A special thanks to Bill Aney for his column on free-ranging horses destroying our public lands. As a trained biologist, retired science teacher and a person who abhors waste, I have written letters to the editor and elected representatives about these perceived problems. You have done it more succinctly than I had done. I hope your effort will be more effective.

The representatives would sometimes send me their party line while others acquaintances have responded with a “give it up Harrison, no one cares.”

To annually spend $50 million to feed 50,000 horses in corrals in violation of the wild free-roaming intent is a total waste of money. To allow 88,000 feral horses to roam on land that has been deemed scientifically appropriate to handle 26,700 animals is totally beyond reason. If cattle were allowed to destroy the range these excess animals are doing, the BLM would definitely and justifiably be brought to task. Of course, no cattle rancher would allow cattle to be present during the winter months when the major damage occurs.

I have proposed everything from harvesting these animals to feed the poor, to providing a nutritious and savory lean meat for people interested in organic foods, to having Fish and Wildlife conduct controlled hunts, much the same as they do when other wildlife are causing damage. Nothing seems to gain any traction.

As for eating them, we did it during World War II and for a number of years following. In 1951, Time magazine wrote an article stating that in Portland there were three times as many horse meat butchers selling three times as much meat as all the other forms of meat sold. It was cheap and the population had become accustomed to eating it. Unfortunately, people subsequently developed a taste for fattened beef and the incidence of heart attacks has increased.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I don’t like the mustangs roaming our southeast part of the state. That would be inaccurate. Like other forms of wildlife, I look forward to seeing them. I don’t want them to continue destroying the range, and I sure don’t want to waste money keeping them corralled.

Carlisle Harrison

Hermiston