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Western Sportsman –the
official voice of the Nevada Wildlife Federation, the state
affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation –February 1997 issue.
February1997
by Rose Strickland
Nevada State Senator Dean Rhoads’ Legislative Committee
on Public Lands (and also regarded as the father of the Sagebrush
Rebellion and is a public lands permittee and rancher) is wasting no
time after November’s elections to eliminate or cripple the state’s role
in protecting the wild horses on public lands in Nevada. For those
Nevadans who wondered when the Rebels would try to cash in a favorable
vote on (Nevada) Question 4 on the last ballot and escalate its
efforts to take control of public lands and resources, a meeting notice
issued the following week indicated that wild horses would be the first
target of the Sagebrush Rebels. Advocates of keeping public lands in
public hands point to these proposals as the first solid indications of
how the state would manage the public lands and public resources if the
dreams of the Sagebrush Rebels come true.
Approximately 20 years ago, Leo Heil
(See below Mr. Heil's Will dated 8-7-1972) bequeathed about $230,000 to Nevada, with the
simple requirement that the funds be used to protect Nevada’s wild
horses. For the first few years, the funds were tied up politically
until eventually it grew to $1.3 million. Threats by local public lands
forced the state to utilize the bequest. Protecting the base trust of
$900,000, the Commission and a very small staff must exist of the
interest only from that bequest. It is this staff’s job to look after
the welfare of wild horses in Nevada. The commission and staff must be
doing their jobs too well, since they have attracted the ire of Nevada’s
Sagebrush Rebels. They have been very successful in drawing attention
to inadequacies and irregularities in how federal agencies manage wild
horses. Such efforts recently lead to the appointment of a national
task force to investigate the BLM’s actions in the tragic suffering and
death last summer of wild horses in drought-stricken Southern Nevada.
The Public Lands Committee
(Senator Dean Rhoads' special interest committee) will be considering two
legislatives options on wild horses. The first is to repeal the state
law setting up the Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses
and to return the balance of the Heil Trust Fund for Wild Horses to the
estate of Leo Heil. (Not successful at this time)
The second (SB 211 directed at and thru the Nevada
Commission on Preservation of Wild Horses and the Heil Trust Fund was
passed) is to make up to twelve amendments to the state wild horse
laws. These changes in Nevada state law are designed to fill the
Commission with anti-wild horse representatives and staff, siphon wild
horse funds to the State Agriculture agency to remove “estray” horses
---wild horses unlucky enough to be caught outside an official herd
management area---, and change the mission of the wild horse commission
from protection and management to removal and disposal of wild horses.
One amendment redefines wild horses to only those horses who live in
“herd management areas”, small areas of public lands with arbitrary
boundaries drawn by the Bureau of Land Management. Another amendment
would remove the requirement that three commissioners be representative
of the general public and instead requires the members to be a public
land rancher, a county commissioners but only from a small county, a
veterinarian nominated by the State Agriculture Board, and a wildlife
biologist nominated by the State Wildlife Commission. (The
commission now is essentially composed of private vested interests that
are anti-wildhorse. The commission is now a very weak and controlled
voice for the wild horses.) Another amendment apparently is
supportive of reestablishing the tradition of mustanging whose
inhumane treatment of wild horses stimulated Nevadan Wild Horse Annie’s
efforts culminating in the (1971 federal) Wild Free Roaming Horse
and Burro Protection Act on December 15, 1971.
While wild horses are the first target of the
Sagebrush Rebels, newly emboldened by the passage of (Nevada)
Question 4, public land advocates wonder about the next target. Will it
be an attempt to eliminate the Nevada Division of Wildlife and the
Wildlife Commissioners to give control of the state’s wildlife to the
counties? Or will the Rebels attack Nevada’s existing National Forest
wilderness areas or the BLM’s wilderness study areas? Other agenda
items indicate the Committee interest in mining reclamation and the
Superfund Law, the Clean Air Act, elk, land exchanges and public
acquisitions of private land, and in how to force the State government
to become an active advocate for transferring public lands to state or
county control (sagebrush rebels).
Conservationists who value the public lands in Nevada
and Eastern California are urged to joint the on-going campaign to keep
public lands and resources in public lands. For more information,
contact the Nevada Wildlife Federation at 775-885-7965 in Northern
Nevada and 702-254-6815 in Southern Nevada.
Editors Notes: NvWF executive board member,
Elsie Dupree (now Nevada
president since 2000) attended this meeting. The NvWF position is the
public lands should remain public and that all decision regarding public
lands should be made with the public included in the process. NvWF is
concerned that the actions described in the above article are the first
step in excluding public comments on such public lands issues. Such
actions could lead to public exclusion on big game, endangered species,
and wildlife habitat issues of Nevada’ Wildlife.
Both SB 27 and SB 211, anti-wild horse and public lands bills, passed
the 1997 Nevada Legislative sessions.
August 7, 1972
–THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF LEO HEIL:
I, Leo Heil, of
Reno, Washoe County, Nevada do hereby make publish and declare in my own
handwriting, this to be my last will and testament, and do hereby revoke
all former wills and codicils thereto by me at any time make.
V. The
residue of the estate is given to the State of Nevada for the
preservation of the wild horses in Nevada. (Signed Leo Heil on 8-7-72).
(Such a simple and straight forward statement, but Leo Heil never
realized that Nevada’s wild horses were such a vast political issue and
that the powerful anti-wild horses forces would anything to destroy the
intent of his last will and testament for Nevada’s wild horses.)
Wild
Horse Spirit Ltd.
25 Lewers Creek Road
Carson City, NV 89704
(775) 883-5488 | Fax (775) 884-2333
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