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I'm a horse lover and owner but I do not believe we should support feral horses (which is what they are) on public lands.  While I don't believe we need to wipe them out, we need to greatly reduce the number on public lands and manage them.  Every horse rider knows what horses do to land--breaking down soil and causing erosion, fouling streams, etc.--you can't have a lot of them in the mostly arid west without destructive consequences.  We need to support the real native species of wild sheep, elk and other grazers who cannot compete with aggressive horse and burro herds.  Additionally, those who think it is inhumane to kill and cull feral horses--take a look at the BLM horse facility outside Reno NV.  Hundreds of miserable, hot horses standing in the dust, crushed together, with nothing to do, waiting for owners to step in, which mostly doesn't happen.  It is a hideous way to treat living things, looking more like a concentration camp than anything else.  This is not the BLM's fault--they are following the law.   We manage the wildlands, we manage deer, elk and other large herbivores.  We cannot afford overgrazing, habitat destruction and making horses suffer by rounding them up and putting them in pens.  Yes, horsemeat is useful, particularly to people who are in desperate need of protein.  Stop the sentimentality and start really caring and thinking!   Mary Frances Campana, Corvallis OR

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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