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Last roundup for America’s wild horses?
By Kim Campbell Thornton
July 17, 2008
The June 28 issue of The Economist devotes a page to a review of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West by Deanne Stillman. Not surprisingly, given the government’s attitude toward anything that doesn’t make money for it, the outlook for wild horses is grim. We’ve gone from 18th century maps with sections of Texas marked Vast Herds of Wild Horses to a piddling 25,000 left in their natural habitat, mainly in Nevada. Thanks to cattle ranchers who view them as pests and the ranchers’ friends in Congress, such as former senator Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican and, to be fair and balanced, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, they have fewer protections now than in 1971 when Richard Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (one of two things I give him credit for, the other being the banning of the use of compound 1080, a poison used to kill coyotes). The nameless reviewer writes:
Around 30,000 mustangs are now kept in government holding facilities–more than those that still roam free. Some are due to be sold for adoption as “living legends,” some will be sent to long-term pastures in Kansas and Oklahoma, where cattle ranchers are paid by taxpayers to keep them. Thanks to Mr. Burns, approximately 8,000 will end up at the slaughterhouse. A sad end for the animal that was revered by Native Americans. “Horses are gods,” a Hidatsa elder once said. “Treat them well. They have minds and understand.”
What could be a better bookend to a post on this sad state of equine affairs than, yes, a deep sigh regarding the sad state of canine affairs. I speak, of course, of the rise of celebridogs. Gina referenced America’s Greatest Dog this morning, and not long afterward a colleague sent me a blog post about it by Poughkeepsie Journal reporter Michael Woyton. He is not amused. My favorite part of his review:
During the first episode, we met all the contestants vying for the title and $250,000–from skateboarding Bulldog Tillman and his human Ron to Bella Starlet, a mutt, who her human Beth Joy likes to call the ‘Pamela Anderson of dogs.’ Ugh.
I wouldn’t compare my dog to Pamela Anderson even if it meant I would get $250,000. Some things come at too high a cost.
Then I ran across this in the LA Times (yes, I am procrastinating instead of writing an article). LAT blogger Monica Corcoran writes:
Are we that desperate to find yet another category of celebrity to worship that we will report on the dumps and hairballs of their pets?
Apparently, we are, given the existence of a web site called Celebrity Dog Watcher. Back in the day, one of my first acts after being promoted to the editorship of Dog Fancy was to kill the column Dogs of the Stars. I guess that wasn’t enough to drive a stake into the heart of celebrity dog reporting. Too bad.
To finish my rant, I just want to say–and I speak as someone whose dogs are fed very, very well–that things have gone too far when pet food shelves contain cans of dessert. I was okay with the fake ice cream–that’s gotta be better than giving them the real thing–but canned cobblers and crumbles? That’s just silly. Let them eat fruit!
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I am not a horse person anymore, and I expect to be flamed for this, but there are not enough qualified homes with skilled horse people to adopt all the wild mustangs out there and bring them along. As it is with dogs and human stupidity, so it is with horses. While euthanasia is not the solution I want to see, neither is their remaining penned for life on a BLM lot somewhere. Or trying to subsist on over grazed land. What I suspect is happening, is the the Federal Government in the guise of the BLM, wants to open more grazing rights for cattle, it being hard times and all, and therefore the quasi-protected horses have to go!
A better solution might be using our tax dollars to catch, speuter and release wild horses back to the range on an as needed basis when the population in specific ranges gets too large for that area to support.
By the way, if you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary online or your library does, go look up the word “spay”. It’s been around for millenia, and men did it for a living, going from manor village to manor village, inserting hot iron into mares, hogs and possibly even dogs.
As for The Greatest American Dog, Mr. Woyton expresses it beautifully! Thank you for that link. Apparently, CBS approached real live dog trainers to appear on the show. You know, people who do this for a living, and surprise! Not one of them bit!!!!! Hence the assortment of training incompetency CBS is touting, trying to drive up ratings.
Comment by Anne T. — July 17, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Anne, let’s be accurate with the terms here. Killing for population control is “killing,” not “euthanasia.”
