Thursday, April 23, 1998 | 5:11 a.m.
The proposals are the result of eight meetings held around the state over the past year.
During a meeting on Wednesday, Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, said the idea is to develop a list of changes in how wild horses and burros are managed in Nevada for the Bureau of Land Management and Congress.
"Management of horses on the public range has just been mishandled by the bureau," Carpenter said. "They're supposed to be managed to a specific level."
Instead of controlling the herds, he said BLM has let them get out of hand to the detriment of the range and herds themselves.
"I don't think there's anybody that thinks they all should be slaughtered," he said. "But they've got to be controlled."
Consultant Terry Retterer told the group nearly all the proposed changes in how wild horses are managed under the strict federal Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act can be accomplished without changing the law.
Many recommend studies to determine the impact of horses on public land. Wild horse supporters and ranchers have long disagreed on whether the wild animals or cattle and sheep cause most of the damage to open rangeland.
Questions also have been raised about the damage caused by increasing numbers using the land for recreation.
But even BLM officials, who oversee the herds across the West,have agreed that many of the herds and much of the range is in bad shape and that something must be done.
Retterer said the goal now is to condense the large number of proposals into practical recommendations.
Those, he said, will be presented to state Conservation and Natural Resources Director Pete Morros, who will take a final list to the 1999 Nevada Legislature.
But Retterer and Carpenter said many recommendations may amount to nothing more than formal requests to the BLM, since wild horses fall mostly under the federal government's domain.
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