Sheryl Crow takes up cause of wild horses in West

RENO (AP) - Sheryl Crow is joining the call for a halt to federal government roundups of wild horses in the West, branding them as inhumane and unnecessary.

The Grammy Award-

winning singer is asking President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to scrap a proposed roundup of 2,500 mustangs in Northern Nevada.

Crow, who campaigned for Obama last year and performed at his inauguration, opposes Salazar's plan to move thousands of wild horses to preserves in the Midwest and East to protect horse herds and the rangelands that support them.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials say they plan to remove 11,500 wild horses and burros from the range over each of the next three years because booming numbers of the animals are damaging the range.