AUGUST 2019 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 9
WILD HORSES
ACTIVISTS’ NEW HOPE
Long Island-based animal advocates
working to save troubled wild horses
out West are optimistic now that
a recently passed federal spending
measure includes a provision for
rewilding, or returning wild horses
to nature.
That’s a major turnaround from
two years ago, when federal officials
were eyeing a plan to euthanize
wild horses and burros, more
than 50,000 of which have been
rounded up and are being penned
at government holding facilities,
costing taxpayers a reported $50
million annually.
"Wild horse horses play a vital role
in land conservation and the health
of our habitats,” says Manda Kalimian,
founder of the CANA Foundation,
a Locust Valley-based nonprofit
horse advocacy group that helps
find homes for adopted wild horses
and lobbied for the inclusion of the
rewilding language in the federal
budget. “Thousands case studies
around the world prove wild horses
have a unique ability to provide
balance to the environment and to
the human spirit. Through their
presence, we can help to restore an
ecological balance to our precious
American ecosystems while benefiting
the communities who welcome
them.”
More than 70,000 wild horses and
burros still roam public rangelands
in 10 Western states, including
California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah
and Oregon, according to the latest
federal data.
For nearly a half century, the 1971
Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros
Act has mostly protected wild
horses from being sold to slaughterhouses
for use as horse meat in
other countries. The U.S. Bureau
of Land Management, which oversees
177 herd management areas,
has been herding wild horses with
helicopters, storing them in pens
and putting them up for adoption
for the past two decades, although
the adoption demand hasn’t kept up
with the horse supply.
But a ray of hope came when the U.S.
House of Representatives Appropriations
Committee this summer
approved the budget measure that
allows rewilding as a solution, as
advocates like those with the CANA
Foundation have been urging for
years. Although the group is not
happy that the budget earmarks
$6 million for an experimental
wild horse sterilization program
that some have called inhumane,
the nonprofit is pleased that the
document is the first time the term
rewilding has been used by the federal
government.
“The committee recognizes the value
of horse rewilding as one of many
herd management strategies and
encourages the Bureau to explore
collaborations with suitable organizations
and willing landowners to
adopt, transport and locate horses
to appropriate habitats at no cost to
taxpayers,” the committee stated.
CANA sees the development as the
first step in its goal to change the
perception of wild horses in America.
This legislation also opens the
doors for CANA to present groundbreaking
research and large-scale
rewilding models that it is completing
in time for a Rewilding Conference
that CANA is supporting at the
United Nations in April 2020.
“The present-day mismanagement
of our horses is old and antiquated
and has created an environmental,
fiscal, and potential health crisis for
the American people,” said former
U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, who is CANA
Foundation’s strategic advisor.
“Rewilding is the way of the future,
a multifaceted and nonpartisan
solution that helps find a balance
between wild horses, taxpayers and
habitats.”
IN THE NEWS
“Rewilding is the way of the future,”
says Steve Israel.
Mustangs live freely on public land out West.
HORSE SENSE AT
HAMPTONS CLASSIC
The CANA Foundation is hosting a twoday
photography viewing with renowned
endangered wildlife photographer Ejaz
Khan at The Hampton Classic Horse
Show at the end of August.
Khan will be available for a meet-andgreet
and an unveiling of his latest work
featuring the Nokota horse, a historicyet
endangered indigenous breed of wild
horse in America.
The viewing is scheduled for 12 p.m. to
1:30 p.m. Aug. 31 and 11 a.m. to 12:30
p.m. Sept. 1 at the Hampton Classic,
which will be held at 240 Snake Hollow
Road in Bridgehampton.
In addition CANA members will be
present all week at the vendor space of its
sister organization, the organic skincare
wellness line Naturally Considerate
that helps fund CANA, in the Boutique
Garden at the horse show.
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