Ranchers, Protectionists War Over Future of Wild Horses

Since Indians stole the first mustangs from invading conquistadors, America’s wild horses have run free in the rock canyons and red deserts of the West.

Prized as buffalo herders and war machines by Apaches, Sioux and other nomadic tribes, the stout ponies multiplied to more than 2 million by 1900 before they collided with the white man’s Manifest Destiny.

In this century, herds were decimated by cowboys who used trucks and airplanes to hunt down horses for quick bucks. Subdued by ropes and buckshot, the horses were sold by the mustangers to glue and pet-food factories.

By 1971, when Congress declared them protected wards of the nation, fewer than 17,000 wild horses ran free in 10 Western states.

Today, however, their numbers have increased and their future hangs suspended between Samaritans and slaughter.

The debate over whether the small, tough horses are pests or public treasures rages from rangeland to courtroom to Capitol Hill. The federal government is now deciding whether to kill thousands of horses it rounded up on public lands and corraled. And a federal judge has ordered a stop to parceling out hundreds more to ranchers who ultimately sell them for pet food and glue.

By law, healthy “excess” wild horses may be killed, but the Interior Department imposed a moratorium on executions in 1982.

The heart of the controversy, with ranchers on one side, animal protectionists on the other and the Bureau of Land Management in the middle, turns on how many wild horses constitute a surplus on federal range.

Ranchers consider them pests because they drink scarce water, graze land used to fatten cattle and sheep, and tear up fences. Others consider the wild horse a public treasure, a last vestige of the romance of the Old West.

A citizens’ board appointed by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel last year has drafted a management policy recommending a return to euthanasia to get rid of horses in government corrals not adopted after 90 days.

“Some 13 million dogs and cats are destroyed annually by humane organizations in this country,” reported the board. “It is reasonable for the federal government to implement the legal provision for humane destruction when faced with a surplus of wild horses and burros.”

Hodel is to decide this fall whether to authorize shooting or killing by lethal injection the unadopted wild horses to empty giant holding pens at Muleshoe, Tex., Palomino Valley, Nev., and Bloomfield, Neb.

Closing those huge feedlots, where up to 10,000 horses at a time are warehoused, would save taxpayers $9.3 million annually, or about $26,000 a day.

The BLM’s range experts believe too many wild horses exist for the available forage.

In 1984, the agency reported 60,300 wild horses and burros on 41.5 million acres of public lands.

At the same time, 4.3 million cattle and sheep were grazing the range, 10% of the nation’s livestock. An additional 1.5 million wild animals, such as antelope, elk and deer, were feeding alongside.

Horse protectionists say that the BLM has arbitrarily set a quota of 26,977 wild horses, placing the highest priority on sheep and cattle, with wildlife interests second and the welfare of horses and burros dead last.

“Horses and burros are consuming only 5% to 10% of what’s out there in the way of forage, while cattle are consuming conservatively 85%, and wildlife another 5%,” said Russell Gaspar, counsel for the American Horse Protection Assn.

“The point that jumps out clearly from BLM policy is not multiple use of public lands, as Congress decreed, but dominant use--and that is livestock raising.”

Most animal protectionist groups believe the nation’s public range can easily support 60,000 wild horses, the number running before the big BLM roundups began three years ago.

BLM Director Robert Burford has called the wild horse issue “one of the most difficult land management decisions” of his six-year tenure.

“Our emphasis must remain on humane treatment of the animals, but we must also consider their impact upon the public land resources that we are required to protect,” said Burford.

Since 1985, acting on BLM recommendations, Congress has appropriated $51 million to remove half the wild horses from the range. So far, nearly 39,000 have been captured, including 10,700 this year.

About 38,000 are still on the loose. Nevada has the most, about 28,000, followed by Wyoming and Oregon, with more than 3,000 each. Wild horses also roam parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Utah.

Most of the 6,500 wild burros are in Arizona, Nevada and California.

Even as the government weighs its decision, the BLM is under court order to stop giving wild horses to “mustangers” or others who would condemn them to slaughter or life in the rodeo ring.

The Fund for Animals and the Animal Protection Institute of America took the BLM to court, asserting that over three years the agency had sanctioned group adoptions of wild horses to ranchers who sold most for pet food or human consumption in Europe and Japan. A few became bucking horses in rodeos.

‘Contrary to Intent’

U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben in Reno, Nev., ruled July 15 that the BLM’s practice of waiving the standard $125-per-horse adoption fee for ranchers, who, after gaining title, commonly collected $140 to $180 a head when they sold the horses, was “contrary to legislative intent” in the 1971 law.

