By Matthew D. Taylor
In December 2009, the Bureau of Land Management began rounding up and
transporting wild horses off of a tract of federal land in Nevada. The
herd population had reached three times the maximum acceptable
management level for the area. The animals were herded by helicopter
into pens and then trucked off the range, to be wild no more.
Called the Calico Gather, it was the largest such roundup to date under the Obama administration and it generated a fair amount of attention.
The gather illustrates the paradox of land and species management in
the United States because, depending on your point of view, horses in
North America are either part of our national heritage, an invasive
species or a much-needed addition to this continent’s ecology.
The wild herds and the public rangelands that support them are managed by the BLM. Such management includes, if necessary, the removal of what federal law calls “excess animals.”
Under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, the BLM has
authority over the herds of horses and burros, collectively known as
wild equids, on public land in 10 Western states. The animals are
descendants of stock brought to this continent around 500 years ago by
Spanish conquistadors. Though not native, animal rights activists earned
the horses federal protection.
At present, BLM manages more than 38,000 wild equids and the population can double about every four years.
The BLM must determine when horse populations begin to negatively
impact the available forage and water resources, at which point the
agency must round up the excess animals, as it did in Calico. The
animals from defined herd management areas (HMAs) then go to holding
areas to await adoption
These nonnative wild equids are managed at a price. Horses rounded up
and waiting for adoption are corralled at a cost of approximately $36.9
million, or more than half of the program budget for 2010. Yet, the
reasons underlying this expenditure of effort and money are murky. In
addition, it would appear that the Act contradicts the federal invasive species program.
The BLM must take numerous competing interests into account when making
management decisions for the horses and burros. In the Act, Congress
declared wild horses to be “living symbols of the historic and pioneer
spirit of the West” and directs that the protected herds “be considered…
an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”
But the agency is in the position of simultaneously letting horses run
free and keeping them contained, being required by the Act to cull the
herd when conditions dictate. The dilemma of the horses arises from the
fact that wild equids are a managed resource. Michael J. Bean, in his
book “The Evolution of National Wildlife Law,” explains that an idea
such as “excess animals” results from “…ever-increasing conflicts among
competing users” of federal lands, a push and pull over who should use
the land and how it should be used.
Congress apparently recognized the dilemma. But if we are to manage
nonnative species as part of the natural ecosystems, then it should be
for a reason more ecologically solid than simply that they are living
symbols of the historic West.
In October 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced an
initiative to address some of the flaws in the existing wild horse and
burro program that promises cost-efficiency, better rangeland management
and humane care of the animals. Unfortunately, the initiative continues
old management methods, not considering another time-tested option:
predators.
If we look back 13,000 years, we find that equids were in fact a natural
part of the North American landscape. Back then, the continent was
richly diverse with large mammals, or megafauna, that rivaled Africa,
including camels, antelope, mammoths, giant sloths, lions, cheetahs and
sabre-toothed cats. And there were horses. Each species filled an
ecological niche in a landscape very much like that of today. Looked at
this way, horses and burros are not introduced species to be managed.
Rather, they are a return of the native.
The time has come to try for better. This year, the 40th anniversary of
the Act, would be the perfect opportunity to take the wild horse and
burro program to the next level. At its essence, this would involve two
things. First would be to scrap the protections for the wild equids as
“living symbols” of a historic past in favor of viewing them as vital
elements of a living present.
Wildlife ecologist Craig Downer has identified
the ecological benefits of wild equids in North America. Contrary to
the BLM’s argument that the horses contribute to rangeland destruction,
Downer points out that horses and burros actually live mutualistically
with native bighorn sheep, goats and deer. Horses like to eat grass,
young foliage, and fruit, and since their digestion is less efficient
than ruminants, they are effective at dispersing seeds and fertilizing
soil. They find water in dry weather and break ice in the cold. If left
to run free over the land, horses provide a net gain in habitat quality.
Second, the BLM should stop managing the herds and let nature take care
of nature as has been done for millennia. Healthy horse and burro herds
require healthy predators, and we have two species that can do the job: the gray wolf and the mountain lion.
Predation is not only cost-effective but also requires little, if any,
management. What it does require is the acceptance of the predators in
the landscape. That of course will meet with opposition, and that is
where politics must play a role.
Is this a radical idea? Not really. The late Prof. Paul Martin,
in his book “Twilight of the Mammoths,” takes a position that makes
mine seem tame. Convinced that the current state of nature in North America is missing several key megafauna species due to the actions of
humankind, he was a proponent of the concept of “rewilding,” the idea
that we have a duty to restore the landscape. He imagined seeing
elephants reintroduced to the continent! Others share
this vision. He understood that this would be a mammoth task (pun
intended), and saw hope with other species. “Wild equid preserves in the
United States [under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act] in
fact represent an unintended restarting of equid evolution on the
continent of equid origin,” he wrote.
The BLM dismisses the assertion as a myth,
claiming that “today’s wild horses cannot be considered ‘native’ in any
meaningful historical sense.” Martin argued that such thinking narrows
our vision. It “locks us into a few hundred years of ecological time,
blocking out not only the largest and most representative animals of the
continent, but those with the longest tenure.”
Viewed from the perspective of a wolf pack or a mountain lion, a
healthy, growing population of horses and burros is not “excess.”
Rather, it is bounty. Let us step back from the artificial constraints
of wildlife management and allow nature to do what it does best, and
step in only when absolutely necessary. It would be a gift to our
future.
Matthew D. Taylor is a writer and analyst with a concern for natural resources law and policy. He is no stranger to horses, having spent a year once shoveling out stables in Vermont. Raised in California, he now lives in Rockville, Maryland.
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