Lawmaker Bucking To Preserve Herd Of Wild Horses But Park Service Says Missouri Non-Native Equines A Menace

One side sees them as four-footed embodiments of America’s fundamental freedoms, threatened by big government.

The other sees them as feral, nonnative intruders into America’s natural heritage that should be removed and possibly killed.

Such a ruckus, and all over a tiny band of horses roaming loose in Missouri’s Ozarks.

From either perspective, it’s clear a huge amount of time, money and emotion has been poured into perhaps two dozen unowned horses living along a federally designated Ozarks National Scenic Riverway.

On Thursday, the fuss plopped into an ornate congressional hearing room, with Rep. Bill Emerson, a Missouri Republican, weighing in against the National Park Service.

The Park Service wants to oust the horses from the Current and Jack’s Fork rivers; Emerson has introduced the Wild Horses Protection Act of 1995 aimed at keeping them there.

“I think it’s going to be necessary for this Congress to impose common sense on the bureaucracy,” Emerson declared at Thursday’s hearing on his bill. “This is yet another example of government gone too far.”

Agreeing were three members of the Missouri Wild Horse League, whose slogan is, “Wild and Free, Let ‘Em Be.”

The group has offered to take over management of the herd, 15 to 30 horses, and care for them with private donations, said Doug Kennedy, the group’s lawyer. Kennedy flew over the horses in a helicopter and was moved watching them splash through a stream.

Since 1990, residents near Eminence, Mo., have opposed a roundup of the horses. The fight went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, back to Missouri and now is before Congress.

Under the current situation, the Park Service could haul away the horses any day but has waited, hoping to work out a compromise.

Emerson told the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands on Thursday that he had received about 5,000 letters and telephone calls from Missourians and people across the country.

“Their message is: Leave the horses alone,” Emerson said. “That’s all we’re here to ask. Leave our horses alone.”

Proponents also testified that they had traced wild horses in Missouri back to the 1700s, and this particular group has wandered free for perhaps 60 years.

Allen Akers, president of the Wild Horse League, said the people of Shannon County believe the horses “represent the freedom we enjoy in this great country.”

But Dennis P. Galvin, an associate director of the Park Service, testified that the horses live in an area of the scenic riverway designated as a “natural zone.”

“We emphasize that these horses are not wild horses, but feral horses,” a once domestic animal now untamed, Galvin said. “And Park Service policy is to remove exotic species from park units.”

Emerson protested that Missouri has other non-native species, such as the European carp and the speckled trout, “we have come to cherish and wouldn’t want to get rid of.”

Galvin also said the horse herd could damage the natural area by polluting springs and eating rare vegetation.

Emerson scoffed at that.

“The fact of the matter is these are rather benign animals,” Emerson said. “I’ve seen them. I’ve patted them on the head.”

Rep. James Hansen, the committee chairman and a Utah Republican, sympathized with Emerson’s viewpoint but noted that out West, wild horses proliferate quickly and are a menace to grazing lands. He proposed imposing legislative limits on the size of the Missouri herd.

That prompted Rep. Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, to wonder why the Missouri herd had remained stable and small.

“Are they less amorous than others?” Kildee said, prompting titters.

Akers said some colts drown and other horses die of natural causes.

Missouri’s two Republican senators, Kit Bond and John Ashcroft, have introduced identical legislation in the Senate, suggesting the Republican Congress might send the issue to President Clinton later this year.