COLUMN: They don't shoot horses, do they?

From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99 From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99I have a little game I like to play at night in Philadelphia. Just as I'm about to go to bed, I put down whatever I'm reading and take off my glasses. When I do that, my vision gets all blurry. At Penn, it's a rare occasion that we notice the natural world. Last semester, I came upon a large group of passersby admiring a hawk perched in a tree beside the Women's Center on Locust Walk. Commonplace back home in Tennessee, the hawk was strange enough to warrant a second look in urban Philadelphia. Perhaps unfortunately, the divide between the wild and the civilized world in other places isn't so thick. Three weeks ago, a jogger was going for a run near Reno, Nevada when he saw some brown carcasses lying in a field. Upon closer inspection, they were revealed to be wild Western Mustangs, all dead from gunshot wounds. A count by wildlife management revealed 34 dead horses littering a relatively small area. Initially, many of the animals had only been wounded, shot in either the neck or the gut. Blood and intestine trails showed where they had limped across the desert, slowly dying an agonizing death. Two weeks ago, three men were arrested for the killings. Public reaction in cowboy country has been characterized by intense anger and threatened violence toward the suspects. John Tyson, the former cowboy and range officer who first responded to the jogger's report, was quoted in USA Today as saying that "If they find these sons of bitches guilty, they need to dress them up in dog costumes, take them down to the Humane Society and put 'em to sleep." The "sons of bitches" Tyson refers to are all Reno natives. One, Anthony Merlino, is a 20-year-old construction worker. Following his arrest, former neighbors have said that Merlino shot songbirds near his home for personal enjoyment and gutted deer on the carpet of his apartment, among other things. The other two men in custody are both Marines based at Camp Pendleton in California. One of them, Lance Cpl. Darien Brock, claims that the trio only killed one horse, not 34. Nevertheless, public outrage is at an all-time high. If people all over America cared as much about Monica Lewinsky as folks in Nevada do about horses, the president would have been drawn and quartered by now. R.N. "Bearclaw" Stutsman, the bailiff assigned to the case, confessed to USA Today that "the way people feel about these horses, there might be somebody who would want to take [Merlino] out behind the barn and take a baseball bat to him." In response to threats from the community, metal detectors have been installed in the local courthouse -- the first time in Reno's history such measures have been taken -- and the surrounding area has been roped off and patrolled by a healthy number of sheriffs deputies. Perhaps the Nevada public wouldn't be so angry if the accused men showed any sign of remorse. Instead, Brock complains that "it's been done before by countless others, and I'm sure it'll be done again. It's just a horse." Brock's words strike me painfully. I'm not sure where his nonchalance toward living creatures comes from, but his attitude toward nature is fairly common today. Safe at home, laptop computers in hand and electric lamps by our side, the natural world is rendered "non-essential" at best. We simply don't need it. When you think about it, all those horses do is graze, mate, and take up space. They don't serve us in any tangible way. Why not kill one? Or two? Or 34? When it comes right down to it, the act boils down to immense human arrogance and a complete lack of appreciation for life. If those boys killed those mustangs, they did it because they could. Those wild horses probably walked right up to them, sufficiently used to humans not be scared away by their presence. In turn, the men emptied shotguns into the beasts, three of whom were pregnant mares. As angered as I am by the alleged actions of the accused men, I am -- in an odd way -- warmly comforted by the reaction of Nevadans. If the three are found guilty as charged, the outcry will only get worse -- Nevadans are out for blood. Make no mistake, to kill any of those men for their actions would be a crime far worse than theirs. Still, the outrage coming from Nevada is a comfort to me. Despite the man-made comforts they enjoy here at the end of the 20th century, a refreshing collection of cowboys and lawyers, politicians and bankers, farmers and teachers, have raised their voices high and condemned a deplorable act against 34 of God's creatures. Maybe this is a victory for nature after all.