Last Roundup for Ozarks’ Horses : Ecology: Park Service says the animals can’t properly fend for themselves and should be captured and sold. Supporters are petitioning to allow the renegades to roam free.

EMINENCE, Mo. — About two dozen horses that have roamed free in the rugged Missouri Ozarks for more than 20 years are headed for the last roundup.

The horses, fugitives from farms since the mid-1960s, have wandered through the fields of waist-high grass and wildflowers and drunk from the rivers and springs of the lush forests and valleys. They’ve become as wild as the mustangs of the West.

The U.S. Park Service has decided that the animals can’t properly fend for themselves and should be captured and sold. The government announced in May that it will hire cowboys to round up the horses from the 60,000 acres of wilderness in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in southern Missouri.

“It will be a sad day when there are no more wild horses around here,” said Rolland Smotherman of Birch Tree, who trains horses and blacksmiths for a living and often ventures out on horseback with friends to see the strays. “Where else can you go and see wild horses, except for out West?”

Smotherman and a number of residents of this sparsely populated region about 150 miles southwest of St. Louis say that the horses are thriving in the wild. Several new foals were seen this spring, he said.

They believe the animals should be left alone to be enjoyed by the thousands of canoeists, campers and fishermen who vacation on the Current and Jacks Fork rivers each year.

“Those horses wintered fat. I guarantee they are healthier than nine-tenths of the horses most people have around here,” said Richard Wilkins of Mountain View, who owns a feed store and keeps seven horses.

Supporters have gathered about 1,000 signatures on petitions asking the Park Service to reconsider its plan to catch the animals, break them and then allow them to be “adopted” for a fee.

“It’s silly for the Park Service to think about removing them. No matter how many times you’ve seem them, it’s always a thrill,” said Gay Healzer of Eminence, a rodeo champion in barrel competition.

The government claims the animals are not truly wild as mustangs are, and therefore are not able to survive harsh winters, disease, injury and food shortages.

The horses also break unwanted trails, trample rare plants and occasionally raid the hay fields of farmers who lease federal land, said Tom Graham, chief ranger of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

“We heard from an individual that three horses were shot recently and left to die,” Graham said. “There are occasional reports that humans are abusing them.”

Moreover, the agency is legally bound to remove the horses because non-native animals are not allowed to inhabit Park Service lands, he said.

The government will choose this summer from bids submitted by individuals and businesses wishing to capture the horses. The Missouri Humane Society will be asked to monitor the roundup to ensure the animals’ safety, Graham said.

Smotherman called the government’s reasoning “a bunch of baloney.”

It’s unlikely that the horses--three bands of about eight animals each, led by a stallion--would ever become too numerous, he said, and deer cause more damage to crops than the horses, he added.

“The Park Service has enough room down there to pasture 400 to 500 head,” Smotherman said.

The horses are mostly of mixed breeding and include several Appaloosas. Few of the would bring more than $500 at auction, Smotherman said.

“If somebody comes in here and catches them, I’ll guarantee that 90% of them will be turned into dog food,” Smotherman said. “A lot of them are mares 15 to 20 years old. They’re not going to be able to break them. Colts they’ll be able to break. The older they get, the harder it is to break them.”

Tom Mooney of Eminence remembers seeing horses running wild when he was a child at his family’s home on Blair’s Creek, before Congress established the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in 1962 to preserve the area’s natural beauty.

“Those horses were there before the Park Service,” Mooney said. “They’ve never hurt anything. I love to see them here and I’d love to see them stay here.”

Jim Smith, whose family has operated wilderness trail rides at Eminence for 35 years, questions the government’s reasoning that the horses aren’t wild. He said he has seen the horses swim across a river or flee up a steep, rocky hillside at the mere sight of a human.

“You can’t catch them,” he said. “I’ve chased ‘em a little bit myself. Shoot, they outrun you! You can run a horse to death and you’ll never get a rope on one. People have tried for years.”

Graham said the government won’t budge from its position that the horses must go.

“We have a legal obligation to do this,” he said.