Growing up as cowboy, it did my heart glad to see newly sworn in Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke arrive on horseback for his first day at work. The Montana man should make a good Secretary of the Interior.
Arriving on horseback Thursday, newly minted Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke pledged he would devote more resources to national parks, boost the morale of department employees and bolster the sovereignty of American Indian tribes.
Zinke — who was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday by a 68-to-31 vote — rode with a nine-person mounted police escort to the Interior Department’s downtown headquarters on Tonto, an Irish sport horse. The horse, a bay roan gelding standing just over 17 hands tall, is normally kept in stables on the Mall and is owned by the U.S. Park Police.
While the Park Police serve as the interior secretary’s regular security detail, officers are typically not mounted.
Within hours of his arrival Zinke signed two secretarial orders, including one that overturnedthe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s guidance to agency managers to phase out the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on national wildlife refuges by 2022. Several gun rights and hunting groups had objected to the policy, which was instituted just before Barack Obama left office, on the grounds that non-toxic copper and steel shot is somewhat more expensive.
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