Equine welfare advocates demonstrated before the Nevada State Legislature building on Tuesday (Oct. 25) to protest the state Department of Agriculture’s (DOA) plan to remove as many as 100 stray horses from a private northern Nevada range. The removal is intended to prevent the animals from being killed by motorists when they wander onto nearby highways.

Approximately 2,000 horses reside on the Virginia Range, a private rangeland surrounded by four major highways. The animals are so-called "strays" descended from domestic horses turned out onto the range by their owners.

Nevada DOA Spokesman Ed Foster said 34 horses have been involved in collisions with motorists in the past several weeks. Approximately two-thirds of those died at or close to impact, and the remainder were euthanized at the scene, Foster said.

Willis Lamm of the Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates, an equine welfare advocacy group, criticized the roundup plan on grounds that the need to remove the animals is directly connected to the Department’s 2008 decision to cancel herd management contracts with nonprofit organizations