Kafer: Colorado must wisely manage wild mustang herds

Mustangs inhabit a treasured spot successful the hearts and past of the west. Indeed, they are beauteous to behold. We person a work to guarantee the wellness and wellbeing of free-roaming horses and autochthonal taxon specified arsenic mule deer, antelope, and sage grouse that unrecorded connected nationalist lands successful occidental Colorado.

And that means keeping equine herd populations astatine a level the precocious godforsaken ecosystem tin sustain.

Currently, determination are 746 horses surviving successful the 250-square-mile Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area successful northwestern Colorado. Another 150 to 200 horses unrecorded beyond the fence. The herd absorption country tin sustain, astatine most, 362 horses.

After years of overgrazing by horses and drought, the vegetation is decimated, Chris Maestas astatine the Bureau of Land Management Northwest Colorado District Office told me. There was truthful small moisture this summertime that h2o had to beryllium brought successful for the horses. This winter, horses and different animals volition beryllium astatine superior hazard of starvation.

To guarantee this doesn’t happen, the BLM began the process of removing 783 horses this week. Approximately 50 horses volition beryllium returned aft mares are treated with contraception. In what is called a “gather,” horses are driven into corrals with helicopters. Captured mustangs volition beryllium disposable to the nationalist to adopt. Although these horses person lived freely their full lives, they are domesticated animals and tin beryllium trained similar immoderate different horse. Animals that are unadoptable are sent to Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas rangeland to unrecorded retired their lives.

Critics of the program judge it is unnecessary. They reason that these BLM gathers favour cattle grazing connected nationalist land. According to Maestas, determination are nary permitted cattle successful the Sand Wash Basin area. Sheep traverse the country connected their mode betwixt summertime and wintertime feeding grounds. Permitted livestock lone consumes 4% of the h2o and vegetation successful the HMA portion horses devour 95%.

It’s important to enactment that domesticated horses are nary much earthy to the country than sheep. Mustangs are not chaotic successful the consciousness that moose and antelope are wild; they are the progeny of European horses that escaped their owners’ reins. Wild horses, on with camels, dire wolves, crushed sloths, and mammoths became extinct successful the Americas astir 12,000 years ago. Some 6,000 years ago, humans successful occidental Asia archetypal domesticated horses. Modern horses were reintroduced to the Americas erstwhile Europeans came ashore successful the precocious 15th Century.

Unlike Pleistocene horses, modern horses person lone 1 predator, the upland lion; equine populations tin treble each 5 years. Prior to the transition of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act successful 1971, feral horses and burros were not federally protected and could beryllium captured oregon hunted. After the transition of the law, national Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management agencies were charged with managing equine populations successful equilibrium with autochthonal wildlife and different livestock. Forest Service and BLM lands are governed by a multiple-use mandate that requires the agencies negociate galore activities connected these nationalist lands “including but not constricted to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and the extortion of earthy scenic, scientific, archaeological, biology and humanities values” according to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

To support a steadfast ecosystem and the wellness of chaotic and domesticated animals, BLM and the Forest Service indispensable actively negociate equine herds. They bash this by inoculating mares with Porcine Zona Pellucida which prevents gestation for a twelvemonth and capturing horses. Contraception unsocial volition not bring the Sand Wash Basin herd to a sustainable level. Winter is coming. For the involvement of horses, autochthonal animals, and the ecosystem, the stitchery indispensable proceed until a sustainable fig of horses is achieved.

Krista L. Kafer is simply a play Denver Post columnist. Follow her connected Twitter: @kristakafer.

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