(Horses can go without food, for a time, but they cannot go without water.) When the wild horse population got too big, the rains quit, the grass dried up, and guess what happened? The BLM shut off all the water in an effort to “control the population.” Where horses once peacefully waited their turn at the watering hole, there were now brutal fights between stallions and mares struggling to get to the trickle of water not flowing. It was an amazing and beautiful sight.īut the horse population, thriving on still limited grass and free water, got too large for the environment to sustain them.
I saw these wells and watched in wonder as the stallions would bring in their mares and foals to water. After all, it’s 115 in the shade on a midsummer day out there. So, with all these horses on the federal ranges of Nevada, the BLM decided they would drill wells to provide water for the horses. In 1984, the wild horse population started to grow. What comes with more grass? More horses, antelope, cattle and every other creature that lives in those ecosystems. What happens with a prolonged monsoon season? All the dry lake beds fill up, all the grasslands and high desert mesas bloom with vegetation and all the grass grows much like the Serengeti when the rains come. In Las Vegas, Sunset Road was still mostly dirt, and after one thunderstorm, it was a raging river.
I was there, and I saw first-hand the havoc BLM policies created. The problem actually started with the Bureau of Land Management when they took over wild horse management in 1971. The wild horse issue in Nevada is a long and tenacious one regardless of how the horses got there. Colborne actually suggesting that we gather up all these feral nuisances and slaughter them only to end up on a dinner plate somewhere in the world? Second, as a horse owner, advocate, rescuer (I rescue cats, too) and trainer, I think the column’s title was written specifically to capture the attention (it certainly did mine) of readers without respect to facts or a true understanding of the issue.
How’s that for a catchy thought?įirst of all, comparing feral horses to feral cats is pathetic on its face. Colborne must have been sitting on a high desert mesa smoking Mormon Tea when this article came to him telepathically from the aliens in Area 51 during a feral cat invasion. David Colborne recently published by The Nevada Independent and titled “My Invasive Species is Tastier than your Invasive Species” was both biased and disgusting. I am a former Nevadan who lived and worked in Las Vegas from 1983 to 2001.
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