Nevada to Give Away Virginia Range Mustangs – Please Help!
The following is from the American Wild Horse Campaign:
If you contacted Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval to protect the Virginia Range wild horses – thank you.
You may have received an email response from the Governor’s office outlining “criteria” for the state’s ill-conceived plan to give away the 3,000 Virginia Range wild horses. Unfortunately, what the Governor failed to even mention is that by the state giving away the horses, the state and citizens would have NO power to stop the new owner from killing healthy horses. The state can have whatever “criteria” or “intent” it wants — but the final decisions about the horses’ fate would rest with the new OWNER. The horses would be deemed privately-owned and would be subject to all laws pertaining to domestic horses/livestock (e.g. branding laws, liability laws, etc.)
The Governor and his Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA) know that transferring ownership of these horses to a private party is not viable especially from a liability perspective. Currently, under Nevada law, the state owns the horses and is exempt from any liability of damage or injury caused by the horses. This exemption from liability would not pertain to any private owner of the horses. Thus, the transfer of the 3,000 horses to a private entity that has good intentions for the horses is not practical. AWHC strongly believes that no legitimate advocacy organization could take on this type of liability.
While what the Governor wrote sounds nice. However, the Governor and NDA are disingenuous when they asssert that this is in the interest of protecting and preserving the horses because their scheme cannot be implemented as advertised.
Lastly, we need to remind you that the only supporters of this giveaway plan is Protect the Harvest, the organization lobbying to legalize the killing of America’s wild horses and burros, and ranchers who have long pushed to kill wild horses.
Please let us know if you have questions. We stand ready, as we always have been, to resume the public/private partnership for all aspects of humane management of the Virginia Range horses.
– The AWHC Team