Special to ESPN...

'They have to be free'
By William Nack, Special to ESPN.com


This is a good article to read about the entire mess from start to finish. There's lots of good research and if you want to get caught up on the issue, read on...

Indeed, two months earlier, Sen. Conrad Burns, a fast-yodeling former auctioneer from Montana, quietly inserted into a 3,000-page appropriations bill, sight largely unseen, a brief rider that undercut more than three decades of lobbying and legislative action aimed at protecting America's wild horses from slaughter.

So whether it was the inspiration of the many or an impulse of a few, the students of a school nicknamed the Mustangs lifted the latch on the corral's gate, and flung open the door to yet another signature moment in the long-running battle for the preservation of wild horses in the West.

"They have to be free," students said before the herd ran off into the surrounding streets...

...The Bureau of Land Management insists these public lands cannot sustain more than 28,000 wild horses and burros – at least not while the drought-stricken lands must also support other wildlife and some 4 million cattle owned by ranchers who enjoy huge federal subsidies to fatten their livestock – so it rounds up thousands of them each year to keep the herds under control....

..."The thing that is so damaging about this Conrad Burns amendment [Rider No. 142] is that he passed it on an appropriations bill that no one knew about," says Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Republican from western Kentucky. "I've not talked to one senator who knew about it. And I certainly know that nobody in the House knew about it. Or the vast majority did not know about it. We didn't have a lot of time to vote on that omnibus bill. We were all shocked when we found out it was in there. It is precisely the way the legislative process should not work.

"I don't know his motivations, but more than likely he was protecting the [cattle] ranchers who have leased those lands."...