Protesters Arrested In Wild Horse Roundup

Eight people were arrested for trespassing on army land Monday while protesting the roundup and impending slaughter of 1,200 wild horses.

The protests are part of widespread opposition to the Department of Conservation’s plan to cull all but 500 of the country’s biggest herd of wild horses. Most of the horses are to be slaughtered for pet food.

Horse lovers forced a halt to the government’s plans prior to last year’s election, but the government has rejected the protests since.

The horses, descended from military horses released early this century after the Boer War and World War I, have roamed thousands of acres of army land in the Kaimanawa Ranges of the North Island.

Conservationists’ claims that the horses are destroying rare native plants prompted the roundup.