Calling Madeline Pickens

Madeline Pickens where are you? Federal land managers have announced plans to conduct emergency roundups of almost 2,000 more mustangs in Nevada because of "extremely limited forage."

The government pens are already overflowing with horses that have previously been rounded up and have yet to be adopted. This new roundup will just exacerbate the problem of keeping almost as many wild mustangs in "holding" pens as there are in the wild. In recent months, the Bureau of Land Management officials suggested euthanasia as as way of controlling the population.

"We shouldn't be rounding up any more horses until we resolve the issue of tens of thousands of horses that already have been rounded up and are in holding pens," said Matt Rossell, outreach coordinator for In Defense of Animals, a San Rafael, CA based animal rights group.

According to Chris Heyde, deputy director of government and legal affairs for the Animal Welfare Institute, based in Washington, D. C., there is plenty of food to go around in the horses' natural habitat. "They're not starving, and they're using it as an excuse to remove horses," he said. "They can survive if we keep our little fingers off them."

It is the age old problem of competition for grazing rights between wild horses and livestock. Horse advocates have suggested solutions like reduced livestock grazing, stepping up birth control and removing fences to provide better access to water.

Since Madeline Pickens announced her plans to shelter 30,000 wild mustangs on one million acres--yet to be determined--the Bureau of Land Management has backed off its threats to cull the herd by euthanasia. Last month they announced it will round up fewer horses and try to shuffle funds within the agency to control the rising costs of feeding and caring for the animals.

Heyde is hopeful that things will change in the Obama administration and there will be less need to round up any horses. Hopefully he is right and hopefully Pickens will get her sanctuary land soon so that the horses can be returned to their natural environment.