Volunteer Marie Milliman has fulfilled her dream and now lives in the heart of wild horse country, Nevada. Nevada has more wild horses and burros than all other states combined. Over 84% of the land base in the state is public lands. Only the state of Alaska has more public domain than Nevada. She shares her thoughts in the following personal essay to start the new year (with additional information added from the team lead).
Nevada, the Battered Beautiful
Nevada, with its beckoning wide valley floors, cradled by abundant benches and daring to powder the stars with the highest number of snow-peaked mountain ranges in the United States, is an under appreciated masterpiece.
Within the fragmented confines of this masterpiece lies the “capital” and home with the hearts of more wild horses than all the United States combined, who add the final brushstrokes and the finishing touches to the priceless State that I now call home.
My goal in penning this article was to pay homage to the beauty that the state of Nevada certainly deserves. Lord, help me. I could not progress past the introduction without fuming about the desecration of the environment and wildlife.
Contrary to the way denigrating profit-driven uses within Nevada operate, it is not a “throw it away” realm to add to the American wild land dumpster. My mind goes back to the “leave it state” moment from the movie The Misfits: “The Leave It state. Ya got money you want to gamble? Leave it here. You got a wife you want to get ride of? Get rid of her here. Extra atom bomb you don’t need? Blow it up here. Nobody’s gonna mind in the slightest.”
Silver State, Battle Born State, Sagebrush State are all nicknames. Each nickname pointing to the rich history of the western frontier: the silver mining that drove settlement, Nevada became the second of two states added to the Union during the Civil War (“battle born”) and sagebrush is the state flower (the state has lost over 40% of healthy sagebrush communities in the last 40 years). The state animal is the Big Horn Sheep that nearly died out half a century ago from hunting and diseases spread by domestic sheep. Only through reintroduction efforts are big horn (that trace lineage to other states) still in NV and disease from domestic sheep is still an issue.
Even though the state name came from the Spanish word meaning “snow-clad,” “snowy land,” or “snowy,” it is the most arid state in the U.S., and an attestation of the “throw away mindset” is depleting the already minuscule water supply, hijacking the most essential resource to sustain private profiteers instead of protecting it for its diminishing wildlife and biodiversity.
While the state of Nevada feigns the value of wild horses by featuring them in the state quarter, reality paints a much different picture. Perhaps imported European livestock or an open mine pit would be more accurate on the quarter?
Nevada is comprised of 85% public land, the highest percentage in the U.S. except Alaska. Its Basin and Range regions, created by geological forces, are responsible for Nevada’s many mountain ranges. These glorious mountain ranges hold the earth’s minerals that the DOI and the Department of Agriculture permit mining magnates (foreign and domestic) to pillage its riches irresponsibly, encroach on and fragment wildlife habitats, affect local communities, drop water tables, and pollute life-sustaining water. At the same time, the government puts the blame for habitat destruction (absurdly) squarely on the backs of the Wild Horses and Burros.
In the last decade, hard rock mining has rapidly expanded in wild horse territory under the antiquated 1872 Mining Law with zero regard for environmental protection provisions. EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-TWO, you read that right, plus the mining industry crafted the law! The Second Industrial Revolution was just gaining steam, and the tools and processes utilized in mining rapidly advanced. “Pick axes have been replaced by equipment six stories tall that can decapitate a mountaintop in a few days.” Meanwhile, in government land, the wild horses and burros are in the middle of the bullseye for the degradation of our Public Lands, rinse and repeat.
Below: A couple of images from Western Mining History (you can learn more by clicking the highlighted text). In many ways, the western U.S. was built on the “boom and bust” cycles of mining. The technology available in 1872 is no way resembles the technology and impact of today.
From a quote in a letter that WHE and 70 environmental organizations sent in support of H.R. 2579 in 2019: “The legacy of the 1872 Mining Law is pervasive, threatening the well-being of our western communities and the scarce drinking water upon which they depend. For example, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hard rock mining has polluted 40 percent of the headwaters of western watersheds. Hardrock mining releases arsenic, mercury and leads into our communities’ air and waters. The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory has consistently shown that the hard rock industry releases more toxic chemicals into our air, land, and water than any other industry in the nation.”
Nevada’s citizens, environment, and all living beings deserve better than the inevitable passage into an irreversible wasteland.
As many as 1 million kilometers of fence may crisscross the western United States, enough to stretch to the Moon and back. One study found 0.25 mortalities per year per km of fence (0.11 antelope; 0.08 mule deer and 0.06 elk) , or one dead antelope every year per 5.6 miles of fence; one dead mule deer every year per 7.8 miles of fence and a dead elk every year for every 10.3 miles of fence. It seems the words “open range” is truly is a myth, a statement our founder makes often.
Privately owned livestock causes immense damage and is not a benefit to the land, no matter what new grazing scheme BLM may promote in any given year. Data reveals that more than 50 percent of the livestock allotments that fail to meet land health standards identify livestock grazing as a significant cause. Nearly 27% of public rangelands administered by the BLM – nearly 41 million acres – have never been assessed, including a 1.4 million acre livestock grazing allotment in Nevada. (Livestock was brought in to feed miners and there never should have been any expectation that “big ag” would be sustainably profitable.)
“Unlike other free-roaming animals that live on our western landscapes, wild horses are confined to less than 13% of our public lands”. They are most affected by the thousands of miles of fencing due to their inability to leap over or creep under it. And if they do, they are considered “trespass” and subject to removal. They are confined within fenced areas, blocked from roaming freely, or maintain historical/preferred migratory patterns to access what should be healthy, vital/seasonal resources for survival.
Wild horses and burros depend on and are defined by the land on which they stand. The horses and burros are the scapegoats, and both are treated like a scrap heap to be discarded for the waiting vultures.
The Wild Horses and Burros’ subsistence is within their environment and dependent on its viability and access. They are the resulting pulse from the historic heart of Nevada and vice versa, the highlights that so fondly weave into the expansive masterpiece of the priceless State of Nevada the Beautiful.
Our wild horses and burros are truly living symbols of the majesty and beauty of the western landscape and spirit.
Nevada has the largest population of wild horses and burros managed in the nation. As many as all other western states combined.
Every single western state shares the history of exploitation of public resources at the expense of wild places and wild things.
Removal is not management, as our litigation in 2024 proved. In the entire history of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro program it has never been proven that one single roundup has achieved any Thriving Natural Ecological Balance or even moving one decimal point toward improvement. For over 50 years BLM slams populations down to numbers acceptable to industry and then gives more critical habitat away to those industries and then blames the horse or burro for damage to the rangeland. “AML” (or numbers of horses and burros) is nothing more than a sad and ugly game.
As we step in 2025, I commit myself to the WHE team once again as we work to protect our wild ones and the land they call home. The land designated for their use must be protected or we will keep seeing our wild ones scapegoated and removed to smaller and smaller numbers.
Join us in 2025.
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Categories: Wild Horse Education
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