Arizona’s Heber Wild Horses


What is Their Fate? by MICHELE ANDERSON • photography by MARY HAUSER


Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and develop a written Heber Wild Horse Territory Management Strategy.” The management plan will in- clude the number of horses that the Forest Service will allow to be left in the wild. The Forest Service is required to involve the public in the scoping analysis through a public comment period that will most likely last between four and six weeks.


T


What Will Happen to the Wild Horses that are Captured and Removed?


The Forest Service has no permanent feed lots to place horses they capture and remove from our forest lands. They also no longer have an agreement with the BLM to store wild horses in the BLM feed lots. Therefore the outlook for the culled Heber wild horses is very grim. The Forest Service will “dispose” of them in the most expedient, cheapest method possible. They will most likely go to auction to be sold without limitation which means kill buyers can buy them and truck them to Mex- ico for Slaughter.


6 AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2019 I HORSE & AG MAGAZINE


he U.S. Forest Service wants to drastically cull the Heber wild horse herd down to a non-viable population. Howev- er, a Federal court order requires the Forest Service to first “complete, with public involvement, an analysis and appro- priate environmental document pursuant to the National


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