A JOINT MEMORIAL
SUPPORTING EFFORTS TO SAVE WILD HORSES AND REQUESTING AN
APPROPRIATE INTERIM LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE TO STUDY WAYS TO FURTHER PROTECT AND
PRESERVE WILD HORSES IN NEW MEXICO.
WHEREAS, New Mexico has a long
association with wild horses, many of them descending from the Spanish colonial
horses brought to North America five hundred years ago; and
WHEREAS, the first horse race
ever recorded on American soil was held near Bernalillo in 1541; and
WHEREAS, congress enacted the
Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971, providing for the protection,
management and control of wild horses and burros on public land, under the
auspices of the United States department of the interior and department of
agriculture; and
WHEREAS, the only federally
recognized wild free-roaming horses in New Mexico are found west of Dulce in
the Carson national forest, on La Jarita mesa near Ojo Caliente and in the
bureau of land management's Bonito Atravesado wild horse area east of Socorro;
and
WHEREAS, the bureau of land
management showed a count of only seventy horses in New Mexico in 2000; and
WHEREAS, there are numerous
bands of wild horses throughout New Mexico, not included in this count, that
have been verified by local residents as wild and not strays; and
WHEREAS, because most of New
Mexico's wild horses have no protection, they are being rounded up, auctioned
and slaughtered at the rate of thousands per year; and
WHEREAS, these wild horses by
their very nature roam across lands belonging to the state and federal
governments, sovereign Indian lands and private land, which creates
jurisdictional issues; and
WHEREAS, these unclaimed and
unprotected horses belong to the people of New Mexico and are part of our
living history;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED
BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the appropriate interim
legislative committee be requested to study ways to save the wild horses of New
Mexico from extinction and that the committee work in cooperation with the
bureau of land management, appropriate state agencies, tribal governments and
wild horse advocacy groups; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the
committee report its findings to the legislature by the second session of the
forty-sixth legislature; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that
copies of this memorial be transmitted to the New Mexico legislative council,
the bureau of land management, appropriate state agencies, tribal governments
and wild horse advocacy groups.