Removal of Island Horses Saddled With Controversy

Controversy surrounding the removal of 16 wild horses from the Channel Islands this week illustrates the difficulty that managers of public land face when they do what is environmentally sound, but politically unpopular.

Channel Islands National Park Service officials, scientists and owners of the horses agree the animals need to go. They are a nonnative species--a direct conflict with the park’s mandate to preserve native flora and fauna. If left alone indefinitely, the horses would multiply and cause substantial ecological harm, scientists say.

But it is a message federal officials have had difficulty selling to the public. Pro-horse sentiments led to a 16-month legal struggle triggered after the Santa Barbara-based Foundation for Horses and Other Animals Inc. sued to block removal of the herd. A U.S. appeals court Sept. 11 upheld a lower court ruling favoring the Park Service, clearing the way to round up the horses.

“People are so removed from the environment these days that they don’t often relate to the natural world. A lot of the time, the public misunderstands the reasons the actions are taken,” said Channel Islands park spokeswoman Carol Spears.

The Park Service’s handling of the matter, too, seems to have contributed to the misunderstanding. For example, plans to remove the horses were developed in secret over the past 11 days. Without advance notice, Santa Cruz Island was closed to the public at daybreak Wednesday. A handful of campers were rousted from their sleeping bags and ejected from the island. Neither media nor community observers were allowed as witnesses. Those decisions prompted sharp criticism from local lawmakers and horse advocates.

“As a general rule, the Park Service believes in full disclosure,” said a Park Service official. “They [Channel Islands park officials] need a lot of practice in communicating with the public.”

In response, park Supt. Tim Setnicka reopened the southern half of Santa Cruz Island on Thursday, one day after he closed it. Setnicka said he didn’t want people to observe relocation of the horses.

Five more horses were loaded aboard a boat Thursday and shipped to Port Hueneme, leaving five animals on the island. They are to be removed this morning and Santa Cruz Island will reopen by noon, Spears said.

Scientists say that removing the horses, as well as other livestock roving the island, may be unpopular, but that it is necessary to protect island plants that form the basis of natural ecosystems.

“The horses have no natural predators. If not managed, captured, killed or removed, they will increase to the point where they starve or get diseases,” said Armand Kuris, professor of zoology at the UC Santa Barbara.

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As more and more people inhabit the West, conflicts over how to manage public lands have multiplied. Strategies that make ecological sense are not always popular.

For example, the Park Service found itself embroiled in controversy during wildfires at Yellowstone National Park a decade ago. The sight of pine forests going up in flames sparked national outrage, although many scientists insist fire is a necessary and inevitable force in the forests.

Similarly, many biologists advocate more active management, including sport hunting, of California cougars, which are exacting a heavy toll on the state’s dwindling bighorn sheep. Voters banned mountain lion hunting in 1990.

“There’s always opposition when it comes to dealing with animals,” said James Proctor, a UC Santa Barbara geographer who has studied public attitudes toward conservation on Channel Islands. “People get real attached when it’s an animal they like. The National Park Service has to do the environmentally right thing, and that may not be something that gets a lot of public support.”

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But detractors say the Park Service could have managed the horse removal with greater regard for public sensitivities. Lisa Finkel, spokeswoman for Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) said the congresswoman contacted park officials this week to express concern about the horses.

“It needs to be open and people need to be considered,” Finkel said. In particular, she expressed dismay that Setnicka closed Santa Cruz, evicting six campers and two men who had just arrived in kayaks. He explained later that a camper planned to film the horses being loaded onto the boat.

Setnicka said the camera, in the hands of a member of the Foundation for Horses and Other Animals, made the horse handlers uncomfortable.

Once the horses are off the island, they are to be shipped to a ranch at Buellton in Santa Barbara County for a 30-day quarantine. The animals, property of the Gherini family that once occupied the island, will then be moved to a horse sanctuary near Red Bluff, Calif., according to Tom Gherini.

In coming months, the Park Service will shift its attention to removing 2,000 sheep and a few hundred feral pigs from Santa Cruz Island. The animals are the last vestiges of ranching settlements on the island. Although the sheep are being removed a few at a time and shipped to the California mainland, the pigs have rabies and will have to be killed, probably next summer, Spears said.