Following protests by locals, Arizona lawmakers have called for a halt to a plan by the Tonto National Forest to round up the iconic salt river wild horses.
The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service said it intended to remove approximately 500 wild horses from the grounds of Tonto National Forest, because they say, the horses have become a safety problem.
The Salt River wild horses are beloved by the locally community and visited by tourists from across the world.
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A petition to prevent the forcible removal of the horses has already gathered more than 50,000 signatures.
RT reports: Lawmakers were responding to a press conference held on Tuesday night which drew 150 people who threatened to seek a federal court injunction against the US Forest Service’s plan to round up the horses.
Activists also say that the Forest Service has not conducted an environmental impact statement to justify the horse removals.
Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, both from Arizona, wrote to the Forest Service calling for a postponement of the roundups.
The fight began when the Tonto National Forest posted a notice last week threatening to impound wild horses, which roam in the forest near the Salt River, beginning this Friday, and continuing for the next 12 months.
Forest officials said the horses were creating both a danger and a nuisance, with some killed in accidents on the local highway. Others have trampled campgrounds, they said.
“We’ve got horses in campgrounds, we’ve got horses on the highway,” Carrie Templin, spokeswoman for Tonto National Forest, said to the Arizona Republic newspaper.
“We would love to see these horses go to a safe place where the potential for accidents doesn’t exist.”
The plan was to roundup 100 of them and hand them over to the Arizona Department of Agriculture, which would decide their fate. The public notice said the horses could be put up for public or private sale or they will be “condemned and destroyed, or otherwise disposed of.”
The Arizona Department of Agriculture, however, told the Arizona Republic that they did not have an agreement with the Tonto National Forest to handle the horses.
The Forest Service also said it was developing similar plans for wild horses roaming in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, and the Navajo Nation was negotiating an agreement to remove hundreds of wild horses from reservation lands without sending them to slaughterhouses, the newspaper reported.
While activists threatened to seek a federal injunction against the Forest Service, the move might not save the Salt River horses.
Under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, all national forests were required to conduct surveys of their areas and determine if wild horses roamed on forest lands.
Niamh Harris
Be more productive to round up all the corrupt politicians in your state, and you could start with that asshole main. oh wait I am sorry to offend the asshole, as it has a purpose, and some claim it is the boss of the body (old long joke) . That human excrement John McCain for human excrement has no purpose.
Be more productive to round up all the corrupt politicians in your state, and you could start with that asshole main. oh wait I am sorry to offend the asshole, as it has a purpose, and some claim it is the boss of the body (old long joke) . That human excrement John McCain for human excrement has no purpose.