Opposition grows to Salazar's wild horse plan

SPARKS, Nev. — Dozens of wild horse advocates will go before a federal advisory panel in Nevada on Monday to try to persuade public land managers to buck a plan to relocate thousands of free-roaming mustangs from the West to preserves elsewhere.

Some of the top defenders of the equines nationally are making the trip to urge the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board to halt government roundups of the horses from the range.

They're pressing for alternatives to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's plan to move 25,000 mustangs to preserves in the Midwest and East. They insist it is based on faulty data that exaggerates the damage the horses do to the range as well as the extent they are suffering from a lack of forage.