The BLM claims that the current population of 94,000 wild equines on 26 million acres of public land should be reduced to 27,000, yet millions of domestic livestock graze the same rangeland.
Cattle grazing in the Mojave Desert, California. Photo by
George Wuerthner
Letter to the Editor | Opinion Page | The Washington Post | 6th July 2021
Kathleen Parker’s June 27th Sunday Opinion column, “We have too many
wild horses. But this is not the way.,” brilliantly highlighted one
aspect of heritage animals’ mistreatment by the Bureau of Land
Management. Unfortunately, it also perpetuated the myth underlying
the gruesome policy of rounding up, warehousing and mindlessly
disposing of captive wild horses and burros.
The BLM claims that the current population of 94,000 wild equines on
26 million acres of public land should be reduced to 27,000, yet
millions of domestic livestock graze the same rangeland.
This
radically low goal is nearly the same number that prompted Congress
to pass the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act to keep
wild horses and burros from “fast disappearing from the West.”
The National Academy of Sciences found the bureau’s “appropriate
management level” of 27,000 to be arbitrary, rigid and not
science-based. This contrived population target allocates the lion’s
share of forage to livestock, which, unlike wild equines, is not
federally protected.
Isn’t it time to put humane policies and real science into action?