HEBER, AZ (AZFamily) \u2014 Wild horses roaming the Mogollon Rim near Heber could be removed after the Forest Service argued the herd does not qualify for protection.<\/p>\n
While wild horses are protected under state law and federal law, the Forest Service argues the herd in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests<\/a> is not truly wild but unauthorized livestock on federal land.<\/p>\n \u201cWith one stroke of the pen, this loses all of their protection,\u201d said Simone Netherlands of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n Netherlands filed a temporary restraining order against the Forest Service to stop the Heber horses from being rounded up and removed.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically what is in our TRO is that they cannot just do this. There is a litmus test that the Forest Service must do to prove these things that they are claiming without any evidence,\u201d Netherlands said.<\/p>\n The Forest Service says it is legal to round up livestock on its land. In a recent memo, it claims the original wild horses died out in the 1990s and that the horses roaming the rim today are livestock that got in after the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, a 2002 wildfire that damaged fences around the forest.<\/p>\n Netherlands disputed that claim and said the agency was trying to use a loophole to remove what should be a protected species in Arizona.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no evidence behind what they\u2019re saying, and we have so much historic evidence to disprove all of this,\u201d Netherlands said.<\/p>\n Horse advocates said they were worried that what is happening in Heber could happen to wild horses in other parts of the state, including the Salt River.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n