06 July 2010
Proposed roundup of wild horses criticized
Published Monday, Jul. 05, 2010
SUSANVILLE – Sometime next month, if all goes as planned, helicopters will swoop down over a remote area of Northern California scrubland and forest, chasing more than 2,000 wild horses and burros into holding pens.
From the targeted areas northeast of Susanville, the horses and burros will be taken to enclosures near the Lassen County community of Litchfield that consist of dirt and rock.
Some of the animals – about 455 horses and 72 burros – will be returned to the wild to form what officials consider an appropriately sized herd for the land.
The rest, about 1,855 horses and 235 burros, will be adopted or, more likely, shipped to long-term holding facilities in the Midwest, where more than 35,000 other horses rounded up from public lands over the years already are held.
The "gather," as the roundup at the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area is called, is designed to ensure that "excess" horses and burros are humanely removed to protect both the animals and the land, federal officials say.
But, as has been the case with past roundups, the Twin Peaks plan is generating fervent opposition.
When Bureau of Land Management officials asked for public comment on their plan, they received about 2,300 "requesting that the gather not be held and that all horses and burros be managed on the range," a BLM environmental assessment notes.
The agency received 15 from people or groups supporting the roundup.
"I just think it's terrible," said Linda Hay, a 60-year resident of Susanville who has been trekking into the backcountry for decades to gaze at the mustangs, mares and foals. "I think they do need to be controlled some way, but I don't think this is the way to do it."
Such opinions are hardly surprising in a community where ranches and horses are common sights, and the local newspaper, the Lassen County Times, features a montage of five horses on its front page every day.
The BLM insists it takes public sentiment into account, and is holding a public meeting Tuesday in Susanville to discuss the plan to use helicopters in the roundup.
"It's our responsibility under the law to remove excess animals when we've determined that a population has exceeded the appropriate management level," BLM spokesman Jeff Fontana said. "Our whole intent here is to manage for healthy land and healthy wild horses.
"We don't want to wait to gather until a resource has deteriorated."
A question of numbers
The roundup stems from a landmark 1971 law designed to protect the wild horses that roam 10 Western states. The law calls for the federal government to safeguard the herds, as well as the land and natural resources. When the herd gets too big, BLM argues, the land can't sustain the horses and the natural resources are degraded.
But some groups say the BLM's tactics are outdated, unscientific and in need of a wholesale overhaul by the Obama administration.
At the heart of the dispute is the question of how many horses roam the 800,000-acre Twin Peaks area. The herd management area is 55 miles long and 35 miles wide and straddles the California-Nevada state line.
The BLM estimates there are 2,303 horses and 282 burros, five times what the agency considers "appropriate."
Animal rights advocates question whether there really are that many horses and burros out there, and say the estimates are largely based on BLM extrapolations of breeding patterns that assume the herd increases 20 percent a year.
"BLM isn't actually managing the horses with any scientific methods," said Jesica Johnston, a graduate student at California State University, Sacramento, who has studied the herd and advocates changes in the nation's policy. "They have some arbitrary numbers they're trying to achieve."
Johnston has made numerous trips to the area to scout the bands of horses and says reducing the total herd to less than 500 for the sprawling range makes no sense.
Even if the herd is as large as assumed, horse advocates say, there is ample land to support the horses and burros. They contend any threat to the riparian areas and American Indian sites comes from the thousands of cattle grazing on the land with the BLM's consent.
"Livestock gets the lion's share of the resources," said Deniz Bolbol, spokeswoman for the nonprofit group In Defense of Animals, which has threatened a federal lawsuit over the roundup.
Coexisting with cattle
The conflict between horses and cattle stretches back decades. The federal government allows ranchers to graze cattle on the land for a fee, an arrangement BLM's critics denounce as "welfare ranching."
The horses are descendants of the mounts of Spanish explorers and cavalry dating back hundreds of years, but they face removal rather than the livestock, critics note.
Last week, the cattle were a visible presence on the rangeland. They could be seen gathering near water, tramping through grass and grazing.
Detecting the wild horses and burros is not as easy. Small bands can occasionally be spotted on hillsides.
BLM's critics say there is no evidence the herds are causing harm to the area's natural resources. Even the timing of the proposed gather, they say, is aimed at pleasing a constituency other than the horses.
Typically, such a roundup would occur in the fall, when the cooler temperatures cause less stress for the horses as they are chased miles toward capture areas.
But this gather likely will begin in mid-August and continue through September because the BLM does not want to interfere with the mule deer hunting season.
Hunters prize the deer tags for the area and often wait years to obtain them, the BLM environmental assessment said, and "past experiences with helicopter gathers during this prime hunting season have shown a significant conflict between the two activities."
So, barring a last-minute change or court order, the gather likely will move forward and add to the federal government's stockpile of once-wild horses.
Horse advocates say the nearly 36,000 horses now in government facilities outnumber the 33,000 wild horses still roaming the West. They liken the holding facilities to "feed lots" where bands of horses that in the wild would roam together as family units are separated.
"Americans have said time and again that they value having wild horses on these lands, and Congress passed the act in 1971 to protect these animals, that freedom and the Wild West and our heritage …" Bolbol said.
"When you round up these horses and move them from the public lands, you're shattering the social structure. You're taking away one of the key components that makes them who they are. You're taking away their freedom and putting them in zoo-like conditions."
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