As Wild Horses Breed, a Voice for Contraception

The long-simmering controversy over what to do with America’s wild horses has come to a boil again. Last summer federal officials said they had so many wild horses in captivity — about 34,000 and growing — that they wanted authority to euthanize them, and some states are considering slaughter. It costs $27 million a year to care for the animals, according to the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the wild horse program. In February, Representatives Nick J. Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia, and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, introduced federal legislation to prevent slaughter. The real answer, according to Jay F. Kirkpatrick, director of the nonprofit science and conservation center at ZooMontana in Billings, is an immunocontraceptive called P.Z.P. “There’s more than 30,000 wild horses on the range out there, and they are reproducing,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said. “The real problem isn’t what to do with excess horses, it’s reproduction. What do you with excess dogs and cats? You spay and neuter.” Dr. Kirkpatrick, 69, has been using the birth control drug porcine zona pellucida, or P.Z.P., since 1988 to control horse and deer populations. He has been promoting its use for the federal government’s wild horses of the West for almost as long, with no luck yet...NY Times