MONO LAKE'S EQUINE ISSUE

Wild horses are trampling the otherworldly landscape. Federal agencies plan a roundup, but tribes and others seek an alternative.

- BY LILA SEIDMAN

WILD HORSES graze along the eastern shores of Mono Lake, famed for limestone columns called tufa. Hundreds could be rounded up.

(JASON ARMOND Los Angeles Times)

Several dozen horses calmly graze along the shores of Mono Lake, a sparkling saline expanse spread out before the jagged Sierra Nevada. The September sun is blazing. A pair of brown horses come up side by side and stare intensely at an approaching visitor.

These wild equines soon may disappear from beside the ancient lake. The prospect is stirring emotional disagreement over the future of the herd, which has surged to more than three times what federal officials say the land can support.

"These horses deserve a place to roam and be free, but around Mono Lake is not the place," said Bartshe Miller of the Mono Lake Committee, an environmental nonprofit.

This year, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management approved a plan to round up and remove hundreds of wild horses roaming beyond the roughly 200,000 acres designated for them along the California and Nevada border. No date has been set, but it could be as soon as this fall.

It would be a relief for some. Environmentalists say the horses are degrading the otherworldly landscape at Mono Lake, including bird habitat and its famed tufa textured rock columns that would look at home on Mars. Ranchers say the animals are gobbling down plants needed to sustain their cattle. Federal officials highlight the safety hazard posed by horses that have wandered onto highways.

Others see the move as a travesty. One method to oust the horses would use helicopters to drive them into a trap, which animal welfare groups say creates dangerous, even deadly, situations for horses. A pending federal bill would ban the practice.