American Mustang, Saga in the Sage

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Just a silhouette of a galloping horse conjures imagery of Western lore. America’s history follows the setting sun. A Westward ho from Plymouth Rock to Los Angeles, abetted by a traveling country’s first mode of transportation – the horse.

Long before colonial pilgrims saddled up their pioneering spirit and tamed the West, America’s original inhabitants, native tribes like the Crow and the Sioux, were becoming master horsemen on steeds discarded by early Spanish explorers and conquerors. Horses that could trace their proud bloodlines back to Afro-Turkic extractions – the Arabians, Barbs and Persians – and the Bedouins, North Africans and Eastern Europeans who domesticated them.

Ahead of humans and their mounts, prehistoric ancestors of the stallion and the mare we know today scratched out a living on the same high plains they inhabit now in the U.S. For all their individual breeding and territorial peculiarities, the horse, any horse, derives from one of two subspecies that existed first in North America until some 12,000 years ago. These three-toed miniatures followed the last receding ice age northward, then vanished from fossil record.

American? As apple pie in the truest sense. But nothing resembling the wild horse we see today. The horse cares not whether it is an American icon; the last vestige of what is truly wild and free in this nation. And it certainly wants no part in the current maelstrom it finds itself in today.

Political and ideological camps are being staked; sides taken. Democrats versus Republicans. East against West. Right and wrong. And the line in the sand is the American mustang.

The politics of prancing
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) drew the short straw. It is this federal agency tasked with stewarding the wild horse and the land it roams on. Like its big government counterparts, the BLM is comprised of perfectly well-meaning folks who, individually, are often capable of daily heroism and minor miracles on a nine-to-five basis. Collectively – when administrators, directors, and chiefs of staff are added to the top-heavy structure – the BLM often has trouble getting out of its own way.

For its wild horse handbook, the bureau uses the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA). It governs everything they do and don’t do … for now. The 38-year-old piece of legislation worked tenuously, but well enough, until the feral horse population began exploding in the early 1990s.
Roundups began, and horses were removed from public lands and put into long term holding facilities and adoption programs. It wasn’t enough. Rangelands overcrowded and the budget busted. The bureau currently spends three-fourths of its $36 million annual budget on the wild horse program alone. It will need an additional $85 million by 2010 to continue caring for the 34,000 horses it currently holds in U.S. sanctuaries.

A solution was proposed by a Montana senator and tucked into the 2005 Federal Appropriations Bill via a little-noticed rider. It’s called the Burns Amendment, after Sen. Conrad Burns. The amendment relaxed some protection language from the Wild Horse and Burro Act, granting the BLM the option of using euthanasia and allowed for the selling off of wild horses to slaughter plants in Mexico and Canada for soap, dog food and human consumption abroad.

Right on cue, it spawned a host of noisy horse-huggers and their Web sites. If the BLM thought nature-loving groups were on them for every oil-and-gas lease or cattle grazing permit, they hadn’t yet seen anything like the National Wild Horse Association, Wild Horse Preservation, Cloud Foundation and countless other groups that carry the power of the people and, more importantly, the injunction.

Before the amendment, the 1971 act allowed for only the adoption of overflow wild horses by the public. After 2004, the BLM was granted authority to humanely euthanize excess horses or sell them without restriction to any buyer. To date, according to public affairs person Tom Gorey, the BLM has not sent any horses to slaughter. Only crippled or severely aged horses are put down. But, by their own admission, some horse buyers have abused the system.

“When we began the sales program in the spring of 2005, we started with the intention of selling WITH restrictions even though the law said ‘without restriction,’” Gorey said. “We had agreements with U.S. slaughter houses that if they received an untitled horse from BLM, they would report it to us.”

The BLM has sold approximately 3,500 wild horses since 2004. Some horses sell for as little as one dollar. Two incidents in 2005 led to 41 horses being resold and sent to slaughter. The bureau briefly suspended the program and reworked buyer restrictions to prevent similar incidents.

