The wild horses living on Mesa Verde predate Mesa Verde National Park’s formation in 1906. In 1928, Congress commanded the park’s superintendent to establish rules and regulations “for the protection of the animals ... in the park from capture or destruction, and to prevent their being frightened or driven from the park.”
Finding this congressional mandate inconvenient, the park’s current superintendent has, without any evidentiary support of which I am aware, decided to label these wild horses “trespass livestock” and require their removal. He invokes the “standard protocol for wildlife management on federal lands” to justify his barbaric practice of denying them water, resulting in multiple, horrific deaths.
What the park needs is a responsible management plan for its wild horses, and a superintendent willing to implement it. Failing that, it needs to work with local wild horse advocates on a phased, humane program of bait-trapping and adoption. What we don’t need is a park superintendent who callously allows animals under his care to suffer and die, or whose highest priority seems to be lightening his own workload.
Chuck Greaves
Cortez
