Singer joins fight to save wild horses

CARSON CITY -- Country singer Willie Nelson has joined a fight to preserve a wild horse herd roaming mountains near the old Nevada mining town of Virginia City, and Gov. Jim Gibbons is getting a lot of calls as a result.

Gibbons press secretary Ben Kieckhefer, asked about a message Wednesday from Nelson that aired on his XM radio show, "Willie's Place," urging calls to the governor, said dozens of people concerned about the horses phoned Thursday from around the country.

Singer-songwriter Lacy J. Dalton, who lives near Virginia City, asked Nelson to help stop what she and other wild horse advocates saw as a move by the Nevada Agriculture Department to round up a herd of about 1,200 horses for eventual livestock sales, where they could be sold for slaughter.

"That's exactly what they intend to do," Dalton said.

"Over my dead body will they take those horses," said Dalton, who toured with Nelson, also a wild-horse advocate, in the 1980s. "It's wrong, it's stupid and shortsighted."

Kieckhefer said Tony Lesperance, head of the Agriculture Department, is working on a management plan for the horses in the Virginia Range, but added it will be several months before anything happens, and public concerns will be incorporated into that plan.

"That range can't support the number of horses there in the long term," Kieckhefer said. "But there's enough foliage to support the herd for the time being. There are no plans in place to remove animals. Everything is status quo."

Whether on state, private or federal lands, the wild horses in Nevada total more than 20,000. That's the largest number for any state.