Will wild horses in the West be slaughtered?

USA Today, among other media outlets, has reported that the cost of corralling and caring for wild horses in the West is spiraling, sparking concern among animal lovers that the horses may be slaughtered:

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says slaughter remains a possibility for some of the more than 30,000 wild horses and burros being cared for in government-run pens.

A Government Accountability Office report issued last week lent support to the agency's assertion in June that the costs of caring for the animals have skyrocketed. The GAO said the agency should consider euthanizing some horses or selling them, likely to a slaughterhouse, as an alternative to keeping them in long-term holding pens for their entire lives...

But today the Washington Post reports that these horses may not have to be slaughtered after all.  Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has made it known that she wants to adopt "most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens...Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate home for the horses."

Animal rights groups are, to say the the least, thrilled.

--Alice Short

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[mbob]

This travesty, this horror must not be permitted to happen.

The BLM must be stopped from carrying out their holocaust. Yes, that word. It is nothing less. The systematic, planned, sanctioned murder of innocents.

Write Feinstein and Boxer today. You can make a difference. Write the Obama transition team.

Thank you.

[Elizabeth Stevens]

As a wild horse advocate, I am guardedly happy to hear about Pickens' idea, just like I'm guardedly happy to hear that the BLM has decided to put the idea of killing wild horses on hold for a while. It ain't over yet.

In 2005, Ford Motor Company made big headlines by riding into the spotlight with a grand idea to help the wild horses but, after getting lots of great press, they apparently rode off into the sunset without taking any action. I'll be thrilled if Pickens does more than talk but here's something to chew on in the meantime:

She'd put 30,000 wild horses on a million acres of land, yes? But the BLM already has 20 million acres of land -- set aside for wild horses -- that they will not allow the horses to inhabit. Why not just return the horses to that public land?

And she'd sterilize those 30,000 horses, eh? Well, spaying and castration aren't out-patient surgeries, so how much money would that cost?

Speaking of money; if the BLM is so strapped for cash, maybe they ought to let their cattle grazing permit fees "spiral" just like every other cost in America? It's apparently rock-bottom, something like $1.35 per month for a cow-calf pair -- up only a few cents over what it was 40 years ago.

If the BLM's costs are skyrocketing from rounding up wild horses from public land, carting them across the country, and paying for land and feed elsewhere -- and their revenues are plummeting from leasing that same public land to ranchers for almost nothing, maybe there's a flaw in their business plan. Maybe they ought to keep the wild horses safe on the range and put up a "no vacancy" sign for the cattle ranchers?!?

[garcat]

Change the dang law.Change the dang law.Change the dang law.Change the dang law.Change the dang law.Change the dang law.Change the dang law.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!