According to government agricultural officals and other authorities, thousands of wild, abandoned and feral horses are roaming the state of New Mexico forcing residents and officials to come up with better solutions to the over-population of horses on the Navajo reservation and through out the state.
An ever-increasing horse population
Several organizations are coming together in New Mexico to try and find solutions to the over-population of horses before the problem gets even worse.
© 2012 by Carien Schippers
Now several organizations are coming together to try and find solutions before the problem gets even worse.
"It's dire; it's critical," said Charles Graham, who heads up Walkin' N Circles Horse Rescue. His shelter can't take one more horse and is 40 over capacity.
Graham is one of the many people involved in a new task force formed by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to deal with New Mexico's horse overpopulation problem.
"We've had estimates of tens of thousand of horses that have been released across the state either on Forest Service, BLM land or tribal land," state Secretary of Agriculture Jeff Witte said. "And as that number of horses gets out there, it has a tremendous impact on the natural resources."
"We are starting from scratch here," added Lisa Jennings of Animal Protection of New Mexico. "We have never really addressed the homeless horse problem.
"This is not a new problem, it's been here for decades and probably generations, and for the first time ever New Mexicans are saying we value horses."
The state says some of the horses on New Mexico lands are truly wild, but there are also abandoned and feral horses. Animal protection of New Mexico established an equine protection fund two years ago, and it has helped 200 horses with hay, gelding and rehoming.
Advocats say any solutions will be difficult and may include hard choices such as euthanasia.
"If you look at the age span of a horse, within five years we could have 600,000 unwanted horses in the country," Graham said.
It turns out that wild horses are not the only problem. NMDA says the cost of hay and downturn in the economy have caused an increase in horse neglect cases for urban and suburban horse owners.
The BLM reports horse populations are largely left alone by natural predators, and their populations can grow as much as 25 percent per year.