Friday, July 15, 2011

Let Wild Horses Be Wild

The case against seeing -- and managing -- animals as "living symbols" of the historic West. Let nature take care of nature.

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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