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| Using an old photo, but The Stallion can be seen just wandering around neighborhoods all by himself. It is as if he is going by checking all their stomping grounds. Are they here? Photo by Shannan Dobbs-Gabaldon |
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Stallion sightings both sides of Hwy 48
Wild horses still protected under prevailing law
Head of the Wild Horse Observers Association offers some comments about bills
The dead include House Bill 446 called Wild Horse in Statute and the accompanying House Memorial 102, Protection of Wild Horses. Also among the dead were House Joint Memorial 17, Protection of Wild Horses, and Senate Bill 126 introduced by Republican Pat Woods from Broadview, that would have changed livestock and wild horse definitions. That last bill was opposed by many local wild horse advocates as an attempt to eliminate the existence of wild horses in the state by classifying horses as livestock, but supported by some who contended the bill’s provisions protected property owners as well as horses. A second bill introduced by Woods, Senate Bill 184, Disposition of Trespassing Wild Horses, also died in committee.
The only survivor among the passel of proposed legislation was House Bill 390, Equine Rescue and Shelter Right of Refusal. The bill gives registered equine rescue or retirement facilities the first right of refusal to purchase an unclaimed horse classified as estray, or those that have been cruelty treated or caught while trespassing. If an owner doesn’t claim an estray equine within the allotted few days after the last publication of notice, a rescue or retirement facility will be given the chance to purchase the horse. If neither action occurs, the state livestock board has the right to sell the horse, which would include buyers with the intent to slaughter. If no bids are received, the board can order the horse to be humanely euthanized.
Patience O’Dowd, who heads the Wild Horse Observers Association, the group that interceded after the roundup of a dozen members of a wild horse herd in Alto, offered some observations about the bills considered in the state legislative session that ended earlier this month.
She said the insertion of exemptions for horses of Spanish colonial origin in Wood’s SB126 was not pushed by her organization, it was another group that works with the livestock board.
“It was a shill,” she said. “All it did was make a bad bill look good. It did not improve things at all.”
Thankfully some legislators were educated enough on the issue not to be fooled, she said. They correctly understood the rule of law.
“WHOA had two very successful years in the legislature in 2006 and 2007,” O’Dowd said. “In those two years we passed SB655 and three memorials.”
The senate bill was the basis for the successful court cases and was codified in state statute, defining Spanish colonial horses, requiring them to be relocated to horse preserves, allowing for adoption and providing for the control of wild horse population by means of birth control.
During the 2017 legislative session, three lobbyist organizations attended every committee meeting speaking for SB126, O’Dowd said.
“They all were ganging up to support 126, which is a bad bill for wild horses and would remove their protection as wild horses,” O’Dowd said. “So we had a stream roller coming down on these wild horses while we’re in the middle of (the) district court (case) and they were attempting to basically play legislative favoritism and roll over our judicial branch of government.”
WHOA previously received a temporary injunction against the sale of the Alto herd after it was rounded up, and is challenging in district court, the jurisdiction of the New Mexico Livestock Board insistence that wild horses are estray livestock.
People just didn’t bother reading the bill when they saw that an animal protection voters group backed it, O'Dowd said.
“Luckily there are people in roundhouse who know how to read for themselves,” she said. “Luckily, a new fiscal analysis was written at end that admitted to legilslative favortism and a clear attempt to overturn all financial investment and time of the people and the court and the previous legislature."
Under SB126, few if any horses would have been considered wild and pass the test for protection. The bill also contained nothing to stop the livestock board from declaring a wild horse an estray livestock. The board previously has never declared any horse “wild,” not even the Spanish colonials, despite the board’s own genetic testing showing the Placitas horses at 91 percent to 96 percent Spanish markers, significantly more than the 80 percent probability required, according to WHOA’s web presentation on the bill. The other problems with the amended bill were that wild horses would have to originate on public land, they could be classified as livestock and would have preempted federal law by removing the requirement that livestock be domestic or owned. The bill would have placed the wild horses under a board that never has recognized their existence as wild, the website stated.
Senate Bill 126 wasn’t taken down for lack of time, O'Dowd said. “It was taken down because of those issues. We did everything every step of the way we could under the law."
“Because of that, the wild horses prevailed and they are still protected and we still have a viable court case and we will still be there in court for those horses," she said. "We would have anyway, because we would have taken further action. The horses have nothing to hide from. The truth and law are on their side. Since 126 didn’t pass, the horses remain under the same protection that they had from existing laws 10 years ago.”
While HB390 was “a decent bill” in its original form, amendments changed that, O’Dowd said.
“For the horse rescuers, HB390 gives them first right of refusal, so they don’t have to compete with kill buyers or the public,” she said. “They have to pay $100 or $200, which is what they usually pay now, sometimes less. It just gives them first opportunity, so it will protect a few estray livestock equine from kill buyers. But those not bid on in the first round and that the rescue groups don’t take, the kill buyers will take them in the second round. That second option wasn’t there in the (original bill).” According to testimony, the livestock board and industry requested the amendments and the sponsor allowed them, she said.
