Wild-horse preserve idea worries Nev. ranchers

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens has made headlines for his positions on renewable energy and natural gas, but now his wife is making news for a controversial proposal to protect wild horses. Madeleine Pickens "caused an uproar when she proposed the Bureau of Land Management let her fence off more than 500,000 acres of federal land to create a sanctuary for wild horses near a 14,000-acre ranch she bought in October," Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal reports. Nevada cattle ranchers worry such a sanctuary would push them off the range because much of the state's 450,000 cattle graze on federal land. (WSJ graphic)

If the plan went through, "something has got to give, and it will be cattle," Robin Boies, a rancher who grazes her cattle on federal land adjacent to her Nevada ranch, told Carlton. Hunters and off-road enthusiasts also oppose the plan because they fear it would restrict them from the popular recreation area. "Pickens' ranch includes the rights to graze stock on surrounding federal land in return for payments to the government and general upkeep of the land," Carlton writes. "Her proposed mustang monument would be on these federal lands around her ranch."

Pickens told Carlton she wants to buy enough other Nevada ranches with grazing rights on federal lands to create sanctuaries for as many as 10,000 horses, adding "I'm sorry, but there's no putting this back in the bag." The preserve would be open to the public, Pickens said, and while she acknowledged local support would be nice she noted she has the support of the BLM. Some locals do support the plan, hoping it would bring tourists to the area. At a Nov. 15 meeting, Pickens told one of her local supporters "I don't know how anything bad can come of it. As long as I'm alive, it won't." (Read more)