Culling America's Wild Mustang herds

[OCBuckWife]

After surviving the ice age, the industrial revolution and the slaughterhouse, America's wild horse population is facing a new threat: the U.S. government. The Bureau of Land Management announced this week that it is considering euthanizing wild horses to curb the population on the range and in federal holding facilities. There are an estimated 33,000 wild horses living in 10 Western states, and another 30,000 living in government corrals. The BLM is billing euthanasia as a way to cope with looming budget cuts, while still maintaining the mustang as a living symbol of the American West. But critics say that the herds have already been thinned to the edge of extinction with periodic roundups and auctions. A century ago, there were around 2 million wild horses roaming the West; now the BLM wants to cut that population to 27,000. In "Mustang," her new history of the wild horse in North America, Deanne Stillman explores why America is destroying the horse it rode in on. She spoke about the government's new proposal with NEWSWEEK's Tony Dokoupil. Excerpts:

Full article here

BLM site for wild mustang and burro act information here.

Showoff event to try to interest more people into adopting a wild mustang, eventually. The competition gives 100 trainers 100 days to train 100 wild mustangs and show them.

I lived a long time in Nevada, riding my school bus almost every day past an area known for its small wild mustang herd. I remember looking for them each and every day and being so excited every time I was able to catch a glimpse of them in the small slice of their territory I rode past.
I am sick to my stomach to think that those horses are on a possible chopping block as a solution to an overgrazing problem that may not even be true.

I know it's an older subject, but hey, I don't read Newsweek much.

Here's another article, from 2007.

 

[Jake]

If the concern is overpopulation why not just have Mustang Season every year like we do with other wild critters? If we can hunt moose in Maine I think we can drag a few mustangs out of the wild west every year, without rendering them extinct.

 

[Best Buckeye]

If the concern is overpopulation why not just have Mustang Season every year like we do with other wild critters? If we can hunt moose in Maine I think we can drag a few mustangs out of the wild west every year, without rendering them extinct.

Don't let Thump get involved, we would be overrun with horses in no time.

 

[OCBuckWife]

If the concern is overpopulation why not just have Mustang Season every year like we do with other wild critters? If we can hunt moose in Maine I think we can drag a few mustangs out of the wild west every year, without rendering them extinct.

From reading up about it a bit , the numbers in the wild are not out of proportion, less than 30K throughout the US but there are an equal amount kept in captivity by BLM and those are costing loads of money. Plus, the ones running wild are turning into a political hot button by groups that want land for other use. Age old story I guess.

We used to have horse meat processing plants (horse meat was a popular item in the US for quite awhile)and we exported the meat but laws changed and of those plants, most closed. Now the horses are semi-illegally sent south for processing. It's a strange tangled mess as is anything of political import. I am just emotionally pained by the idea of the amazing animals I used to watch pound through the desert, manes and tails flying in the wind created by the speed of their own travel, being shot. A bit of my childhood being shot, metaphorically.

 

[Muck]

After surviving the ice age, the industrial revolution and the slaughterhouse, America's wild horse population is facing a new threat: the U.S. government.

Nice to know that Newsweek believes horses in North America survived the last ice age.

FWIW I bought a mare and foal from BLM as a gift for my X's dad.

$250 (plus taxes blah blah blah) was a pretty damn good price for two animals.

 

[scooter1369]

With so few in the wild, why are these animals not considered "threatened"?

 

[jimotis4heisman]

$250 for hay burners. we need to stop referring to them as horses, they are hay burners. also, this is part of a conservation movement i do not understand. these are wild animals. why do wild animals need shelters? they are wild, by their very nature they live and die. let them be.

 

[OCBuckWife]

Nice to know that Newsweek believes horses in North America survived the last ice age.

FWIW I bought a mare and foal from BLM as a gift for my X's dad.

$250 (plus taxes blah blah blah) was a pretty damn good price for two animals.

Yep, they can be bought for pretty darn cheap, it's the upkeep that kills. :(

 

[AKAK]

This steak still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it.

-Al Czervik.