I am adamantly opposed to the killing of America's wild horses. The thought sickens me. I recognize that the problem has been allowed to become huge, seemingly ot of hand, with some 30,000 captive wild horses now being supported in holding facilities. Killing them off certainly offers the quickest and in some ways “cleanest” solution, but one that is abhorrent to me and many other Americans.

Let's think creatively. There may not be one single solution to so large a problem, but here are a number of suggestions for partial solutions, which, if enacted together, would take the pressure off the current crisis:

1. Add a checkbox to each taxpayer's 1040, next to "Do you want to contribute $3 to presidential election campaigns?" This box would ask if the taxpayer would like to contribute $1 for wild horses. This dollar could either come out of the taxpayer’s tax bill, or added to it. I would venture to guess that several million dollars could be raised in this way each year - not everyone will say yes, but many will. Money collected would be used to support captive wild horses in sanctuaries as an alternative to killing them.

2. Ask every zoo or similar city or regional park to take a 3-to-12-animal wild horse exhibit. Several thousand of the older, unadoptable horses could be re-homed in this way. By providing public access to these animals via the zoo and its educational & interpretive displays, public awareness and interest in wild horses would increase, likely resulting in an increase in adoptions over the long term.

3. Provide a tax credit or similar monetary incentive for people or corporations with large land holdings to allow wild horses to be released and maintained on some of their land - similar to adoption, only these older, unadoptable animals would simply be allowed to live out their lives, not tamed and trained. As has been demonstrated in an industrial park outside Reno, the presence of a small herd of wild horses adds greatly to the ambience and pleasantness of the working environment for many people.

None of the above constitutes a complete fix, but they would greatly ameliorate the current crisis and could be implemented relatively quickly.

But what about the future? What will prevent this same crisis from happening again in a few years?

Large scale emergency gathers remain – two years after reaching AML – the main tool in use for managing wild horses. This has to change!

More attention paid to creative & effective on-the-range management, rather than relying entirely on gathers, is critical to maintaining thriving, genetically viable populations in numbers compatible with their environment, and with animals being gathered only in numbers that can be accommodated by the adoption program.

1. Birth control must be applied on a broad scale – not with the goal of zeroing out a herd, (as many will fear) but rather of preserving herd health and genetic viability, and reducing the frequency of gathers to maintain AML. If each wild mare produced a foal only every three or four years instead of annually, the mare herself would be healthier, the herd would still enjoy a normal functional herd "lifestyle," and the herd would increase in size at a much slower rate, resulting in less frequent and smaller gathers.

2. BLM and the individual states where wild horses are managed, should cooperate with other ecological and economic development agencies to address the bizarre irony of removing wild horses from some of the most marginal lands on the planet and shipping them off and paying Midwestern farmers to care for them on some of the finest grasslands in the Midwest - so that a relative handful of cattlemen can use this extremely fragile, marginal desert land to raise cattle, who are best suited to the very grasslands where the horses are being shipped. I realize that the Cowboy and his lifestyle in the Great Basin is a sacred icon in our culture, but so too are wild horses. Perhaps the promotion of Eco-tourism, focusing on wild horse viewing, could help transition cowboys into something a little more ecologically and economically viable, in which the wild horse becomes his friend instead a nuisance or threat to be eradicated.

3. Recognizing that climatic change will continue to create extended droughts in the Great Basin areas, while human development and minerals exploration will increase pressures on those same lands, it seems inevitable that we will continue to lose wild horse habitat, even without the cooperation of BLM. Given that, I would like to see the establishment of several Wild Horse Historical Parks throughout the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Management areas, managed in cooperation with another agency, such as the National Park Service. Such areas would be chosen for the special qualities of the horses living there, general historical interest and natural beauty of the area.

Exact areas are beyond the scope of this letter – and I recognize that everyone has their favorite herd area, as I do – but the point would be to guarantee that at least some of the better wild horse-producing areas in each state would be permanently exempt from pressures to zero them out or reduce them to a point of genetic non-viability. Ranching within the boundaries would not necessarily be eliminated but would be designated "demonstration" activities, for the education and viewing pleasure of visitors, and conducted on a smaller scale than currently.

Meg Getty of Reno tried to develop a “National Wild Horse Center” in the Pine Nut Mountains outside Carson City a few years ago. This would have been an interpretive center for tourists, complete with dining and souvenir sales, combined with a small adoption center and ongoing training center. To me, this is the kind of creative thinking needed to maintain & improve public attitudes toward wild horses and burros, which ultimately would result in improved adoption rates.

4. Currently the “Mustang Challenge” and “Extreme Mustang Makeover” competitions conducted by the Mustang Heritage Foundation are excellent, creative programs working to improve adoptions rates by showing the public the value and trainability of the animals. This kind of thing needs to be supported and furthered.

5. Wild horses must be re-classified as Native Species. This is consistent with modern knowledge. Laws written back when horses were thought to be invasive, non-native species must be revised to reflect the now-known reality that horses are indeed native. Horses simply had the good sense to re-establish themselves in their original territory at no cost to the taxpayer (unlike condors, various fish species, bighorn sheep, etc)

6. Since pressure from cattlemen & hunters seems to be one of the major reasons for continuing large-scale gathers, provide a tax credit, rebate, or similar monetary incentive for cattlemen and bighorn sheep hunters to allow larger numbers of wild horses to share the range. We now pay farmers not to cultivate their acreage. Why not pay cattlemen not to raise cattle (or simply to tolerate and not interfere with the presence of horses)? Assess each bighorn sheep permit with extra dollars that would go to habitat improvement to benefit wild horses as well as game species.

7. Expand the Cottage Contractor program, revive and expand the "Wild Horse Workshops" that used to be offered once a year in cooperation with BLM & volunteer mentoring groups, and expand the "Trainer Incentive" program currently operated by the Mustang Heritage Foundation, to improve the adoptability of horses who are gathered from public lands.

All of the above ideas are aimed at preventing the numbers of animals in long-term holding to ever again reach the disaster level we are seeing today.

Sincerely,

Nancy Kerson

Active & Dedicated BLM Volunteer since 2001, working to promote adoptions through mentoring new adopters, performing compliance checks, bringing my own "ambassador" horses to adoptions, parades, fairs, and other events, halter training and finding homes for "reassignment" horses, producing events that promote adoption;

Writer and creator of www.mustangs4us.com, non-political, educational, informative & inspiring website to promote wild horse & burro adoption and public appreciation for wild horses & burros on the range;

Adopter/purchaser of 6 BLM wild horses and 2 Burros