Our friend Brooks Fahy who heads up PREDATOR DEFENSE clued me into the fact that Nevada is about to institute a Predator Control program to protect domestic livestock....Like the Federal "WILDLIFE SERVICES" program that targets removal of wolves, cougars, coyotes, bears, etc...........the Nevada program will do the same plus target removal of wild horses..............Justifying this by saying the ponies compete for the native grasses that domestic sheep and cattle need to prosper.............I have mixed feelings about our feral horses as they in some ways are no different than the feral hogs that now run wild through the Southeast woodlands damaging habitat and threatening other native animals...................One might say that during the Pleistocene 10 to 30,000 years ago America harbored horses................but they went extinct about 10,000 years ago and our current suite of wolves and cougars are only semi-efficient limiting factors(foals taken here and there but adult horses not so often).................The horses do rip up the range...........as do domestic cattle......................Bottom line, why reduce wolves and cougars further and thus allowing the horse population to grow................and then turn around and spend more money to kill the horses............talk about wasteful government spending!!!!

Nevada's Predator Control Program Threatens Wild Horses, Too

by Pamela Black

Nevada is in the process of approving a predator control program to protect privately owned livestock.
This situation could be from a page ripped out of Catch-22. Money is spent to kill predators that may harm livestock, predators like mountain lions, bears and coyotes. These are the same predators that control wild horse and burro populations. Wild horses and burros compete with the privately owned livestock for food and water resources on public land. So, while their natural predators are being wiped out, the Bureau of Land Management uses the claim of wild horse and burro overpopulation to spend money on increased roundups and lethal methods of population control.
Thus the cycle of spending our tax money to kill wildlife continues.
A number of individuals and organizations have pledged to save America's wild horses. They object to the overkill nature of these predator control programs and the resulting increase of wild horse removal. Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil baron T. Boone Pickens, argues that "the federal predator control program spends far more to kill native carnivores than the actual value of the damage they cause."
Along with petitioning President Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to more properly manage wild horses and burros, Pickens is buying up land to create a sanctuary for horses. Horses totaling more than 34,000 under Nevada's current management plan are languishing in holding facilities.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign fights to save wild horses and provides a wealth of background information on the issues. They believe that the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 has largely been ignored. "No strategic plan to keep viable herds of wild horses on public lands was ever developed," according to AWHPC.
To help spread the word, AWHPC has released public service announcements with Viggo Mortensen and Sheryl Crow. As you may know, Viggo Mortensen is so fond of horses that he bought the horses he rode in his movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Hidalgo, after filming was complete.
Wild horses are a symbol of the untamed west, and shouldn't be killed as a result of  irresponsible predator control plans that only make room for the private interests of livestock grazing on public land. Nevada is home to the largest wild horse population in the U.S.
Over 19 million acres of public land have been set aside in Nevada alone for livestock grazing. Much of the land is also used by wild horses, burros and predators. The result: wildlife loses.
It is unfortunate that the federal government heavily favors using our tax dollars to kill wild horses and predators instead of finding more sustainable methods of management.
The department responsible for this deadly management plan is none other than Wildlife Services, a division of USDA-APHIS. This is the same federal department that is being targeted by many environmental groups for their use of biological warfare against wildlife. The favored weapons of Wildlife Services are Compound 1080 and M-44s.
Predator control management in Nevada under the proposed plan allows for the use of all types of legal methods: aerial hazing with helicopters, traps and snares, denning, and the indiscriminate M-44s.
A public comment period for the "Predator Damage Management in Nevada" plan is open until January 18th. AWHPC will even send a letter on your behalf.
Help stop Nevada's predator overkill program.
Photo Credit: zenera