“The bureau was struggling to reconfigure multiple use to include wild horses as a separate category of animal,” said Childers. Where wild horse herds were found in remote locations across the West in 1971, those locales are now Herd Management Areas, or HMAs. Wild horses walk to a watering hole outside Salt Lake City in 2018. “The 1971 act led to numerous court battles, and it gave wildlife advocates, humane societies and environmentalists a powerful tool with which to attack the BLM’s grazing program,” said historian James R. In 1971, Congress passed the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which would have enormous consequences for the BLM, whose lands are the sagebrush sea of the American West. “Where some saw wild horses as one of the last remnants of a bygone era and a symbol of the American West, others viewed them as the shoddy remains of frontier history, a nuisance to ranchers and land managers alike,” said historian Leisl Carr Childers. Americans are confused and misinformed when they try to protect wild horses. Wild horses are really just feral animals, and yet the mustang myth continues and is now codified in federal law. Feral horses on Western ranges now consume 32 pounds of forage a day plus valuable water. Centuries later, thousands of horses and burros were abandoned during westward migration, and after the homesteading era, allowed to graze for themselves. The Spanish brought horses north from Mexico in 1540. Burros hide out in canyons, wisely watching water holes and all is equine equipoise. Stallions carefully protect their mares, and foals gambol under a wide Western sky. Of the many myths of the American West, one of the most enduring is that of wild mustangs rich with Spanish and Andalusian blood living undisturbed on sagebrush plains. Let’s start with the “more thoughtful part.” He’s asked for a “more thoughtful and inclusive process.” I agree. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland urging her to take a “more active, co-managerial role” in managing wild horses and burros on Bureau of Land Management land in Colorado. It’s time to look at drought and ecological habitats, not just flying manes and pounding hooves. It’s time to stop and smell the sagebrush. Like other well-meaning, environmental-leaning Americans, he thinks that wild horses on federal public lands deserve special considerations. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press file)Ĭolorado Gov. Wild horses kick up dust as they run at a watering hole outside Salt Lake City in 2018.
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