Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 24 July 2018
Drought forces emergency measures for U.S. West's wild horses

By JULIAN HATTEM Cindy Wright, co-founder
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Harsh of Colorado conserva-
drought conditions in parts tion group Wild Horse War-
of the American West are riors for Sand Wash Basin.
pushing wild horses to the Horses in the area stalk
brink and spurring extreme the dry earth with their ribs
measures to protect them. exposed, desperate for a
For what they say is the first drop, she said.
time, volunteer groups in Wild horse advocates have
Arizona and Colorado are balked at the Bureau of
hauling thousands of gal- Land Management's insis-
lons of water and truck- tence that wild horse pop-
loads of food to remote ulations are too high. Crit-
grazing grounds where ics say the agency is using
springs have run dry and dry conditions as a smoke
vegetation has disap- screen to shrink horse pop-
peared. ulations in response to pres-
Federal land managers sure from ranchers whose
also have begun emergen- livestock compete with the
cy roundups in desert areas horses for grazing land.
of Utah and Nevada. "I do have a concern about
"We've never seen it like the larger numbers that
this," said Simone Neth- they're pulling off, and then
erlands, president of the a bigger concern about
Arizona-based Salt River the BLM under this admin-
Wild Horse Management istration using all kinds of
Group. In May, dozens of excuses to pull off horses,"
horses were found dead on said Suzanne Roy, execu-
the edge of a dried-up wa- tive director of the Ameri-
tering hole in northeastern can Wild Horse Campaign,
Arizona. an advocacy organization.
As spring turned to summer, The agency is prohibited
drought conditions turned In this June 29, 2018 photo, wild horses drink from a watering hole outside Salt Lake City. from euthanizing the wild
from bad to worse, Nether- Associated Press horses it rounds up, though
lands said. President Donald Trump
Parts of Utah, Colorado, Management — which approximately 670. The op- Lesieutre said. has proposed allowing the
Arizona and New Mexico oversees vast expanses eration is expected to take Volunteers are also taking animals to be killed or sold
are under the most se- of public land, mostly in several weeks. action. for slaughter.
vere category of drought, the West — says the prob- Once the horses are round- Since late spring, Nether- Activists in Nevada held a
though extreme conditions lem facing wild horses ed up, the government lands's Salt River group has rally last Tuesday at the bu-
are present from California stems from overpopula- gives them veterinary treat- hauled hay to a dozen lo- reau's state headquarters in
to Missouri, government tion aggravated by se- ment and offers them for cations outside Phoenix to Reno to protest a planned
analysts say. Parts of the re- vere drought. The region sale or adoption. Those feed a herd of starving wild roundup later this year.
gion have witnessed some is home to roughly 67,000 that aren't sold or adopted horses. Critics want the govern-
of the driest conditions on wild horses. are transferred to privately Roughly 200 miles (320 ki- ment to instead use birth
record, amid a cycle of "You're always going to contracted corrals and lometers) north, a couple control to manage wild
high temperatures and low have drought issues. That's pastures for the long term. near Gray Mountain, on the horse populations.
snowmelt that appears to a common thing out on A similar emergency round- Navajo Nation, have spear- The bureau says the fertility
be getting worse, National the range," agency spokes- up began this month in cen- headed an effort to leave treatment, which must be
Weather Service hydrolo- man Jason Lutterman said. tral Nevada, where officials water and food for horses administered yearly and
gist Brian McInerney said. "What really exacerbates said some horses in a herd they say would die without fired from a dart gun at
The dry conditions have things is when we're al- of 2,100 could die from lack human intervention. close range, is too difficult
fed wildfires that have de- ready over population, of water in coming weeks. In western Colorado, volun- for use except in certain
stroyed hundreds of build- because then you already The operation was quickly teers say they're preparing cases where herds are easy
ings across the West. This have resource issues." halted, ironically because to bring up to 5,000 gallons to approach and have
month, a firefighter was The agency's emergency of extreme rain, but will like- (18,900 liters) of water per markings that make horses
killed battling a blaze near roundup in western Utah ly resume."The ground's so day to a herd of 750 des- distinguishable from one
California's Yosemite Na- began a week ago, aiming dry it's not absorbing that perate horses. another.
tional Park. to remove roughly 250 wild water. It's running off," bu- "Springs are drying up that Whatever the long-term
The federal Bureau of Land horses from a population of reau spokeswoman Jenny have never dried up," said answer, volunteers say their
efforts can't go on forever.
Trucking in water and food
could cost several thou-
sand dollars per month and
make horses overly depen-
dent on humans, they said.
"If we don't have a very
good fall with a lot of rain
— and it's also warm so that
our fall vegetation grows —
we're going to lose horses,"
Wright said.q