Horses, more or less?

Unhappy with what he calls perennial under-counts of Utah's wild horse population by the Bureau of Land Management, Senator Tom Hatch, a rancher, believes the state could--and should--do a better job of managing the herd. "]'he wild horses have greatly exceeded their range and gone into areas they're not supposed to," he says. He wants the state, with the cooperation of the agency, to implement a pilot program. But that would probably take a repeal of the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act that gives management of wild horses and burros on federal land to the Bureau of Land Management. On the other hand, wild horse advocates believe the BLM has undercounted the horses and fear that any state control would be a virtual death sentence for the animals.