A little horse sense, please

After spending millions to create a world-class wild mustang eco-sanctuary in Northern Nevada, philanthropist Madeleine Pickens finds herself at odds with the very people she's trying to help. In all likelihood, some of the best-known wild horse advocates in the country — many of whom are meeting in Las Vegas this week — will end up filing a lawsuit to stop Pickens' plan from moving forward.

It's a complicated legal mess, but in a nutshell, it looks like those crafty dealmakers at BLM are stirring the pot. They've been spreading half-truths about some conditions they have supposedly imposed on Pickens if she wants to get the green light for her plan to take 1,000 or more horses out of government pens and put them onto a gigantic ranch property she purchased near Elko. Pickens needs the BLM's permission to use an adjacent 580,000 acres to supplement her sanctuary.

Those tricksters at BLM have been telling other horse advocates that Pickens will have to wipe out three existing herd-management areas in order to move forward with her sanctuary, and the advocates have been screeching like banshees, holding their wrists to their foreheads and threatening to go to court. The advocates believe that if Pickens wants to rescue a few thousand horses from government corrals and create a model for other public-private sanctuaries, she will sacrifice 1,200 or so wild mustangs living near her property.