Group fighting to save wild horses on the Salt River

There was a movie released in 1969 about a marathon dance contest that took place during the Depression. It was called, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"

Since then, just about every news story that had to do with horses in peril tried somehow to incorporate the movie title.

In the worst cases, it actually fit.

This might be one of those cases.

There are wild horses in Arizona, some of them living in Central Arizona along the Salt River on land owned by a couple of different native communities and the Tonto National Forest. It's not clear where the horses came from. The people who love and want to protect the animals say they could be descended from the horses first brought to the territory by Spanish missionaries. Others say they simply wandered into forest service land after having been lost or abandoned on private property or reservations.

Either way, the U.S. Forest Service has determined that they cannot stay.

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A group of supporters and enthusiasts called the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group is trying to save the animals from removal. But it won't be easy.

A spokesman for the national forest told a Phoenix television station, "It just boils down to a safety concern for the Forest Service. We have horses out there on Forest Service land and we have no authority to manage horses and this is how they're proceeding to remedy the safety issue."

Simone Netherlands of the Wild Horse group says that just isn't so.

"There have been no safety issues with these horses," she said. "No one has been hurt. We used to have a half a million wild horses in Arizona only a hundred years ago and now there are a handful. The attitude is that wild horses are a pest. But that isn't true anymore. There just aren't that many of them. And they're so lovely."

And, you know, this is Arizona.

The forest service plans to begin removing about 100 or so horses from the land beginning later this week. (The process could take a year or so.)

The public notice filed about the place reads in part: "All impounded animals not redeemed within 5 days after notice of sale of impounded livestock has been published in a local newspaper, posted in the county court house and in one or more local post offices, will be offered for sale at public auction. Livestock not sold at public sale may be sold at private sale or condemned and destroyed, or otherwise disposed of…"

Otherwise disposed of?

Supporters of the horses are meeting on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Butcher Jones Recreation Site in Apache Junction to rally to save the horses.

"We're hoping that enough people come out that we can save these animals and do the right thing," Netherlands said.

We've done all we can to transform everything wild about the desert into everything civilized about towns and cities. But this is still the West. The once wild West.

The phrase at the end of the Forest Service notice reads, "otherwise disposed of."

This is the West. The once wild West.

We don't really shoot horses, do we?