A good way to hide a problem is to omit it from the discussion and that’s what the writer does in a May 19 column about wild horses published by The Hill.
From the first paragraph: “With few natural predators and virtually no population control, these animals have multiplied far beyond the landscape’s carrying capacity — leading to degraded rangeland wildlife habitat, brutal horse starvations and mounting taxpayer costs.”
If accuracy was the goal—and it is not—the intro would read “With few exceptions, areas identified for wild horses are overlapped by grazing allotments, and management plans developed by the government favor ranching interests, not wild horses.”
That would explain the symptoms in the opening remarks:
- Lack of predators
- Degraded habitats
- Inadequate food
- Increasing costs
If the writer was honest, he’d tell you that the bureaucrats assign about 80% of the forage in the lawful homes of with horses to ranchers.
Carrying capacities are much higher than the government admits and the off-range corrals are flooded with wild horses because the government manages the land primarily for livestock.
Curiously, the nonprofit that won the case, halting the adoption incentive, wants the horses gone as much as the ranchers.
But they want it done with pesticides not helicopters.
RELATED: Why Are There So Many Wild Horses in Off-Range Holding?
Western Horse Watchers Association 