NOVEMBER 2017 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 21
By TIMOTHY BOLGER
Mustang. The word conjures images
of muscle cars, but local activist
Manda Kalimian reminds the public
that its definition, wild horses,
may soon be killed by the tens of
thousands out West.
As founder of the CANA Foundation,
a Locust Valley-based nonprofit
horse advocacy group, she is
one of few on Long Island trying to
raise awareness of the complex environmental
and animal rights issue
playing out on public land more
than 2,000 miles away. She and her
fellow horse justice warriors say
the plight of the mustang grows
increasingly dire with each passing
day that the Trump administration
prioritizes business interests over
natural concerns.
“This country was built on the back
of the horse,” Kalimian says, invoking
the species’ role throughout
history. “We all want to be wild and
free. If we lose our wild horses, who
will be as a people?”
More than 43,000 rounded-up wild
horses and burros are being penned
at government holding facilities,
costing taxpayers a reported $50
million annually. Over 70,000 more
still roam 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
mustangs sold to slaughterhouses
for use as horse meat in other
countries. The U.S. Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), 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.
Newly appointed Interior Secretary
Ryan Zinke, whose agency controls
the BLM, backs plans to roll back
the ban on euthanizing wild horses
or selling them to slaughterhouses.
Also in doubt is the future of
contraceptive programs aimed at
humanely controlling wild horse
populations. Kalimian is among
those lobbying against legislation
currently pending in Congress
that would pave the way for those
changes.
“Clearly, the present policy is a disaster,”
Zinke told Congress during
his January confirmation hearing
before making a show of riding a
horse to his first day of work upon
taking the reins of the Interior.
“It’s enormously expensive. Kicking
them out and then spending
millions of dollars every year on a
program that’s not working? Let’s
work together to figure out how to
fix it.”
This spring, President Donald
Trump pitched his solution in
BLM’s wild horse program portion
of the proposed 2018 federal
budget: “humane euthanasia and
unrestricted sale of certain excess
animals.” Under Zinke, who compared
himself to a pirate ship captain
during remarks at the National
Petroleum Council in September,
the BLM issued a statement backing
the president’s proposal.
“With an expanded suite of
management tools, the BLM can
strengthen its efforts” to address
the crisis, the agency said of the
proposed resumption of euthanizing
and slaughtering wild horses.
HOME ON THE RANGE
The issue isn’t unlike the debate
over how to address the white tail
deer population on the East End
and Fire Island, where deer are
symbolic, like wild horses symbolize
the West.
Local deer and Western horses are
often blamed for destroying public
resources, but proposals to cull
herds spark outrage among activists
that argue it’s human encroachment
on natural habitats causing
the problem. What horses have that
deer don’t is the law prohibiting the
federal government from allowing
wild horses to be killed—at least for
the moment.
“It’s offensive to me, the idea
of slaughtering these beautiful
animals,” U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi
(D-Glen Cove) told reporters
during a news conference in September
outside CANA’s stable of 12
rescued horses before riding off on
one. He’s working to block the plan
in the GOP-controlled Congress,
but faces an uphill battle as part of
the Democratic minority.
BLM maintains that the horses are
degrading the rangelands since the
contraceptive program has proven
ineffective at keeping the wild horse
population in check. Horse advocates
and others argue that BLM
manufactured the mustang crisis
by failing to properly implement
the contraceptives and low balling
the number of horses and burros
that it says can be sustained by the
27 million acres of range land the
NEWS Running Wild
Advocates bridle over Trump plan to euthanize wild mustangs
Manda Kalimian, founder of the CANA Foundation, is working to rescue wild horses.