“The secretary (of the Interior) may not abdicate responsibility to place the animals with ‘qualified’ individuals,” McKibben wrote. “A ‘qualified’ individual . . . means someone who will care for the animals, not someone who will exploit or destroy them.”

John Boyles, chief of the BLM’s wild horse and burro program, acknowledged that the government knew some ranchers would sell the horses for slaughter, but said the BLM didn’t believe that violated the law.

“We believe that after title is granted, what that individual does with the animal is up to him. He can dispose of it any way he wishes.”

Boyles said the BLM will probably appeal McKibben’s ruling.

Castigates Administration

Cleveland Amory, president of the Fund for Animals, castigated the Administration for the BLM’s stance.

“Ronald Reagan once said that the best thing for the inside of a man was the outside of a horse,” said Amory. “There hasn’t been an Administration since Rutherford B. Hayes that has done less for wildlife, and particularly wild horses, than this President.”

“They (the BLM) know full well the horses are going to canners,” said rancher Jim Edwards of Columbus, Mont. “They cannot assume a guy with 500 or 600 head of horses is going to leave them on his range to look at after a year’s time.”

Edwards was one of the first group adopters approved in 1985, when he got 800 wild horses from the BLM. He said he gained title after seeking help from Montana’s congressional delegation. Afterward, he sold most of the stock, he said, to “buyers who come around and bid on the horses. They’re a middle man . . . to the (canning) plants.”

Ranchers obtain wild horses by getting other people to surrender powers of attorney stating that they wish to adopt a maximum of four horses each. The rancher then keeps those horses for a year and, if they pass periodic BLM inspections, the government transfers title.

Owners sign over titles in lieu of the year’s maintenance fee.

‘Everybody Knows’

“It’s a mutual agreement; everybody knows what’s going on to start with,” said M.E. Eddleman, a Worden, Mont., rancher who has obtained 1,100 horses through the program.

“We have powers of attorney from people in Arizona, California, Texas and Montana.”

Eddleman said the idea of group adoptions caught on like brush fire with some ranchers because “nobody in the cow business has made a profit in the last 10 years.”

“It was getting pretty tough. I had to sell my cattle,” said Eddleman, a rancher for 35 years. “The proceeds from the sale of those horses enabled me to make my land payments and stay afloat. I’m going to keep doing it as long as they allow me to do it. It’s the only way I have to survive.”

Where did the horses go?

“Well, of course, they went to slaughter,” said Eddleman. “Everybody knows what’s happening, but nobody will admit it.”

BLM Reported Split

Jerry Jack, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Assn. in Helena, Mont., and a former BLM area manager at Billings, said the BLM is split over what to do about wild horses.

“Congress kept throwing money at the problem, saying, ‘You guys have too many horses, what are you going to do about it?’ The protection groups say, ‘OK, you’ve rounded up all these horses, what are you going to do about it?’

“That’s how the group adoption program came to be, by default,” Jack said. The BLM “had to get these unadopted horses out of those corrals.”

He believes handing them over without charge to financially depressed ranchers will solve the problem.

“We’ve all talked about this many times over whiskey,” said Jack. “Isn’t it better to take a wild animal and give him another year (on pasture) rather than have him standing around in those holding pens?”

Private Hands

BLM supervisor Jack Steinbreck agrees. Steinbreck’s job is to round up wild horses in Wyoming and try to place them in private hands.

“I think it’s stupid to kill these horses if you have another choice,” said Steinbreck. “I have less of a problem with group adoptions than I do going out to the corrals, leaning over the rails and dropping 30 of them. Mass adoption is preferable to no chance at all.”

So far, 12,000 wild horses have been given away in 80 group adoptions, said the BLM. At least 6,000 of them are still in the hands of group adopters who don’t have clear title yet.

The BLM has ordered its field offices to review applications to determine if any ranchers have stated whether they intend to use those horses for commercial purposes. “If an individual said explicitly, ‘I’m going to slaughter these horses after I gain title,’ then we would deny title,” Boyles said.

Meantime, the summer roundups by helicopters and cowboys are putting more wild horses in corrals.

Inmate Trainers

Besides group adoptions and euthanasia, the citizens’ draft management policy calls for continued regular adoptions at full fee ($125 per horse, $75 per burro); the training of horses by prison inmates to make the horses more adoptable, and creation of sanctuaries on private land with private funds.

Only a few such havens now exist for wild horses. But Edwards, the rancher who sold most of his wild horses for slaughter, is considering establishing a sanctuary--if the price is right.

“That would be a constructive thing to do, a positive thing,” Edwards said. “With the proper number of private sponsors paying $40 a head a month, I could put together 500 to 1,000 horses in a sanctuary.”