Horses don’t tear out the roots of plants while grazing, unlike cattle and sheep, says Simpson.
At his ranch along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County in Northern California, near the Oregon border, William Simpson lives among free-roaming native American wild horses in what he calls an “immersion study.”
When he bought the ranch in 2014, Simpson discovered wild horses roaming his land. He noticed that they would eat dry grass and brush—the kind that fuels wildfires and the stuff that cattle and sheep won’t eat. He has since advocated wild horse grazing to mitigate wildfires, and the idea has gained support from Elko County in Nevada and groups such as the Nevada Lands Council.
Local governments in California such as Placer and Marin counties already use goats to reduce wildfire risk. Simpson says his plan would not only mitigate the fires but also clear up more areas for cattle grazing, make wild horse herds stronger and healthier, keep them from potentially being sold for slaughter, and save U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars—but most importantly save thousands of people’s lives and livelihoods lost to wildfires and smoke.
The producer of a short film called “Wild Horses” and author of a preliminary 2019 study on the behavioral ecology of these animals, Simpson said he believes that they could have a major effect on reducing fire damage because of how they graze.
He is also a wild horse ethologist who teaches University of California students about horse grazing patterns and how they help prevent wildfires at his ranch, which consists primarily of grass and brush with scattered pine trees.
Simpson’s wife, Laura, died in June 2019 as a result of complications from smoke inhalation after a massive fire in 2018.
“She got sick right after the Klamathon fire,” he said. “The toxins in the wildfire smoke killed her.”
During that fire, wild horses grazed Agate Flat, which straddles the California–Oregon border, and played an important role by reducing fuel and creating a fire break that helped suppress the speed and heat intensity of the blaze to keep it from spreading to an old-growth forest wilderness area about two miles north in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Simpson said.
By Brad Jones
