Last Stand for the Wild Horse

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Last Stand for the Wild Horse

The population of an American icon is at levels some scientists are calling

unsustainable; thank the federal government and the beef industry

By Deanne Stillman

 

More than half of the countless horses that Spanish colonists brought to the

Americas died on the way, thrown overboard to lighten the loads when the

galleons sailed into calm seas along the equator. This part of the Atlantic is

still known as the “horse latitudes.†Descendants of the horses that

survived the treacherous crossings make up the herds of wild horses roaming the

West today. And while nominally protected by federal law, they are still being

sent to their deaths. This time it's at the hands of the US government.

 

 

Last month, a public outcry and a philanthropist's plan to relocate the horses

earned thousands of mustangs a temporary reprieve from a federal

“euthanasia†plan. But whether the wild horse can be saved is still in

doubt; as I write, we are down to our last 23,000 horses on public lands in the

western states.

 

continued here

http://www.plentymag.com/features/2008/12/last_stand_for_the_wild_horse.php

 

 

For in a Republic, who is “the country� Is it the Government which is for

the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant—merely a

temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and

what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to

obey orders, not originate them.

Mark Twain