Mustangs’ impact on Red Rock focus of study

Sonya Padgett

Friday, July 2, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

Erik Beever, a doctoral candidate at the University of Nevada, Reno, is two years into a five-year study on the effect that Nevada's wild horses have on the lands they roam.

He hopes his research will ultimately be used as a definitive guide to wild horse management, a topic that has been debated for years and which was resurrected Thursday when the Bureau of Land Management released a draft of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area land management plan.

Four of the plan's five proposals call for removal or restriction of the 71 feral mustangs that roam the few thousand acres of Red Rock north and south of State Route 160.

The BLM suspects the horses have damaged vegetation around water springs. But David and Norma Tattam, husband and wife volunteers with the local chapter of the National Wild Horse and Burro Association, say there is no clear evidence of that problem.

The 30-year-old association has about 300 volunteers and assists the BLM with wild horse captures and adoptions. It also treats sick and injured horses, monitors springs, and takes care of orphaned foals.

"Red Rock was heavily grazed (by livestock) during the 1960s and '70s under the BLM. The desert environment is so sensitive it's hard to say who did the damage," Tattam said. "Red Rock (officials) haven't kept up with data concerning the environment."

Beever's research may help address such issues, since very little is known about how the land is affected by wild horses.

"There has been quite a bit of research done on horses but people haven't looked at how wild horses interact with their ecosystem," Beever said.

Beever has been monitoring soil compaction, plants, ant mounds and small mammals at different elevations in several areas of Northern Nevada where wild horses are found. He will compare that data to areas where wild horses have been excluded for at least 15 years. Though the study sites are mostly in the north, Beever believes the results will be useful as well to officials in Southern Nevada.

The study will be the first of its kind, Beever said. While the BLM does monitor vegetation on the ranges, the agency's method only indicates what horses eat, he said.

"The current mode of monitoring herds is vulnerable to criticism," Beever said, because it provides no information on how wild horses affect the environment.

The National Wild Horse and Burro Association says that BLM officials should have better scientific data before they take the drastic step of removing the wild horses from Red Rock.

The association is concerned about resources for the wild horses, meaning it does care about the land, David Tattam said. But the mustangs shouldn't be held responsible for damage when the cause is unknown, he said.

"In this case, horses are being unfairly blamed. If we're removing all the horses, are we removing all the biking and jogging trails too? In my opinion, those should be removed first before the horses," David Tattam said. "We're for keeping our horses and burros in the area in the biggest numbers as possible."

Beever wants to use the results of his study to aid land managers as they develop strategies to deal with the wild horse population and to increase the public's knowledge of the mustangs.

Since 1971, wild horses have been protected by the federal Wild Horse and Burro Act, which requires the protection, management and control of wild horses and burros on public lands.

Maxine Shane, spokeswoman for the BLM, says Beever's research could help all involved because wild horse management is a complicated and controversial issue.

"Any study like that will be useful; it'll be interesting to see what he finds," Shane said.

There's a need for more studies like Beever's, Shane said, as most research has been done on livestock that graze on the land and virtually none on wild horses.

"It could tell you whether you need to fence some areas, how far a horse will go for water; it'll tell us what vegetation they prefer," Shane said.

Beever believes any information from the study will be beneficial.

"In my opinion, the dialogue can be improved with scientific information," Beever said.

Whatever the outcome of Beever's study, the association wants to keep wild horses at Red Rock, in areas where the public can enjoy them.

"We want the horses here forever. That means the range has to be healthy," Norma Tattam said.

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