Mestengo. Mustang. Misfit. America’s Disappearing Wild Horses
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Laura Moretti, The Animals Voice
February 2010

Fifty million years ago, a small dog-like creature called Eohippus evolved on the North American continent. In fact, this forerunner to the modern horse was traced to the Tennessee Valley. After disappearing into Asia and Africa — as well as into the evolved form of Equus — 17 horses returned to our soil with the Spanish in the early 1500s. From their hands, they escaped onto the American canvas. The horse had come home — but the welcome has only proved deadly.

It is believed that the horse is the only domesticated animal capable of reverting to a wild state after escaping human bondage. It did so 300 years ago, and its numbers reached more than 2 million. But by the time the wild horse received federal protection in 1971, it was believed that only about 18,000 of them roamed America’s plains. More than 1 million horses were conscripted for World War I combat; the rest had been hunted for their flesh, for the chicken feed and dog food companies, and for the sport of it.

They were chased by helicopters and sprayed with buckshot; they were run down with motorized vehicles and, deathly exhausted, weighted with tires so they could be easily picked up by rendering trucks. They were run off cliffs, gunned down at full gallop, shot in corralled bloodbaths, and buried in mass graves.

Like the bison, the wild horse had been driven to the edge.

Enter Velma Johnson, a.k.a. “Wild Horse Annie.” After seeing blood coming from a livestock truck, she followed it to a rendering plant and discovered how America’s wild horses were being pipelined out of the West. Her crusade led to the passage of a 1959 law that banned the use of motorized vehicles and aircraft to capture wild horses.

In the end, it was public outcry that finally ended the open-faced carnage—and it came from the nation’s schoolchildren and their mothers. In 1971, more letters poured into Congress over the plight of wild horses than any other issue in U.S. history to date; there wasn’t a single dissenting vote, and one congressman reported receiving 14,000 letters. And so the Free-Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act was passed, declaring that “wild horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”

By the people, of the people, for the people. There has never been a truer case.

Wild Horse Annie’s 1959 legislation allowed the mustang (from the Spanish word mestengo, or “stray beast”) to get a desperate foothold in the American West. Wild horse numbers grew and consequently encouraged the wrath of ranchers who paid to graze their cattle on the public domain. The animals also annoyed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which was appointed to manage the West, horses and all—making the agency the biggest horse wrangler in the country.

And it’s a war as old as the West itself. What is useful is used, what is not is destroyed—with contempt. In a mechanized world, not even the cattle industry has a need for living horsepower.

The 1971 law also stipulated that the wild horse be managed at its then-current population level—a figure that had yet to be determined. But it’s that number that lies at the core of this deadly controversy.

The Numbers Game

The history of wild horse management is as complicated as it is controversial. The BLM created its Adopt-a-Horse program in 1976 as a means of ridding the west of wild horses—with the public’s permission. Since the program began—two and a half decades ago—more than 176,000 horses and burros have been rounded up off public lands and sifted through the adoption pipeline. The BLM claims it has adopted out 157,000 of the animals, though many of its captives have been sent to slaughter — and often with the BLM’s help.

In 1984, the BLM waived its fees to encourage more adoptions, and thousands of horses began arriving at slaughterhouses for profit. Little had changed in the West: although there were no slaughters on the open range, no mass graves, horses were still being taken from the public domain to the killing plants.

To counter the mass killings and appease public sentiment, the BLM then enacted a titling program that stipulated that an adopter couldn’t technically “own” a wild horse until one year after its adoption, thereby making it illegal to sell it to anyone else. In effect, it made the expense of caring for a horse during that time outweigh its meat price.

The BLM was caught in the crossfire. Cattle interests wanted to see the horse removed; the public and activists wanted to leave horses on public lands. So just how many horses could the BLM legally remove?

Underfunded, the agency agreed to settle the numbers question through a National Academy of Sciences study. Six years and $6 million later, and partly based on the number of horses being rounded up and adopted, the Academy reported that there was a base wild horse population of 50,000 animals at the time the 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act was passed into law. What they didn’t find, however—and nor could the BLM prove it to them—was any wild horse impaction on grazing. Of course, the finding wasn’t good enough for some. Though the figure settled the question of how many horses the 1971 Act protected, the BLM’s estimate of “excess” horses was, well, outnumbered. It had to leave 50,000 animals on public lands after all.

Enter Senator James McClure (R-ID), head of the Committee for Energy and Natural Resources and for Interior and Insular Affairs. Himself a man of the West, and believing the horse to be a useless free-loader on public lands, he set out to help rid of them.

A stacked deck of officials was appointed to the BLM based on McClure’s ability to fund the agency, and—as some activists describe it—a “new kingdom emerged.” New trucks. New positions. And a new plan.

In 1975, determined to remove the wild horses but unable to capture them on horseback, the BLM amended the 1959 law (prohibiting motorized vehicles for captures), thus allowing them the use of aircraft, such as helicopters. It also couldn’t settle on whether the 1971 Act referred to the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the enforcement of the law. The lands—and the rules—were split: the BLM and the Forest Service came under Interior regulations; USFWS came under Agriculture. In short, the BLM has the power to use motorized vehicles to capture wild horses but it can’t kill them; Fish & Wildlife Service can kill horses; it just can’t use motorized vehicles to catch them.

In the summer of 1993, the BLM estimated the wild horse population in Nevada alone to be 24,000 horses. In order to force the government into conducting an independently derived count, activists logged more than 250 hours in the air, along with Michael Blake, author of Dances With Wolves, counting wild horses. They were determined to show that the BLM’s figures of “excess” horses were inaccurate at best. They found 300 skulls and only 8,300 free-roaming horses.

