Wild horses won't stop them from doing this.
They're going to stop the wild horses.
Mark Steyn has the story (H/T:
Backyard Conservative):
On Friday, the House voted on the Restore Our American Mustangs Act — or ROAM. Like all acronymically cute legislation, its name bears little relation to what it actually does: It’s not about “restoring” mustangs. The federal Bureau of Land Management aims for a manageable population of 27,000 wild mustangs. Currently, there are 36,000, and the population doubles every four or five years. To prevent things getting even more out of hand, the BLM keeps another 30,000 mustangs in holding pens — or, if you prefer, managed-care facilities. That’s to say, under federal management, one in every two “wild” horses now lives in government housing.
Steyn explains that these horses are aging, and most cannot be adopted out, and so are to euthanized. He then goes on to say:
Under this legislation, no horses or burros could be, ah, terminated, and they would have to be released from their holding pens after six months. To facilitate the release of the tame “wild horse” population, the act adds to their present 33-million acre habitat (that’s bigger than New York State) another 20 million acres — or approximately the size of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the total tab at around $700 million — ie, chump change. If you look for it in the line-item budget, it comes down at the bottom under “rounding error.” It’s a mere ten-and-a-half grand per mustang. If you’re wondering why it costs more to keep a horse on 52 million acres of wilderness than it does to stable him at an upscale horse farm in New England, that’s because, in order to prevent the mustang population doubling again by 2013 and requiring the annexation of another 50 million acres (ie, an area the size of Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands combined), the bill mandates “enhanced” contraception for horses and burros.
There's so much more to this story. Including all the puns.
7 comments:
I cannot understand why the federal government thinks that it is their job to fix absolutely everything. Let’s see…wild horses copulate and make more wild horses. Why, we need a program! Did anyone in D.C. stay awake during sixth grade science when it was explained that predators and food supply will keep the wild horse population in check? For free?
So, when does the increase in mustangs get blamed on global warming/climate change?
You will note that, as usual, the government says it has to do something without admiting that the reason they are doing it is because of their initial mismanagement in the 1st place.
PS Arby, in answer to your question, I highly doubt it.
This post does not include all the facts of, nor the prblems associated with this legislation.
To be better informed on this subject cut & paste these links into your browser:
http://www.netnebraska.org/extras/wildhorses/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/02/wild-horses/fuller-text
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703680.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
http://blog.taragana.com/n/house-votes-to-protect-wild-horses-from-slaughter-give-them-more-acres-to-roam-out-west-112977/
By the time you get done digesting their information you'll realize that this legislation is meant to provide the horses with more acreage for their survival!!!
Also, since those same lawmakers refuse to penalize the greedy owners (of the cattle and sheep grazing these federally-owned lands) for utilizing land specifically designated for the horses ONLY - perhaps they should all be impeached for failure to protect the government's (ours & the horses) best interests!!
Lastly, why wasn't there any similar legislation on behalf of the bison herds - who are also facing similar encroachments?
"Did anyone in D.C. stay awake during sixth grade science when it was explained that predators and food supply will keep the wild horse population in check?"
Arby,
The problem is that these horses are an introduced species without any significant predators. That leaves the food supply to limit their numbers, but the problem there is that they might be able to eat their way through much of the American West before the food supply restrains the growth of their population.
So even if I don't know if the present policies are appropriate, some sort of "management" is necessary.
the bill mandates “enhanced” contraception for horses and burros.
I wonder what kind of federal civil service test I'd have to pass to get a job putting condoms on wild stallions. :)
John, I agree that an introduced species will screw up the naturally occurring food chain. Is this necessarily a problem that government needs to fix?
Arby,
I think so. What's more, I think the people of the West--including conservatives--and the state governments would demand they fix it.
According to the BLM, the population can double every four years. I'm no expert on Western range management, but I'd think eventually you'd begin to see some serious ecological and economic consequences if their population growth were left unchecked.
There's the obvious: destruction of grazing land for cattle and sheep. That's big money--in selling grazing rights--for the old Bureau of Livestock and Mining right there.
Then there's the less obvious impact on ecosystems. I certainly could see how, localized, all those tromping hooves and hungry mouths could destroy a watershed (and don't mess with a Western state's trout fisheries or water supply). What noxious nonindigenous plants might gain a foothold from the destruction of indigenous flora, with who knows what impacts? (More brush and timber fires? Destruction of timber lands?) Air quality concerns near urban populations aren't out of the question--there's lots of particulates to kick up in the West. And I'll bet you're going to love this: how much is it going to cost to attend to the needs of protected and endangered species whose habitat has been denuded by overgrazing?
Municipalities, states, environmental groups, animal rights groups--man, bring on the lawsuits. It's cheaper to deal with it now--by far, I'd think.
We're talking about public lands, held in trust by the U.S government for the American people, present and future. The job of the BLM is to manage these lands. Even if they wanted to ignore the problem (and, being a government bureaucracy, they don't), they have to do something.
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