Monday, June 20, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Nevada's lawmakers want to make it easier for people to adopt wild horses and want to provide more protection for older horses purchased through a new program.
Bills to be introduced in the House and Senate today would reduce minimum horse adoption fees by 80 percent, eliminate the limit of four titles per adopter per year and would establish a one-year waiting period for buyers to receive titles to wild horse purchased through the new sales program
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who was to introduce the House version of the bill today, said the Bureau of Land Management has rounded up more horses than it can handle. Nevada has almost half of the nation's wild horse population, and as the weather gets hotter, it is important to get the animals to good caretakers, Porter said.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is a co-sponsor of the bill.
Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., will introduce the same bill in the Senate. Calls to Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., were not returned this morning.
The government's wild horse adoption program has been around since 1973, according to BLM spokesman Tom Gorey. More than 205,000 animals have been adopted since then, he said. The minimum bidding fee is $125, which Porter's bill would reduce, and the horses go to the highest bidder.
But Gorey said of the 6,000 to 7,000 wild horses that get adopted annually, there are 22,000 "unadoptable" horses in short- and long-term holding facilities that remain.
Gorey said the bureau generally puts up younger horses for adoption and after they reach five years of age, the public loses interest.
A wild horse sales program, created last year through an amendment by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., allows the BLM to sell horses it could not get people to adopt. The Burns amendment allows the bureau to sell wild horses and burros that are more than 10 years old or have been passed over for adoption three times.
Gorey said buyers get the title immediately under the program, and the animal loses its status as a wild horse or burro.
Sales are conducted through negotiations with interested buyer, not auctions like the adoptions. Since implementing the sales in December, the bureau has sold more than 1,400 horses. More than 1,100 have been delivered and an estimated 250 have been sold but are waiting for deliver.
Sales prices are negotiated between the BLM and the buyer. Gorey said prices have range between $1 and $100 a horse.
In May, House members voted to block the sales program after the Interior Department discovered horses sold through the Burns program had been turned around and sold to slaughterhouses.
The BLM announced the day of the vote it established tougher consequences for those who buy the horses without the intention of caring for them. A new bill of sale forbids selling the horse to anyone that would process them into commercial products.
Porter and Gibbons want to keep the sales in place but still protect the horses.
Porter said today that he does not want to prevent sales because he wants to the animals to be able to go to good homes. The one-year waiting period for the horse's title makes it almost impossible for a buyer sell the horse to someone else, such as a slaughterhouse, because it is still technically owned by the bureau. Horses adopted through auctions held by the BLM already have this waiting period for the title.
Adopters can adopt more than four horses a year, but can only receive titles for four horses in a 12-month period. Gorey said someone could adopt 10 horses but would not have all the titles until three years later.
Porter's bill would eliminate that limit, so adopters could get all the titles to their horses after a year.
Reid said the bill will improve BLM's programs.
"When good people want to adopt horses and meet the requirements set forth by the BLM, they should have as few barriers to overcome as possible," Reid said in a statement. "By increasing the number of horses that can be adopted and lowering the adoption fee, we can put more horses into the hands of more quality owners."
Berkley called the bill "compromise legislation" that adds important safeguards the current policy does not include.
"These special animals deserve better than to be destroyed or sold for food to overseas markets and I am optimistic that we will see more adoptions as a result of this proposal," Berkley said in a written statement.
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