Critics at Nevada hearing oppose plan to round up wild horses in West, ship to East

Feds hold hearing on roundup of wild horses

SPARKS, Nev. — A federal advisory panel was trying to decide Monday whether to back a proposal to relocate thousands of wild horses from Western rangeland because the government believes they are suffering from a lack of forage in their current habitat.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management has decided as many as 25,000 of the horses need to be removed from public lands, an alternative to euthanizing some of the mustangs to control their growing population.

Critics argue that the motivation for ongoing roundups of the mustangs — and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s proposal to ship thousands to preserves in the Midwest and East — is pressure from ranchers who don’t like the horses competing with their cattle for food.

Dozens of wild horse advocates who want the animals to remain in their natural habitat were planning to testify before the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board during a daylong hearing at a hotel-casino in Sparks near Reno.

Among them are leaders of the California-based Defense of Animals, which filed a lawsuit last month to try to block a proposed roundup of about 2,700 horses in northern Nevada before the end of the year. Several celebrities have lined up against the government, including Ed Harris, Sheryl Crow and Bill Maher.

The suit argues that the horses are an integral part of the natural ecosystem and that the use of helicopters in massive roundups is illegal because they “traumatize, injure and kill” some of the animals.

The advisory board was scheduled to vote on Salazar’s proposal late Monday afternoon, but BLM spokeswoman Sally Spencer said it was possible board members would consider alternatives or not take any action.

Monday was the day the BLM originally had planned to round up the 2,700 animals from an area near the Black Rock Desert 100 miles north of Reno. But a week ago, the BLM decided to postpone the gather until at least Dec. 28 to better review more than 8,000 public comments about the plan.

The BLM estimates 36,600 mustangs live on public lands around the West, about half in Nevada. It wants to reduce the population to what it considers an “appropriate management level” of 26,600.

In 2008, the BLM said it would have to consider euthanizing wild horses because of escalating numbers and costs of caring for them in long-term holding facilities. But earlier this year, Salazar said the agency instead would pursue shipping horses to pastures and holding corrals in the Midwest and East.