“The BLM has placed 220,000 wild horses and burros into private care since 1991,” Gorey said. Is the system 100-percent perfect? No, but [incidents like those in 2005] have been a non-issue.”

Still, the bureau is faced with reality. For every horse in the wild, there is one in a pen being fed U.S. government alfalfa. The BLM has been forced into contemplating drastic measures.

Documents obtained in June 2009 via the Freedom of Information Act by a Phoenix-based nonprofit, The Conquistador Program, reveal the bureau’s plans to incorporate a euthanasia program.

Division chief of the Wild Horse and Burro Program for the BLM Don Glenn stated to advocacy groups like Cloud that no decision had been made to move forward with large-scale euthanasia. However, in July 2008 minutes of in-house meetings made public, Glenn said, “We would need to look at euthanasia to help us with the dilemma we are in.”

They shoot horses, don’t they?
Public outcry eventually reached the ears of Congressmen Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). They sponsored new legislation in the form of Restore Our American Mustangs Act (ROAM), which would outlaw euthanasia as a means of population control. The bill would also place restrictions on the gather and culling of wild horse herds (outlawing the use of aircraft), and increase acreage where herds could roam. The House passed the bill July 17. It goes before the Senate next. Supporters feel the bill would erase the Burns amendment and strengthen WFRHBA protections. Critics call it a welfare program for wild horses.

“The ROAM Act appears to be a classic case of legislators who will experience no ill-effects of their legislation in their own districts, offering a bill with sweeping effects on people in other areas,” said Wyoming Representative Cynthia Lummis, who voted against the bill. “Unfortunately, the ROAM Act cares nothing for the decades of work on the wild horse program or the intricacies of making the program work. Rather, it plays to the emotional connection many Americans have to wild horses without regard to the facts on the ground.”

Lummis admitted, though, the wild horse program was in need of reform. “Clearly, the current round up and adoption program is not working.”

Senator Mike Enzi said he will not support the legislation when it comes to vote because “it doesn’t help manage wild horses and creates burdens for land owners and land users, and creates more costs for taxpayers, without solving any problems.”

If ROAM is not the answer, it won’t end there. Wild horses will eat themselves off the range and out of government subsidies. Cheyenne branch chief for the BLM’s Renewable Resource Section Marty Griffith said the bureau is just not able to keep up. “This program is by far the most complicated and expensive to manage. It’s coming to some kind of crisis point.”

In Wyoming
Wild horses in Wyoming are found mostly in the southwest part of the state. The exception, and one of the crown jewel herds of the West, is the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd. About 190 horses roam 38,000 acres on a scrub brush range north of Lovell, Wyo. and into southern Montana, on land bordering the Custer NF and Crow Indian Reservation. The horses are believed to be direct descendents of the handful of horses stolen by Crow Indians from Lewis & Clark during their expedition in 1805.

“This is a pretty ‘Spanish’ herd of horses,” Matt Dillon said. Dillon is director of the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center. He’s been watching the Pryor herd since 2004. “From the studies, it is obvious they are strongly exhibiting the genotype of the Spanish horse,” he added.

Texas A&M researcher Dr. Gus Cothran agreed. “The Pryor herd is definitely one of the herds that shows ties to the 1600’s Spanish horses,” he said. “They are one of the few wild herds that show old Spanish blood. The physical characteristics of the Pryors also suggests this herd has been there quite some time in response to natural selection.” Cothran has performed an extensive 10-year analysis of genetic variability on the Pryor herd at the request of the BLM.

Exhibiting genetic links to the horse of the Conquistador is important in making the distinction between purely wild and merely feral. The wild horses belonging to the dozen or so management areas that comprise the Red Desert Herd Complex in southwest Wyoming are considered by most to be less Spanish and more ‘loose stock.’

“Unlike the Pryors, which have a strong Spanish component, the majority of the [Red Desert] herd comes from horses turned out by the old U.S. cavalry and private ranchers at the beginning of the auto industry,” said BLM public affairs specialist Lorraine Keith.