Several wild horse bills debated in legislature
As the New Mexico Legislature prepares to close its session, debate still boils over how to protect wild horses and private property
One side is focusing more on protection of private property rights and the other on protection of the horses and their freedom.
The latest proposed legislation is House Memorial 102 introduced by State Rep. Joanne J. Ferrary, a Democrat from District 37, with input from Patience O’Dowd, head of Wild Horse Observers Association. Her organization won a temporary injunction against the sale of a dozen members of a “wild” herd hauled away and then returned to Lincoln County by New Mexico Livestock Board. The case is pending in district court. The memorial acknowledges the role of the conservation division of the state Department of Game and Fish in “protecting, maintaining and enhancing wildlife habitat,” and requests the division conduct an interim study and to provide recommendation for the protection, maintenance an enhancement of wild horse herds and habitat in the state.
The memorial notes that the state has not managed the population of wild horses by immunocontraception in the last 10 years despite public policy, and contends management more likely would occur if a specific state agency had jurisdiction. Several tribes and pueblos already are managing wild horse population by immunocontraception and officials with two nongovernmental organizations as well are trained to administer the drug by darting, the memorial states. Fewer than 300 wild horses are on federal and state grazing lands in New Mexico compared to half a million cattle, it contends.
A long list of stakeholders in the well-being of wild horses included artists, outfitters, horse rescue groups, rural economic development organizations and the state tourism, the memorial states.
The New Mexico Livestock Board has exercised control over the wild horses of the state, considering them to be estray livestock subject to capture and disposal by the board, but the conservation services division is better suited to determine the status, needs, habitat requirements and issues of human interaction with wild horses than the board, according to the memorial. After tangling with the livestock board over horses in Alto and Placitas, wild herd advocates also seem to lack trust in the livestock board's intentions, a significant impediment.
The legislature’s website listed the memorial Tuesday as referred to the House State Government, Indian and Veterans Affairs Committee.
O’Dowd insists that advocates for the well-being of the wild horse herds can no longer support Senate Bill 126, introduced by State Sen. Pet Woods, a Republican from District 7, if they claim they are against the slaughter of horses. The amended bill passed the Senate 32-2 and was sent to the House State Government, Indian and Veterans Affairs Committee.
The bill classifies horses as livestock, but defines a wild horse as unclaimed without obvious brands or other evidence of private ownership determined by the board to originate from public land or federal land or to be part of, or descended from a herd that lives on or originated from public land. Excepted are horses that are subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government pursuant to the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and those determined to a Spanish Colonial horse.
Captured horses could be relocated to a preserve, adopted or humanely euthanized. A herd could be removed from a range, if the range improvement task force of New Mexico State University makes that recommendation after evaluating the condition of the rangeland in response to a request from the livestock board.
One of the key players in the situation with the Alto herd contends whether the horses there came from the reservation or from the wilderness area of the national forest is irrelevant, because both are federal land.
“So that gives the so-called wild horses special dispensation,” she said. “It does not mean that if they are found wandering on private property, stallions threatening mares or the well-being of private land or person that the private landowner doesn’t have the right to call the NMLB. This bill gives that protection to private land owners.”
She contended it is “highly unlikely” anyone is going to complain about horses on public land unless someone is injured on the highway.
She also noted that the state fence-out law does not mean that a person must have a fence, but if an owner does not put up a fence, and cattle or other livestock enter the property and cause damage, the owner then cannot register a legal claim for damage reimbursement.
Genetically verified Spanish Colonial horses are considered valuable by breeders, she said. Few have been verified in New Mexico. Senate Bill 126 also addresses testing to determine if a captured horse is of Spanish colonial heritage and if it is, to relocate it to a state or private wild horse preserve created and maintained to protect Spanish colonial horses.
“If not, (the bill reads that) it shall be returned to the state public land, relocated to a public or private preserve or put up for adoption by the agency on whose land the wild horse was captured,” she said. The livestock board is the proper agency to manage wild horses and livestock, she contended.
Other pending legislation includes House Bill 390, introduced by State Rep. Nathan Small, a Democrat from District 36, which would allow an equine rescue group first chance to purchase an unclaimed estray horse or it will be euthanized, later amended to allow public bid. Advocates contend that bidding would include buyers headed to a slaughter house. The amended bill was passed by the House 50-17 and referred to the Senate Conservation Committee. The initial aim of the bill was to prevent cruelty to livestock, advocates say.
House Bill 284, also introduced by Woods, hasn’t moved from the Senate Conservation and Senate Judiciary Committee referral. That bill deals with trespass on private land by horses, giving the Livestock Board jurisdiction and clarifying procedures to be followed when wild horses come into the custody of the board, including adoption, relocation to a preserve or euthanasia.
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