Gov't to thin wild horses in MT's Pryor Mountains

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- Beginning next week, federal officials plan to thin by more than a third a wild horse herd that roams a mountain range along the Montana-Wyoming border.

The Bureau of Land Management wants to reduce the number of adult horses on the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range from 190 to 120 animals.

Horse advocates said today that they'll ask a judge to stop the roundup. They say it could end up ruining one of the most genetically pure herds of Spanish colonial horses in the country.

The roundup will capture the range's entire population, with 70 adult horses and their foals to be kept for adoption. The remaining horses will be freed.

The BLM says the roundup is needed protect the range's ecological balance, which a spokesman for the agency said is threatened by overgrazing.

Genetic testing has shown the Pryor herd descends from horses used by Spanish conquistadors during their drive to colonize the American Southwest. The first to arrive in the Pryors were likely brought by Crow or Shoshone Indians in the late 1700s or early 1800s.