THE GREAT DIVIDE

Wild horses leave Arizonans on both sides of the fence

Wild horses drive an emotional wedge between public-land users who believe the animals are either persecuted or a plague.

Arizonans like horseman Robert Hutchison want unbridled herds across the range, while those like hunter John Koleszar want to rein them in to protect other species.

The Heber Herd is Exhibit A in their struggle. The Heber horses inhabit the forest south of State Route 260 and the Mogollon Rim town of Heber. They are readily approachable in bands numbering in the dozens. Unlike some wary herds in other states, some of the Hebers will allow a photographer to walk among them, and will even approach to investigate the lens.

Over the past two years, Hutchison called, wrote or emailed every influential person he thought might come to the Heber horses’ defense.

A governor. Some legislators. Robert Duvall, star of the TV Western “Lonesome Dove.” Costner. Redford. Stallone. “They’re unreachable,” Hutchison said.

He rode his domestic horse through wild-horse territory in the Arizona Rim Country to rally support for a herd he considered endangered. He organized a horseback rally last May because he fears the U.S. Forest Service will remove the mustangs in the name of environmental protection.

The long-haired, retired former construction worker even wrote to Donald Trump before the billionaire entered and won the presidential race. He was hoping in vain that a celebrity real-estate developer might come to the mustangs’ rescue. The people love horses, Hutchison reasoned, and the people own federal lands.

He was speaking broadly of the many Arizonans who strongly support wild horses, and not his rancher neighbors who argue the herds need culling so the public lands can keep feeding cattle and people.

“They think every blade of grass is theirs,” Hutchison said.

Crowding wildlife

Koleszar is among the hunters, ranchers and ecologists who argue that unregulated horse populations across the state are trashing deserts and grasslands and pushing other animals off watering holes.

The Heber Herd’s range on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests also supports deer and elk. Hunters have worked for years to improve conditions for those species.

Koleszar, president of the Arizona Deer Association, has hunted there since the 1980s and noticed a big change after a horse herd that had seemed to disappear re-emerged in the 2000s.

“If you go over behind Overgaard or Heber now, it’s just covered with horse droppings,” he said.

They’re “majestic animals,” he said, but “when a single species takes prece-