April 12, 2008
Storey County, Nevada
A current Reno Gazette Journal article announces that Nevada's Department of Agriculture director, Tony Lesperance, is planning to remove a large number of wild horses without caring what their fate will be after removal. The article quotes Lesperance as saying "I am far more concerned about the decline of the Virginia Range as an environmentalist than I am concerned about those horses,"
Lesperance also wants the public to believe that the wild horses of Storey County, the very ones that Wild Horse Annie lobbied to protect, are not wild horses, but horses that the locals have let go. The truth being that the horses in question are in deed the horses that America considers wild and that yes their ancestors were let go or escaped as many as 500 years ago.
The horses that the state of Nevada are concerned with are the unowned horses that live on private lands, not public lands as the other BLM horses which are more familiar. Wild horses roaming on private lands are the management problem of the state's dept. of agriculture. The horses live peacefully in the hills and valleys of nearly 170,000 acres of undeveloped land near and around the Reno area. Some of them make their home near housing developments. In some cases the horses wander out of their safety zones and into roads and back yards where they become a nuisance and a hazard.
Nusiance horses are typically trapped by the state's wild horse program specialist Mike Holmes, who, when he can, returns the captured horses to their proper digs. But if they continue to infiltrate civilization they must be put up for adoption. To date this system has not directed any removed horses to auction where they will end up slaughtered. But, this good record is being challenged.
The country is in the midst of an unwanted horse crisis. This means that there are thousands, tens of thousands, more horses in the market than there are people who want them. The market cannot absorb any more horses right now. Especially wild ones. So the plan that Director Lesperance has to remove hundreds from the Virginia Range is a lose-lose plan. The horses will lose, the residents of Nevada will lose. The horses lose their range - their lives. The residents lose their horses - in some cases the reason they love living in Nevada.
Lesperance is claiming that the nearly 1200 horses in Storey County are starving. There are no starving horses on the ranges around Reno at this time. There was a good rain year this past season and the grass is green and plentiful. There is enough water to support the horses, although, there's always a need to develop more water resources. The landscape is not showing any negative impact from horses except possibly in a few places where the residents like to feed them. There horses tend to hang around in one area waiting for supper. Feeding the wild horses is usually advised against, but people just can't resist trying to befriend the magnificent horses they love so much.
The obvious disdain that Lesperance has for the horses is angering Nevadans and the Governor is receiving emails, calls and letters asking him to remove Lesperance from his position. They argue that Lesperance is exagerating and even lying about the condition of the horses and the range. They live there. They know the horses. They know the range. They know what's going on and it's not as he says.
If there were starving horses, a number of charitable organizations that make their mission to see that the horses don't go hungry or thirsty would take action. There is a barn stacked full of hay waiting for an emergency. There are volunteers who spend their weekends developing and repairing springs and water resources.
It seems that the new director just wants to be rid of the responsibility of managing the horses. So removing them would lighten the work load immediately. Also, it seems that he has no regard for their well being once off the range. It is no secret that they would end up in either a Mexican or Canadian slaughter house.
Read the RGJ article in full here... http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080411/NEWS18/80411010 (please cut and paste to your browser)
Willis Lamm, of LRTC, who is deeply committed to the survival of the Virginia Range herd, "It is arguably the largest and most significant free-roaming horse herd in the country". The photo of "Bubba" one of the Virginia Range stallions shows that he is healthy and has good weight. And that he is obviously not an escaped domestic horse.
Director Lesperance has no good plan for maintaining or managing the herds. He has a great program manager on staff that can do it effectively if they will just let Mike Holmes do what he does best. The program has statistics and experience with successful birth control applications. They also have the abiltiy to castrate stallions and release them back into the herds.
There are humane and effective ways to curb over-population of wild herds and it doesn't have to be a major drain on the budget.
Read the in-depth daily journal of the on-going saga atl http://www.kbrhorse.net/news/vre-nda01.htm
If you would like to let the Department of Ag. and Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons know how you feel about Tony Lesperance's ineptness and incompetence with regard to the state's wild horse program, and suggest that he be replaced with a more level minded person who is capable of understanding the issues and finding suitable solutions :
Here's the contact page for the Nevada Department of Agriculture. http://agri.state.nv.us/AGRI_ContactUs.htm 775-688-1180
Here's the contact page for Governor Gibbons.http://gov.state.nv.us/ARCHIVE/Contact_Us_NORTHX.htm 775-684-5670
Here's the email address for Assemblyman Tom Grady tgrady@asm.state.nv.us He is quoted in the article too.
Please help us save these horses by leaving them right where they are. No More Removals!!!!!