009 at 02:11 PM