Blog-Wa, the Dog-Wa Blog

Why don’t I ever hear about this stuff in the American news?  I live in the American west.

But the Times of London reports that at the beginning of September,  the US of Bureau of Land Management began to round up wild horses using a helicopter in an effort to reduce their numbers.

It is part of a scheme that has resulted in 33,000 mustangs being caught, with only about 26,000 left to roam.

Land officials say that if the herd is not managed its population would double or triple within a few years, resulting in many of the horses starving to death.

Planning documents obtained by a request under the Freedom of Information Act suggest that a mass cull has been considered, including a proposal to offer vets counseling to cope with the number of animals that would have to be put down.

But of course there’s another side of the story:

Wild mustangs were protected by a 1971 Act of Congress which declared that wild horses be “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West”.

“Since wild horses were protected by Congress in 1971, the Land Bureau has taken away 19.4 million acres of their land,” according to Ginger Kathrens, a wildlife film-maker.

So it’s not surprising that the horses have quickly outrun the resources that have been left to them.

Here’s a bit of Ginger Kathrens’ work from the PBS Show “Nature”.