SUSANVILLE – Federal investigators spent Thursday at the scene of the suspected shooting deaths of up to six wild horses on public land in Nevada, 45 miles northeast of Susanville.
The carcasses of five mustangs, found three miles from the California state line, showed evidence of gunshot wounds. A sixth animal was found a half-mile away, said Jeff Fontana, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Susanville.
Special agents are investigating the cause of the deaths and whether they are related to recent controversy over the future of wild horses, protected under a 1971 federal law.
The government has proposed what is believed to be the biggest-ever roundup of wild horses on federal land, moving as many as 25,000 mustangs and wild burros to pastures in the Midwest and East out of fear that their fast-multiplying numbers will lead to mass starvation.
The plan is facing heated opposition from wild horse advocates, including celebrities Sheryl Crow, Bill Maher and Ed Harris, who contend the proposal is inhumane and unnecessary. They say the situation is not as dire as the government has described it.
Opponents of the relocation plan spoke out Monday at a hearing on the proposal, held by a federal advisory panel at a hotel-casino near Reno. The panel took no immediate action.
The deaths of the six mustangs were discovered two days before the meeting, when a helicopter pilot spotted the bodies on a wild horse gathering operation in the BLM's Buckhorn Herd Management Area in Washoe County, Fontana said.
Investigators estimated the animals had been dead for about two weeks.
The BLM routinely removes what it considers excess horses from the range and takes them to government-funded holding facilities.
The agency has no information about a link between the proposed relocation and the wild horse deaths, he said. Investigators at the scene Thursday are still trying to determine a motive for the shootings, Fontana said.
Wild horses are protected under the 1971 Wild Free- Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which prohibits harassing, capturing or killing the animals.
Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, a year in prison, or both.
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