Column: Stepping into the wild horse debate, one hoof at a time

American founding father Benjamin Franklin is credited with having once said, "The first mistake made in politics is getting into it."

Here in Northern Nevada, the same could be said about jumping feet first into the debate over the Silver State's population of wild horses, an emotionally-charged, hot-button topic if there ever was one.

Fortunately, I've got many years of experience shoveling what comes out the south end of a north-bound pony.

My father gave me some sage advice the first time I walked into a sawdust-covered horse stall with pitch fork in hand.

"Watch where you step," he said.

Discussing the topic of Nevada's wild horses feels a lot like dodging dozens of stink bombs in a stall.

Stories about the wild or wild-like equines really bring the shallow, babbling brooks to the surface and out from under the rocks.

Some reader responses to recent Carson Now posts on the horses have left me scratching my head, wondering if what I had read was really an incoherent argument between immature adults, or else an elementary school playground p---ing match.

Maybe both.

The horse topic has tended to bring out the worst in Nevadans, not their best. Among our state's most polarizing issues, wild horses and their place here has long been contentious.

I'm neither a wild horse zealot nor a feral hater. I look at both sides of the debate.

On the one hand, wild horse advocates say we must protect the herds from sale and slaughter.

Fair enough. But how?

They argue that the wild horses are as much a part of the ecosystem as any other wild animal and deserve to stay.

Okay, but they are also non-native, which complicates the environment.

A standard response to anyone who suggests something must be done about the growing herds and the number of horses coming into town is, "They were here first."

Well, no, technically they were not; especially not the ferals.

The modern horse is not indigenous to North America. The first of these were introduced by 16th Century Spanish Conquistadors in Mexico and the desert Southwest.

Humans were here a lot longer before any horses. Ancestors of Tribal Americans crossed the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years earlier and settled throughout the Western Hemisphere.

The wild horse lobby also gets its dander up whenever anyone dares use the term "feral" to describe the equines.

There is a difference between truly wild and feral. Nevada has both.

To be feral is to be wild-like in behavior. Feral animals or their recent lineage were domesticated of late. That means they are familiar with human contact, having once been owned and raised privately.

A truly wild animal has never been domesticated or had any familiar human contact.

And yet, all wild horses here, at one time or another over the past five centuries, had been feral. Dating back to the Spaniards, all wild horses were once domesticated and had been used to familiar human contact.

That, of course, has changed over the centuries. But there is still a notable mix of wild mustangs and feral horses located throughout the Western United States.

Here in Northern Nevada, there are truly wild mustangs as well as estrayed or feral horses.

According to the Nevada Department of Agriculture, the herds of the Virginia Range, which runs east of Reno-Sparks from Lockwood to around USA Parkway and South to U.S. Highway 50 between Carson City and Silver Springs, include a mix of wild mustangs and feral horses. But they are predominantly feral, the state agency says.

So, too, do area horse experts, including Joe Bruno, mounted unit commander for the Carson City Sheriff's Office, with whom I recently spent part of an afternoon discussing wild horse behavior and dynamics.

But whether the horses are wild mustangs or feral equines really isn't germaine to the issue of what can be done to keep them out of town and from overpopulating the region.

We shouldn't maintain a hands-off approach to wild and feral horses. Doing nothing is as bad as doing too much.

If nothing is done to curb the growth of these herds, then more of them will find their way into town, neighborhoods, and along congested streets where they put themselves and humans in danger.

Yes, danger, as in 1,400 pounds of animal flesh striking your vehicle from seemingly out of nowhere; or charging at you because it feels threatened by the presence of too many curious onlookers crowding its space.

Don't get me wrong: I really enjoy watching the herds and bands of wild and feral horses around here. They are among my favorite photographic subjects.

But they should be encouraged to stay a healthy distance away from residential areas.

One way to do that is to avoid feeding and watering them. Wild or feral animals will find what they need on their own without any help from us.

That's really why they come so close into town. They are already searching for food and water. If we feed them, then we encourage them to stick around and invite more of their friends to the party.

This isn't safe for them or people.

Furthermore, the unchecked growth of wild and feral horses will only continue having a negative impact on the region's ecology. Indigenous herbivores — Mule deer, elk, antelope and desert bighorn sheep — must compete with these horses for the same or similar food and water sources.

The more horses there are, the greater the impact on food and water resources for other animals that were here first and that hold a much greater importance to the environment around us.

But that doesn't mean we ought to adopt extreme measures of dealing with Nevada's horse populations. I take issue with folks who think the best solution is eradication.

Why? Because horses aren't vermin, creatures that are harmful to crops, livestock or game, or that typically carry diseases.

Horses may compete for food and water, but they do not cause direct harm to other animals in the ecosystem. They are not completely useless to the environment, either.

Horse herds on state and federal lands do help to keep some overgrown vegetation mowed down; especially grasses that, when dried out after Winter and Spring moisture, can become formidable wild fire fuel.

Horse waste benefits the decomposers of the environment, too. Those organisms aren't picky from which animal the bio fuel comes out of.

And even predators, whose usual prey has moved on to seasonal feeding grounds often far away from the territories of carnivores, can stay fed just enough by preying on old, weak, sick or young horses.

Unfortunately, there aren't enough predators in the ranges where the horses roam to naturally keep their numbers in check and in balance with ecology.

The horses can contribute to nature's balance, but not when reproduction far out paces their mortality rates.

Therefore, we need solutions that support population control, because clearly nature is not achieving this on its own.

Birth control measures have been implemented before. But, truthfully, how effective have these really been in the past, and can they be made more effective if used again?

There are wild horse adoptions, too, but how many people are actually adopting them versus the number of horses in need of adoption? My hunch is the rate of the latter far outpaces the former.

Then there's hunting, a solution often scoffed at by horse advocates. It is, however, a time-tested method of helping to control animal populations.

If the state can allow hunting as a method for controlling other animal populations, then why not horses? Let the individual hunter harvest a wild or feral horse.

Require hunting tags, so that the Nevada Department of Agriculture can receive funds for the costs of managing horse herds on state land.

The meat, if not consumed by the hunter, can either be sold to those interested in a horse-meat delicacy, or else donated to homeless shelters and food pantries to feed the hungry. I imagine those in need of food would be grateful for anything they can eat.

Regardless of the population control solutions, anything proposed must be reasonable. That is, there ought to be some science behind it. Anyone can come up with a hair-brained scheme, but I believe care must be taken in order to find a balanced approach.

What do you think are the most reasonable solutions to fast-growing numbers of wild and feral horses in Nevada?

How do we institute reasonable solutions in a cost-effective manner? Someone has to pay for it, after all, and we all know who that is.

There can be reasonable solutions proposed besides a complete hands-off approach or total interference with nature. I've never been a believer in all-or-nothing thinking.

Surely, I can't be serious about all of this.

Well, yes, I can be. But I don't answer to Shirley.

Now, pardon me while I check the bottoms of my shoes.