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Tribal leaders reportedly discussed the issue of feral horses on the reservation in a meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 22, and declared a state of emergency, with a proposed law change to be addressed at a Jan. 24 meeting.

The tribal Colville Business Council had declined a bid Jan. 8 from Utah-based Sun J Ranch to remove over 1,000 horses from the reservation. The growing population of feral horses are said to have adverse effects on the environment, and overgraze the land which affects wildlife and livestock.

But Charlene McCraigie, a tribal member, feels that the tribe isn’t handling the situation appropriately, and that the tribe has failed to implement its own Wild Horse Management Plan. McCraigie, who said she earned her doctorate of veterinary medicine from Washington State University in 1996, believes implementing that plan would provide a better solution to the horse problem, rather than shipping them off for slaughter every few years.

Tribal Code Chapter 4.14 regarding wild horses states, “No roundup shall be authorized or undertaken in an inhumane manner, or where the captured animals are to be slaughtered or used for feed. All wild horses … shall be used for recreational or professional use in a humane way.”

A tribal official’s response to this was that once the horses are off the reservation, what happens to the horses is no longer the tribe’s responsibility, according to McCraigie, who attended the Jan. 22 meeting.

A 2015 horse removal by Sun J Ranch eventually sent the horses to slaughter to Canada.

McCraigie claims that this is a violation of the law, as is using helicopters to round up the animals, as well as removing certain horses such as those that are late in a pregnancy or sick. She also cites laws requiring a blood test for equine infectious anemia before transporting horses across state lines.

McCraigie attended the council meeting with Rich Mervin, a professional horseman who lives in Rathdrum, Idaho, and has taught “all things horse” in California.

McCraigie herself has worked as an equine specialist in California. As a tribal member, she wants to see the situation handled appropriately, she said.

“There are whole other ways to handle these horses that are humane, gentle, safer for the horse and the person,” McCraigie said. “We wanted to show [the council] the options they have to manage the horses.”

McCraigie and Mervin said that the council is declaring the horse problem an emergency situation, and that they plan to change the wording in the law in such a way as to avoid any possible legal repercussions for using helicopters or other possibly questionable practices.

“They are classifying it as an emergency, and I never got an answer for why this is an emergency,” McCraigie said. “Failure to implement the Wild Horse Management Plan has created this emergency.”

“It’s been brought out that they’ve been breaking the law,” Mervin said, “and now they’re going through the procedures to make it seem OK that they’re breaking the law, by changing the law.”

The tribe’s 2012 Wild Horse Management Plan states that horse roundups need to occur before Feb. 28.

Both McCraigie and Mervin feel that implementing the Wild Horse Management plan would solve the issues.

“In their management program here it says there will be an expert in the field, and they don’t,” Mervin said. “Nobody there understands the horse or is representing the horse right now.”

“I could do a lot with [the money being offered for the capture of the horses],” McCraigie said. “I could build a facility, get people into training; we could train people to be competitive in the trade world. They have good things in the [plan]. There are supposed to be youth programs, adult programs.”

McCraigie said that the tribal council plans to discuss the possible law change at a Jan. 24 meeting at 1 p.m., but no one at the tribe was able to confirm this at deadline.

CBC Chairman Rodney Cawston declined to comment Tuesday because he wasn’t at the meeting and couldn’t confirm what action was taken or if an emergency had been declared.