The BLM contends they manage every herd the same, but it’s clear the Pryors are priority for their strong lineage to the noble steeds of Spain.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens documented one particular Pryor Mountain horse from birth. She named him “Cloud.” The television series aired on PBS, featuring a tottering colt-turned-rock star range stud. It captivated a multitude of horse-lovers and caught the attention of the BLM. The agency, which manages more than 33,000 wild horses in 10 states, made sure to include a special Q&A section on their Web site about the Pryor gather this fall.

“We are aware of the high profile of this herd and the notoriety that comes with the Pryor horses,” Gorey said.

Kathrens formed the Pryors’ own personal advocacy group called the Cloud Foundation in 2001. The organization watches over every hoof on the ground in the 38,000-acre range, often to the dismay of Billings office field manager Jim Sparks. Most everything the BLM proposes for the Pryor Mountain herd is fought in court by the Foundation, including a failed temporary restraining order filed against the recent roundup and removal of 70 wild horses in the Pryor range, conducted in order to get to an appropriate management level (AML) of 120 head.

“The BLM’s reasons for this roundup are small and short-sighted,” Cloud’s Makendra Silverman said. They are on a rampage, removing wild horses. It’s insanely cruel.” The Cloud Foundation contends the rangeland can support more like 170 horses, and needs to, in order to maintain minimum genetic viability of the herd. They’re also against the use of contraceptives like PZP.

Sparks said, “The numbers we are talking about here are a drop in the bucket. Seventy horses is not that much. We are directed by law to manage the herds in the right number that they existed in 1971. We can only support a certain amount of animals on this land. We’ve had the world’s experts do the studies down there, and they said we needed just 42 stud horses.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Sparks continued. “We have it on good authority that Cloud’s grandfather is not even a Pryor horse. He is from a herd in Rock Springs.”

Cothran confirmed that the BLM did introduce horses from the Rock Springs area in the ‘70s and ‘80s to increase crossbreeding for the overall health of the herd. Silverman said that was the first she heard of such “a rumor.”

Sparks and the Cloud Foundation may not see eye-to-eye on much, but they agree on one point: Cloud is off-limits.

“We would never remove Cloud,” Sparks admitted. “We will have to gather Cloud because he has one of the biggest harems, but he will not be removed.” JHW

