Wild Mustangs

A front page article in Sunday 's New York Times was devoted to the plight of the wild mustangs. This is a topic about which the Fans of Barbaro become increasingly concerned, and I must state, up front, that I have absolutely no expertise in what seems to me to be a very complicated situation. I only present the subject here because I think it is exemplifies the increasingly precarious nature of our relationship with "wild" animals.

The issue in question is preservation of the wild mustang herd reported to number approximately 30,000. The question is one of diminishing resources--the herd is growing and competing for grazing land with cattle. The Federal Bureau of Land Management is the government agency charged with the protection of the herd and they have run an Adopt-A-Horse program for years in an effort to control its growth. The problem is that fewer and fewer horses are being adopted.

Nonetheless, the government still corrals wild mustangs into holdings pens where their existence is less threatened (so they claim) than on the plains, where drought threatens their food and water supplies. The problem has become one of numbers, specifically those related to the price tag associated with the care of a growing herd in and out of those corrals. "The bureau can't do a good job of taking care of horses on the range if they have to take care of all the horses off the range," notes Nathaniel Messer, a professor of veterinary science at the University of Missouri and a former member of the Federal Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Committee.

The option being floated about for culling the herd is euthanasia, a solution that many find impossible. "It's not acceptable to the American public," says Virginie L. Parent, a lawyer who is also director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. The wild mustang is so connected to the romantic images of the Wild West that it is hard for many to condone their reduction in a "non-natural" manner.

It is a difficult situation and one that appears to have no easy solution. There is no doubt that part of the stand-off between those that want to preserve the herd and those that want to cull it is related to the relative strength of the beef industry lobby compared to that of the "animal activists." In addition, death of any horse by human hands strikes fear in the hearts of those who work long and hard to prevent horses slaughter, especially since many of the wild mustangs were indeed slaughtered in the 1940s and 50s before the creation of the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act in 1971. Add to that the growing suspicion that many of the facts about the size of the wild herd may be inflated as are those about the increasing numbers of horses being "abandoned" since the slaughter plants closed in the U. S.

So there you have it: animal rights against the cattlemen (see previous post on Rodeo), ironically the same antagonists in the pro- and anti-horse slaughter debate. Who will prevail? Only time will tell but my bet is on the guys who wield the money.