Editorial: A senseless slaughter

Monday, April 25, 2005 | 8:55 a.m.

Late last week it was revealed that six wild horses, which had been rounded up on federal land in the West and sold at a government auction on April 15, had been slaughtered at a commercial packing plant in Illinois just three days later. The man who purchased the horses and sold them to be slaughtered for food had claimed to be a minister from Oklahoma. He also told the government he was going to use them for a church youth group.

It was the first time such a slaughter had taken place since a new federal law went into effect weakening previous protections for mustangs. In December Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., was able to get legislation passed that repealed a 34-year-old ban on slaughtering wild horses, which run free across much of the West. Nevadans have a particular interest in protecting wild horses since about half of the 37,000 wild horses in the nation live in our state. Previously, the law required buyers who purchased a horse under the Bureau of Land Management's adoption program to keep the horses for at least a year before they were able to receive title of ownership, at which time they could sell the horse.

In March, after it was disclosed that Burns -- at the behest of ranching interests -- was able to get the law changed, we wrote that wild horses would surely end up in slaughterhouses. We hope that this tragic slaughter of horses will cause Congress to right this wrong and restore the law the way it originally was written -- and intended -- so that wild horses will continue to be protected as an enduring symbol of the West.