Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 | 5:26 a.m.
Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at [email protected] or (702) 259-4082.
Word that federal officials are studying whether to scrap the wild horse adoption program has spread like a brush fire.
A national Bureau of Land Management advisory council that met in Washington, D.C., Tuesday suggested putting the Adopt-A-Horse program out to pasture as one of several options. But it's one that drew immediate attention 2,000 miles away.
"When I first heard it I thought, 'How could they do that?'," said Julie Gleason, a Las Vegas resident and member of the Nevada Wild Horse Commission. "But then I thought about it."
And it might not be a bad idea.
Don't get your bridle in a knot. Gleason wasn't speaking on behalf of the commission that advises the BLM about decisions regarding Nevada's wild horse and burro population. And she didn't agree or disagree with the proposal.
She, as do others who hope to manage what's left of the West's wild horses, recognizes they must explore options for the benefit of the animals. More horses are being pulled off the range than can be adopted.
In 2003, 10,091 horses were rounded up from the 10 Western states that are home to them. But only 6,185 adoptions were arranged. Add to that the time and cost of monitoring the post-adoption conditions for each horse and the effort needed to screen applicants who want to adopt horses. The program can be cumbersome.
And expensive.
Adoptions suck up a third of the BLM's $33 million wild horse budget. Each adoption arrangement has an average, one-time cost of $1,400, BLM officials have said. It costs $445 a year to maintain one horse or burro in a government long-term facility.
And, of course, there's juggling the internal political conflicts that plague any kind of organized effort involving human beings. Bickering over how many horses to adopt, how many to leave on the range and how many to hold in captivity is constant, horse advocates say.
There is also the issue of giving people an incentive to stay involved and interested in the horses, Gleason said. Marketing is a challenge.
"There are more horses now in the United States than there were at the turn of the century," she said. "But they're for recreational purposes only. And you have to give people something to do with these (wild) horses."
A show circuit or venue allowing people to compete with the horses they adopt is one idea that has been tossed around in the past, Gleason said.
Nevada has 16,954 wild horses and 976 burros living on its range, Maxine Shane, wild horse spokeswoman for Nevada's BLM office, said. We rank first in the number of horses and third for burros. California and Arizona are the only other states with burros.
Nevada officials are trying to determine an appropriate herd size. Shane said it likely will fall between 14,000 and 15,000 horses and burros combined.
Federal advisory council members likely will discuss the options again during their next quarterly meeting. Members of Nevada's advisory commission are to discuss the issue during their meeting in Reno on Friday, Gleason said.
"You eliminate a lot of problems by getting rid of the program," she said. "But then do you put these animals in holding to get the numbers down?"
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