Horse advocates decry euthanasia option

RENO, Nev. — A stampede of opposition is growing over a proposal by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to kill or allow unrestricted sale of wild horses captured from western public land because of budget constraints.

Tens of thousands of horse advocates have voiced outrage at the idea of slaughtering what many revere as romantic symbols of the American West.

"Most Americans view these horses as the greatest symbols of our American freedom," said Ross Potter of Phoenix.

"If we kill them now without exhausting all other possibilities, we are telling the world that we have no respect for our own heritage," he said in a recent letter to the BLM. "I don't think that is an image we can afford to project."

The BLM's nine-member National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is scheduled to consider the proposal at a meeting Monday in Reno.

About 33,000 wild horses roam the open range in 10 Western states, including Utah. The BLM has set a target "appropriate management level" of horses at 27,000.

Many critics say inept bureau management created the problem that has led to nearly as many horses being kept in long-term corrals as remain on the range.

Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, said the BLM has never considered the health of herds when conducting roundups.

She and others say large-scale roundups upset a herd's social hierarchy, leading to unchecked breeding that threatens their gene pool and accelerates population growth.

"They are mandated by law to protect these horses for American citizens. They have not done that," she said.

"And now, on the backs of these horses that should never have been removed, they want to kill them."

Critics also argue that, when it comes to public land, wild horses get short shrift to the benefit of livestock and wildlife. They say that since 1971 about 20 million acres originally designated as herd areas have been withdrawn from that use. They say reopening those areas to horses would alleviate the need for boarding.

"While forage and water are rarely an issue for the established livestock and big-game interests, these same resources are almost always portrayed as being too little for the relatively tiny members of our nation's remaining wild horses and burros — who are too often scapegoated for ecological destruction caused ultimately by man," wrote Craig Downer, a wild-horse ecologist.