Photo; Mariah’s Filly by Ginger Kathrens

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Reader Comments
The American public is outraged by the latest shenanigans of the BLM. In the midst of a holiday weekend, so that no one could stop them and even paying their staff overtime to commit the deed, the BLM rounded up Cloud's herd via helicopter. They should be brought up on animal abuse charges, after causing many horses to be lame from this reckless roundup. Let's not forget who they hired to conduct the roundup, Mr. Catoor, who has been found guilty of animal abuse. The story just gets worse and worse. Making horses and foals travel 12 miles in 90 degree heat is a crime and their lameness was the proof. I've heard that they are still holding one foal that was badly injured, in my mind, that's enough to press charges of animal cruelty, against all who participated. The majority of American people do not want our wild horses rounded up and held prisoner for years. How dare they hold all of these wild horses in pens, when they could be living in freedom and and eating for free! Instead, we are paying the bill for their feed. I thought last year when the BLM stated that they had no money to feed the horses that they are presently holding, we would see an end to these absurd roundups. Instead, we are seeing more and more, so that they can rent the land to cattle ranchers. Not enough food for our wild horses, but evidently enough for the 9,000,000 cattle that now graze on our land. Shame, shame and more shame on those who are directing these roundups. We want them to stop! Marjorie Caruso
"until the feral horse population began exploding in the early 1990s": quite a sweeping statement with no basis in fact and no logical explanation. Why would the population suddenly "explode" after twenty years of enjoying federal protection? This is the kind of arguments with no basis in fact used by the BLM to justify their removal campaign. What has exploded on public lands is private cattle grazing, oil/gas exploration, and development. lg
you have four million cattle on public land at 1.35 per month paid to the blm. It cost 75 dollars a month or more to keep a wild horse in long term holding, Is this horse welfare or Rancher welfare. You know it's not a shell game when there is no pea under any shell. Donald Barr
You called every person that wants to save these wild horses "horse-hugger". Well I happen to be a member of that group. The tree-huggers of the past two decades with their persistence saved a lot of old growth forest that is still standing. No thanks to people like you. We will save these horses too. No one believes there are over 30,000 wild horses in holding pens, I and many others believe these animals were sent to slaughter. Why don't you take a look at some of the video on YouTube of what happens inside a horse slaughter plant in Canada/Mexico if you have the guts to set through it, which I doubt. horse- hugger,WA state
Stewardship implies taking care of ... the BLM forgot that part! They have over 30,000 mustangs in pens now and are hollering to the world that they can't afford to feed them so the mustangs must go either by gunshot or truck to Mexico ... now that's caretaking for you!! None of the western United States, the cowboy states, would be what they are without the mustang! Way to say Thank You! So if the BLM can't afford the ones they have in holding how can they explain rounding up more mustangs? Look at the pics of Cloud's herd Mother Nature was feeding them just fine.Now your tax dollars can pay!I will gladly hug a horse they are far more honest than the ones charged with their care! Ellieroo
The American public is outraged. I am outraged that the wild horses are being rounded up when there is 251 million acres for these horses to roam and live on. The wild horses survived way before the BLM came into existence. Congress needs to eliminate the BLM and save American taxpayers money and aggravation. The BLM is a rogue agency that does not listen to the majority of the American people. Therefore, it needs to be terminated. The wild horses survived before the BLM was created and they certainly will do fine without the BLM. Save the wild horses! Get rid of the BLM! hoofandpick
EXCUSE ME !!! These horses BELONG TO THE PEOPLE, just as the LAND THEY ARE and HAVE BEEN on for hundreds of years !!! WHAT kind of journalism is this? Same ONE SIDED BS as the DeKalb Chronicle is/was when it came to slaughtering OUR horses in 2005: ALL of the ill-informed journalist's need to get back to researching the facts and promoting the truth. " Loose Stock" ? I call it LOOSE Creative Expression !!! America: Land of Horses BLOOD and LIES !!! A horse HUGGER in Illinois- Angela Valianos THE ILL INFORMED WRITING: The wild horses belonging to the dozen or so management areas that comprise the Red Desert Herd Complex in southwest Wyoming are considered by most to be less Spanish and more ‘loose stock.’ Angela Valianos
I think there are a lot of misconceptions out there. I don't believe most of us are as opposed to the round-ups as we are to the fact that the BLM is leaving these herds genetically unviable, driving newborn foals down 12 miles and back up again at the wrong time of year, NOT returning the older horses such as Grumpy Grulla and Conquistador BACK to where they belong, AND having little to NO regard for the safety and well-being of these herds and their futures. The horses belong to US, the American people, yet we have NO say as to how they are managed, no matter how many times we call/fax/email, yell, scream....AND yet, the cattle graze on! Barb AZ