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 17, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
You are right, and I am wrong with the terminology. Apologies. Killing/euthanasia and any other word doesn’t disguise the brutality of it all, or the fact it isn’t a real solution to the problem, as has been proven time and again with feral cats and with shelters who have chosen this route.
Comment by Anne T. — July 17, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
well, let’s be accurate with words.
These horses are “feral”, not “wild.”
They are not native to NA since the last ice age and that means something in terms of how they survive and their impact on grasslands.
You may or may not think that is relevant to how we treat these horses, but it is the truth.
There are so many complicated issues here, from competition for rangeland (why should cattle be allowed all the grass) to what foods we eat (why not eat horses if we eat cows?).
The few dozen words of Kim’s post don’t begin to address them.
Personally, I don’t think feral horses are vermin, but I don’t think they are sacred either.
Comment by EmilyS — July 17, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Yes, but the point could be made that the origins of today’s equines occurred here in NA. So although Equis callabus is not native, it could be argued that it’s ancestors were.
No, wild horses aren’t vermin, but if their existence interferes with the raising of domesticated bovines for meat, then the Beef Industry and it’s lobbyists will pull out all the stops to make them so. That was my point. Not semantics. A dead horse by any other name or means is a dead horse.
There is also the issue of the ability of the environment to support horses. If there are too many, then the environment that supports them erodes. There needs to be management tools in place to support a core group of horses. That was also my point.
And there is the political movitation behind the culling. I saw recently where there is a move afoot to request opening more Federal lands to cattle grazing. Concurrently, there is also a move to kill wild horses. A coincidence?
I don’t think so.
Comment by Anne T. — July 17, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
My understanding is that there is not a population problem or environmental problem. It’s just that the BLM are misguided, or lying.
The Ginger Kathrens documentary on Cloud in the Pryor herd shows quite healthy horses.
Additionally, there is evidence that the BLM is rounding up and keeping younger animals and sending the older ones less likely to survive back out onto the range.
Yes it’s complicated but that does not mean balance cannot be sought and found. At a minimum, the cruel methods BLM uses in their round ups and holding facilities are unconscionable.
Comment by HelenC — July 17, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
Yeah, the BLM is not doing its job and hasn’t been for quite a while. It wouldn’t be that hard to vasectomise (rather than normal geld - leave herd dynamics intact) a majority of the stallions out on the ranges, thus keeping populations under control. It also shouldn’t be that hard to just say no to more cattle grazing!
Comment by Lady Copper — July 18, 2008 @ 10:24 am
I doubt that vasectomizing stallions would do much for population control. A mare will continue to cycle until a breeding takes, so even if the stallion of a harem is sterile, eventually someone with some live swimmers is going to get in there. (Mares “cheat” or go off with some other stallion.) Sterilizing males in non-monogamous species is ineffective birth control. (Parallel situation — five years ago, in parts of PA, the male:female ratio among whitetail deer was 1:12 or worse. Normal ratio is close to 1:1. Yet just about every doe got bred every rut. They would continue to cycle until they got pregnant. There were a lot of late-born fawns who entered their first fall too small to have a good chance at living through winter as a result, but shooting bucks was absolutely useless as population control. It wasn’t until the regulations were changed to encourage more doe hunting and less antler-mania that the ratio started getting more normal, and the population started coming back into balance with the carrying capacity of the land.)
I don’t pretend to have a solution for wild horses. I was weaned on Margerite Henry’s book about Wild Horse Annie (and Will James’ cowboy books and all manner of other horse literature.) I cannot even fool myself that I am unbiased here. But I have trouble believing that the gubbmint knows best, and is taking the interests of the horses and those who value their historical role into proper accounting here.
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 18, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
I’m just trying to picture field medicine vasectomies for wild stallions … could be very nasty.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 18, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Hey - just pull out your rusty - er - TRUSTY old White’s Emasculator and have at it! Yee-HA!
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_de.....b0d0204ae5
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 18, 2008 @ 3:53 pm