CONTRIBUTING OPINION

Cattle, not horses, are the real problem.

I would like to know how Merle Edsall can possibly say that wild-horse groups have blocked effective management of the largest "unmanaged species" in the West ("How to save wild horses," Forum, yesterday).

Open your eyes, Mr. Edsall. You claim that excess numbers of horses overgraze the lands and this leads to the horses dying of thirst and starvation. When you compare the number of horses to cattle, your claims are ridiculous.

Due to pressure from cattle ranchers, the Bureau of Land Management has been removing the wild horses from public lands and placing them in government holding facilities, for the benefit of the privately owned cattle, which outnumber the wild horses 150 to 1.

There are 4.5 million cattle grazing on public lands — lands that were supposed to be for the horses, not the cattle. A government study in 1990 found that horses did little or no damage to the land. It also found that damage to the lands was caused from overgrazing by mismanaged herds of privately owned cattle. So why are the horses being removed? Six Western states have already lost their entire wild-horse population. Is this the kind of effective management you think the horses need? Is it effective management to slaughter them for human consumption?

How can you say Sen. Conrad Burns' amendment simply offers Americans a choice? The wild horses belong to the American people. The American people were not given a choice. This amendment removes wild horses from the people.

Due to the greed of the cattle ranchers, BLM, and Mr. Burns, the wild horses, our nation's treasure, the free spirit of America, are doomed to be a memory of our past, consumed on a dinner plate overseas.

Valerie James-Patton
Shingletown, Calif.