Charred trees still remain where horses now graze on grass where the fire scar helped promote its regrowth after fires burned the understory at the base of these Ponderosa pine trees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, where the Heber Wild Horse Territory is home to many feral horses in the high central Arizona area, , on Sept. 26, 2019.
Work has begun to draft proposed actions that balances feral horse, wildlife, and land management of the forest and private cattle operations. The wildlife in this area also includes elk, mule deer, pronghorn sheep, javelina, mountain lions, and black bear. Of these, horse are the only ones who are not prey to the mountain lion and black bears, and cannot currently be culled as are elk. Also, cattle, elk and horses graze on the same type of grass, a challenge to manage the animals who feed on it, and also for the grass which also needs water in an increasingly drought prone area. In several areas, ranchers have build tin roofed structures that capture water in tanks that feed watering sites surrounding it. The horse population has increased the demand for water from these sites that did not originally account for them. Original public domain image from Flickr
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