US Forest Service to Capture 400 Arizona Wild Horses and Sell Them at Auction
Wild Horses in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Jeopardy of Going To Slaughter

Phoenix, AZ - IDA has learned that the U.S. Forest Service plans to remove 400 wild Arizona horses from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Eastern Arizona and sell them at auction in Sun Valley near Holbrook, Arizona. Most or all of the 400 horses, including mares and foals, will go to slaughter. The Forest Service intends to accept a final bid on gathering these horses from the forest no later than September 8, 2005. They will then authorize the contractor to begin rounding the horses up or trapping the horses as soon as 10 days after the contract is awarded.

The horses are currently living in a protected Wild Horse and Burro Territory of 14,000 acres within the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest designated under the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act as the Heber Wild HorseTerritory. Documents provided to IDA by the Forest Service claim that the agency had removed the last horses from the Heber Territory in 1993, and that all 400 horses they currently plan to capture are trespass horses who came from the Apache reservation during the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in the summer of 2002.

The Forest Service asserts that, since they consider the horses trespass horses, this allows the agency to impound and sell the horses at auction, and exempts the agency from being required to do an Environmental Impact Study, issue a decision memo, or submit the removal plan for public comment. However, to the best of our knowledge, the Forest Service has never done a census of the herds in the area, which covers thousands of acres, and so far, they have produced no actual evidence of their having removed the last two horses in 1993. Based upon our investigation to date, it appears most of the horses are unbranded; free roaming horses in a wild horse and burro territory and, as such, should fall under the protection of the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

Information obtained by IDA indicates that the Forest Service did not remove the last two wild horses in 1993. Written and spoken histories of the area show continuous presence of wild mustangs in the Heber Territory from their introduction in the 17th century through the present. The evidence compiled by IDA also shows that the Forest Service will be gathering up offspring of horses who lived in the Heber Territory prior to 1971 and are protected under the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

In a letter to Dr. Pat Haight, a Forest Service official wrote that the horses are being removed because they are interfering with efforts to reestablish vegetation in the Rodeo-Chediski fire area. However, the same letter indicated that the tall grasses from the reseeding project had lured the horses, and local residents report that the grasses have never been higher or lusher in the area. Animal welfare organizations suspect the real motivation for the horses' removal originates from a June 2005 report to Congress from the Senate Appropriations Committee, which instructed Arizona and other Western States to use more public land for grazing contracts.

IDA and its coalition of animal protection groups would like to purchase as many of the horses as possible up for auction. We have retained an attorney and have asked that the FS stop the removal of the horses or we will seek court intervention.