Today the BLM still estimates Nevada’s wild horse population to be roughly 24,000. It recommends the removal of more than 9,600 animals—1,300 more than horse defenders and Blake could even find on the entire Nevada desert.

By its most recent figures, the BLM estimates the total American wild horse population to be about 36,000 animals (of which 80 percent can be found on 70 percent of Nevada’s lands alone). Further, the BLM estimates an “appropriate management level” of 12,000, thereby suggesting the removal of some 24,000 horses throughout the entire West.

The Name and the Lands Game

Why is there such determination to rid our public lands of wild horses? For many—the livestock lobby, government agencies, and even environmental and wildlife protection organizations—the wild horse isn’t a wild animal at all, but a domesticated animal gone feral. This mongrel of a horse is not, they argue, native American wildlife. Considered an “exotic,” it competes for habitat with such species as elk and pronghorn antelope, and it decimates rangeland used by domestic livestock. It must be controlled, removed, and, if necessary, gunned down.

Wild horses are eyesores, habitat destroyers, and misfits. In cattlemen terms, they are “sonsofbitches;” in the BLM terms, they’re “shitters.” History, on the other hand, will bear them out as scapegoats.

But the wild horse removal is a tragically grim and deadly tale of systematic elimination. Those entrusted with the power to enforce the people’s law have been using it to the detriment of the horses—and doing so behind the people’s backs. In fact, the BLM refers to roundups as “gathers,” making them more palatable to public opinion.

Despite numerous attempts by vested interests to cripple the 1971 Wild Horse & Burro Act, not a single amendment has passed. Americans have made their intentions known over and over again: They want wild horses—these feral, exotic, “sonsofbitches”—left in the public domain. And they wrongly believe the government is granting their wish. The Act states, “It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death.” And yet, unabated, the BLM, the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service continue to engage in all those acts without reprimand.

When the law was passed in 1971, wild horses and burros were assigned to 305 Herd Management Areas (HMAs) and given some 80 million acres of public land in 16 states to call their home. Agency regulations—not legislative amendments—have stripped the horses of their homeland; they are now managed in 186 HMAs on less than 44 million acres in just ten states.

“This government is taking our horses without our knowledge,” Michael Blake told the press. “This government and the criminals it employs are taking wild horses when and where they please. They are taking them in the dark of night. The wild horses not going to the slaughterhouse floor—where their throats are cut for money—are travelling to points of incarceration.”

In fact, some 10,000 wild horses are currently awaiting their fate in holding facilities such as in Palamino Valley in Nevada, and Susanville in northern California. It’s costing the taxpayer $2.6 million a year to maintain them and another $11 million a year to allow the BLM to continue to round up, remove, and sell thousands more wild horses—and all of this without the permission of the law.

In most cases, horses are being removed from the public rangeland because they are monetarily valueless. One can easily adopt a wild horse for as little as $125 a head. The taxpayer cost of removing the animal from the wild is $1,125. Cattle ranchers pay a small grazing fee for each bovine on the range, but there is only so much land to go around, only so much that can be “rented.” Contrary to popular belief, wild horses are not destroying public lands where they’re found amidst 6 million cattle and sheep—it’s that no one pays to have them there. Or gets paid to keep them there. In fact, a 1990 Government Accounting Office report showed that livestock consumed 81 percent of Nevada’s forage in the four studied horse areas.

Here’s the catch: Under the Interior Department’s “multiple-use” regulations, only so many cattle, so much wildlife, and so many horses are allowed on federal lands. The wildlife is “paid for” by the American people, and, some would argue, by hunters’ licensing fees and hunter-run federal and state agencies. Cattle are “paid for” by the meat industry: $1.35 per head per month to graze the public domain. Horses, on the other hand, take up one “Animal Unit Month” (AUM), but no one is paying their way. Each horse removed from the West frees up another AUM for cattle or sheep or game antelope.

What about other forms of horse management, like immunocontraception or birth control? Great idea, say some, but not sound in practice. Where are you going to find the experts and the means to administer such a program? It works in isolated instances, but to manage the West’s horses with it? It’s cost-prohibitive, must be administered yearly, and it’s a great plan in theory, but in reality it’s just another sidetrack in the game.

Misfits Among Us

It can be said that no other animal in human history has had the impact on our lives as much as the horse. Millions have lost their lives in human wars. They have been used to transport us and our belongings across continents, to deliver our mail and network our civilizations, and they have plowed the fields that feed us. In these modern times, the horse is an entertainer, an athlete, an icon, and a friend—with more than 6 million of them in the care of American horse “lovers.”

We have long celebrated the horse, in art and mythology (the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the winged Pegasus, the Centaur) and in literature and symbolism (we still measure power in horses). But we have abandoned this animal of the plains. Though we owe them civilization as we know it, we no longer hear the wind in their wild ears; we cannot see the fire in their eyes. In return for the sacrifices of their ancestors, we have done little else but annihilate and degrade them. They are sonsofbitches. Shitters.

They are misfits.

And shame on us. Instead of demanding that Congress enforce the existing law that protects these animals in their homeland—a law brought about by the people, mind you—we sit idly by and accept the government’s figures and its biased portrayal of what is happening in the West. We prefer the taste of hamburger over the image of wild and free-running horses. And we line up at auction yards to adopt what are now fireless, broken-spirited wild ponies.

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