A helicopter hired by the Bureau of Land Management is used in the roundup of wild horses in Spring Creek Basin near Dove Creek. The BLM has periodic roundups of the horses to manage the herd. (Special to the Denver Post by Claude Steelman)
Re: “The BLM’s aerial war on horses comes to Colorado,” Sept. 20 guest commentary.
The Bureau of Land Managementap so-called “war on horses” is one of the most positive steps that maligned agency has taken in decades. Feral horses are to native wildlife what leafy spurge is to Columbines, or carp to cutthroat trout. They are nothing more than introduced noxious weeds that are destructive to fragile, high-desert ecosystems. They trample native vegetation, crop grasses down to the ground, and “claim” waterholes to drive parched wildlife away in drought-stricken areas. Feral horses serve no value to the ecological community, fill no natural niche, and only the misguided notion that they are somehow “symbols of the West” prevents them from being totally eradicated, as they should be.
Mule deer, pronghorns, elk and prairie dogs are true symbols of the West, but their fragile habitat is being destroyed by feral horses in Northwest Colorado and elsewhere.
How ironic that Michael Harris is director of the Wildlife Rights Law Center, yet laments the control of a proven enemy of native wildlife. What about the rights of the real wildlife damaged by these devastating scourges? Bravo to the BLM.
Lou Phillippe, Fort Collins
This letter was published in the Sept. 27 edition.
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