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Show Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, August 2-5, 2008 IToo many wild horsejs deplete rangelands ; Unadopted horses face slaughterhouses • or euthanasia I-- By NANCY LOFHOLM Denver Post Sand Wash Basin, Colo. - Out here on treeless land thai rolls in empty swells across northwestern Colorado as far ps the eye can see, bands of tail-flicking wild horses placidly munch saltbush. But there's a political furor brewing over their future, which includes the possibility of euthanasia or the slaughterhouse. America's wild horses have become a costly problem with no easy solution, according to the agency that has managed - and in some opinions, mismanaged - the horses and a much smaller number of burros for nearly four decades. There are too many, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contends. About 33,000 wild horses and burros roam in designated areas in Western states, at least 6,000 more than the BLM has determined the land will accommodate. Colorado has more captured mustangs in holding pens than on the range. About 1,100 remain in the wild - a number the BLM wants to cut by as much as 600 horses - while 1,120 are penned up in Canon City. '. Space to warehouse unwanted rjorses is filling up. A glut of wild horses and the bad economy have reduced adoptions. More than 30,000 horses gathered from the range nationally are in holding facilities or sanctuaries and are expected to eat up nearly twothirds of the BLM's $37 million wild-horse budget this year, i In Colorado, a recent adoption event in Canon City, where inmates in penitentiaries there care for and train some of the wild horses, drew only two buyers. The last tjvo "off-site" adoption events, in Montrose and Golden, had such dismal results that BLM officials canceled others for the remainder of the year. Further roundups of horses are in limbo. Three planned in Colorado this fall may not happen because of all the problems in the program. "It's a nightmare: The BLM should never have let it get to this B-15J The Park Record is ^jfforage. foi point," said Marty Felix, who has been a member of Friends of the The mustang mess has riled Mustang in Mesa County in west- wild-horse fans from remote ern Colorado for 25 years. Colorado outposts to the Beltway. Some horse advocates say they Rep. Nick Rahall, chairman of think the BLM is bluffing when the the Committee on Natural agency holds out euthanasia or Resources, wrote a letter to Bisson selling horses to slaughterhouse urging him to hold off on euthanabuyers as options. A law change in sia until the Government 2004 gave the agency the power to Accountability Office finishes a sell older, unadoptable horses to review in September of the BLM's buyers that would then sell the horse and burro management polihorses to slaughterhouses. At that cies. time there were three slaughterRahall, D-W.Va., asked for the houses in the United States. But review because "of continued conthere was such an outcry the cern that this program is being misagency backed off. managed," he wrote. "We're being straightforward Critics of the program contend about this. You can take us at our the BLM has taken too many horsword," BLM spokesman Tom es off the range, closed out too Gorey said about the euthanasia many herd-management areas and solution. relied on poor science and iffy In June, BLM deputy director numbers when determining how Henri Bisson presented the idea to many horses management areas a meeting of the Wild Horse and can support. Burro Advisory Board. Bill Sloan, a longtime resident The BLM also could sell hors- of Sunbeam, a tiny community es to so-called killer buyers, who close to Sand Wash Basin, said the would move the horses to Canada horses suffer for all these reasons. or Mexico for slaughter because no "It isn't fair. These horses are gethorse slaughterhouses currently ting a bum rap." Sloan said. operate in the United States. Sloan, like a lot of other wildThe agency is also seeking horse management critics, said he more landowners for horse sanctu- thinks the problem has grown so aries and is floating the idea of tax bad because ranchers who have breaks for those landowners. The grazing and hunting rights on BLM BLM is also looking for better con- lands are dictating management traceptive options to hold down policies. The horses are competithe size of herds, which double tion for water and feed. every four years in the wild. Thousands of other critics The BLM is heavily promoting across the country have called and adoptions through newsletters e-mailed the BLM in the past two filled with happy stories of adopted weeks with emotional pleas to save horses and with much-touted con- the horses. More than 42,000 have tests, like the Extreme Mustang signed an online petition trying to Makeover. put a stop to any killing. The agency also has been BLM wild-horse specialist soliciting ideas from the public on Kathy McKinstry said she feels its Web site and is pleading for the that pressure as she watches a public's help through the media. black stallion protectively trailing Chris Heyde, deputy director his mares and foals across a ridge of the Washington-based Animal top. She understands the awe "at Welfare Institute, has suggested the indomitable spirit and sheer putting wild horses and burros energy of a mustang running free,1' back on the 12.5 million acres as President Njxon put it when he removed as herd areas since the signed the protection act in 1971. Free-Roaming Wild Horses and As manager of 157.000 acres of the Burros Act mandated their protec- Sand Wash Basin Herd tion in 1971. Management Area, McKinstry "I've offered to fly out and also sees the on-the-ground realiopen the gates," Heyde said. ties. The suggestion is not feasible, according to the BLM. Those acres were removed because they were too cluttered with private inholdings, were not large enough to maintain genetically diverse herds or did not have enough water and CLOSET The BLM's mandate is to balance management of the land for all uses. Most of the BLM's wildhorse areas also must accommodate energy extraction, livestock grazing, hunting and other recreational activities. The vast acreage here swallows up its 463 wild horses, but in some years water is limited and so are the sage, wheatgrass and saltbush that feed horses, livestock and wildlife. Areas where well pads have been "reclaimed" stand out in barren patches. McKinstry was hoping to round up 300 horses this fall to reduce the herd size to its target range of 163 to 362 so the paints, palominos and buckskins will remain healthy. But some of the horses from the last roundup in 2005 have yet to be adopted, and with the 16 percent drop in adoptions across the country since then, there is nothing to indicate newly gathered horses will find homes. There is ongoing research here on a contraceptive drug, PZP, but it is not an easy fix. Mares have to be rounded up so the drug can be administered, and it must be given every couple of years. "I've been involved with the horse program for 20 years, and no one has come up with a good solution," said McKinstry, who previously worked in Nevada, where half the nation's wild horses are located and where, in certain areas, inbreeding and gathering of too many of the best-looking mustangs over the years have left horses that some observers call "ugly and jugheaded." Felix said contraception has been a success in the Little Book Cliffs Herd Management Area near Grand Junction. There, 120 mustangs are easier to get close to in the rocky ridges of a smaller acreage. 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