From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND––To “restore” a
“natural” Channel Islands ecology that may never have
been anything but a succession of invasions, The
Nature Conservancy and National Park Service are
close to killing every wild mammal bigger than a fox on
the five southern California coastal islands––including
the last descendants of Spanish livestock on Santa Cruz
Island, introduced circa 1720. The pigs were killed
because they carried endogenous psuedorabies, a threat
to mainland hog producers. As many as 35,000 sheep
were killed on TNC land, say rescuers, who have been
allowed to round up and remove another 2,500 sheep,
poultry, horses, and burros from 6,200 acres that the
Park Service on February 10 seized by order of
Congress from the last holdouts against a forced sale.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE––Removing 16
jacks and six jennies from alpine habitat one doesn’t normally
associate with the California desert, Wild Burro Rescue has for
the third straight year averted a National Park Service massacre.
Much hard work is still ahead, gentling the burros, adopting them
out, and trucking many to their destinations, but the hardest job,
convincing the Park Service that nonlethal burro control is possible,
is gradually becoming accomplished.
The Mojave National Preserve burro population may be
markedly less than the Park Service estimate of 1,800, Chontos
told ANIMAL PEOPLE. After removing about 50 burros in previous
years, he said, the WBR team found none in the low desert
this year, while above the snow line they found mainly bachelor
bands––an indication that most Mojave jennies, who tend to stay
at the lower levels, have either been captured and removed, or
were shot several years ago, before WBR got involved.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1997:

DENVER––Wild horses rounded up by the Bureau
of Land Management and sold to slaughter hit the headlines on
January 4––again.
This time Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza,
of Albuquerque, New Mexico, chased the perennial allegations
of BLM malfeasance by tracing paper trails, something
animal advocates have not done on any comparable scale.
“Using freeze-brand numbers and computer records,”
Mendoza reported, “the AP traced more than 57 former BLM
horses sold to slaughterhouses since September. Eighty percent
were less than 10 years old and 25% were less than five years
old.” Further, Mendoza alleged, “The AP matched computer
records of horse adoptions with a computerized list of federal
employees and found that more than 200 current BLM employees
have adopted more than 600 wild horses and burros.”

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