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The Alpine wild horses are the majestic creatures that have roamed free in the Apache National Forest in Northern Arizona for centuries. The Apache Sitgreaves National Forest manages this two million-acre Forest (ASNF).

This district of the Forest Service, which falls under region 3, is inhumanely removing the beloved Alpine herd and selling them in online public auctions, through which they are ending up in slaughter for human consumption. Horse Advocates are hurt and outraged that the horses they know and love are ending up in Mexican slaughterhouses under the direction of the Forest Service through their contractor Rail Lazy H.

The ASNF has classified these horses as “unauthorized livestock,” which makes the removal “legal” by their design and, at the same time, makes humane management “illegal.”

Between our Arizona State archives, the Library of Congress historical articles, and Arizona State historian Marshall Trimble, enough historical evidence exists to state these horses are the living remnants of our earliest Arizona history. The same area where they live is called the Coronado Trail, which Fransisco Vasquez de Coronado blazed in 1540 and left horses behind. The Forest Service, however, is trying to deny that entire history by saying they were not there in 1971 when the Wild Free-roaming horse and burro Act passed.

We believe this was a purposeful omission.

More than 160 of these beautiful horses have already been removed and sold without limitation on slaughter. While we have worked very hard with sanctuaries and good people to find over 100 good homes, there is a limit to what we can do as citizens.

The Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service and its contractor Rail Lazy H are not only aware of this direct connection to the slaughter pipeline; they have designed the removal program this way. This behavior of our federal government is an outrage. It is not much different than how they were trying to exterminate these horses in 1926 by offering them five and a half cents per pound at the railroads. (Historic article)

We, the Alpine Wild Horse Advocates (AWHA), are a group of locals living in our beautiful small community of Alpine, where fewer than 200 people live year-round. We have loved these horses for a long time, and they are a vital recreational and tourism resource for our small community. We will continue to fight for them. We are working with the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group and learned documentation and humane management protocols. Together, we have documented almost 400 Alpine wild horses in this spectacularly beautiful high-elevation forest.

SRWHMG has offered humane and cost-effective solutions to the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest (ASNF) during several official meetings with Forest Supervisor Judith Palmer and Deputy Forest Supervisor Ericka Luna. However, there was simply no interest in humane methods. The ASNF in the news said they were looking for humane solutions, but that was a lie. Instead, they are spending $1 million of your tax dollars to eradicate this herd from the wild and erase them from our Arizona historical memory.

Our beautiful Alpine wild horses peacefully share over 500,000 acres of Apache Forest with over 7,000 elk, thousands of deer, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope. In addition to the numerous wildlife grazers, 1,000 cattle get released every spring in the same areas where the horses live. They can share resources peacefully as they have for all these years, but suddenly there is a rush to eradicate the herd of Alpine wild horses.

The cattle grazing interest, hunting interests, and feigned environmental concerns are at the root of the propaganda and attacks towards these innocent horses. The horses are the chosen scapegoats for all alleged ecological damage. However, out of the 10,000 grazers in this forest, the horses represent only 4 percent, plus they are non-ruminants who do far less damage to the environment than cattle, which are ruminants.

“Livestock, not wild horses have degraded public lands”.