From article: "The 38-year-old piece of legislation worked tenuously, but well enough, until the feral horse population began exploding in the early 1990s." Response: Just where the heck is your evidence that the wild horse population began "exploding in the early 90s? I want to see FACTS and STATISTICS. And why do you call them feral when Dr. Pat Fazio wrote an elegant and compelling article that the wild horses are INDIGENOUS to North America? This is just more BS from an uneducated, ignorant and arrogant man. hoofandpick
$36 Million a year to administer our "Wild Horse Welfare Program" or $500 Million a year to administer the BLMs "Welfare Ranching" (Grazing) Program? Just remember that ALL of America benefits from the preservation of our National Herd, while only a handful of (already wealthy) ranchers benefit from the "Welfare Ranching" (Grazing) Program taxpayers are made to pay for,...so I ask you, if govt waste of taxpayer dollars is a concern, I suggest you think about cutting the (pork)fat out of the Grazing Administration Program first...no more free ride for the wealthy few (ranchers). America, open your eyes and learn the truth......Ray Charles could see through this BLM BS. Not too forget the privately owned cows outnumber the wild horses nearly 200 to 1 so think about that while you are wondering what is the true cause of rangeland degradation..... Christine A Jubic
Sparks is a complete idiot and needs to be removed from the Wild horse and burro program. REMOVED!!!!! Vicki
The outrage on this issue is well-deserved, but certainly misdirected when it aims at Jake Nichols. He got the story out, and exposed the reductive thinking of the BLM and our state leaders – that the question of origin, for instance, plays a roll in the argument is laughable; so to the statement that 70 horses is "a drop in the bucket." Any reasonable person would see that, but I understand this is an emotional topic. It is for me: http://www.planetjh.com/opinion/A_105233.aspx. Have another read of the "horse-hugger" statement - I think you will find that he is invoking the voice and philosophy of BLM. The technique is called sarcasm, and it effectively diminishes the BLM's woe-is-me attitude about push back from the public. The same could be said about "'loose stock'", which is in quotation marks, a clear indicator that it is not Jake's term, and I could argue he uses it ironically.? MJI, editor
The BLM is on the rampage to either eliminate or reduce to cripplingly low populations as many of the wild horse and burro herds as it can. This is outrageous and a subversion of the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 and must be stopped either by executive order (preferibly) or by some other means (the courts, Congress). There needs to be a major change and a reinstatement of the wild horses and burros in the wild. They have been for too long wrongly attacked and persecuted and have so much to contribute that is truly positive. Craig Downer
The current need for the ROAM act has evolved due of the mismanagement that has gone literally unchecked within an agency that basically creates it's own data to support current policy. Continuing to call sources “credible” that allow millions of tax-payer funds to go to contractors (one of whom pled guilty to a federal charge), have actually destabilized range conditions, leased land to foreign-owned uranium producers is becoming increasingly irritating. As reporters such as this insult the intelligence of the American public that questions such practices: reduced to name calling such as “tree-hugger.” The lack of transparency and adherence to process that the Department of Interior engages in is an outrage. ALL American’s should be outraged by this conduct. The ROAM act is a good start to “paying back” the theft that has occurred by the policies of the past. Laura
The AVMA,and the AAEP took an Oath to protect horses and as usual they failed there Oaths while remaining silent as horses are rounded up from our public lands and hauled to auctions where kill buyers buy them to have them sold for slaughter. The BLM works only in favor of beef raisers which also approves slaughter. Its all about the buck with these people..Never the true care for the horses. Completely irresponsible people. Tommy Lee
THE BLM MUST BE STOPPED FROM MISMANAGING OUR BEAUTIFUL WILD MUSTANGS. JoAnn
Cothran also said that between 150-200 wild horses needed to remain in the Pryor Mountains for genetic viability but the BLM removed 57 wild horses from this herd and reduced the number of the herd to 120 resulting in genetic inviability. The irony is that the BLM hired Cothran to give them advice about this herd. However, the BLM didn't follow Cothran's advice and removed more horses than Cothran recommended. I agree with pointing out the "reductive thinking" of the BLM. However, a very serious discussion in the media that discloses the failures, the deficiencies and duplcitious nature of the BLM in the so-called management of the wild horses and burros needs to be done. The public needs to see how the BLM takes a piece of information, package it and wrap it up in such a way to lead you down the garden rose pathway. In this way, they think that "dumb" Americans will agree with their conclusion that the wild horses and burros need to be rounded up. It is duplicitous and deceptive but unless there is an investigative reporter to disclose the duplicity and deception, the duplicity and deception will continue to fool many Americans. It is unfortunate that investigative reporters have for the most part gone the way of all things because agencies like the BLM will continue their duplicitous and deceptive ways until these tactics by this agency are publicly disclosed. hoofandpick
I was at the BLM mustang adoption day in VA on Saturday and came away with this: The BLM needs to be out of the horse business, now. Pull their taxpayer-funded travel cards while we're at it. While they were friendly enough, never did I listen to a bigger pile of manure than the senior BLMer's well-rehearsed talking points. They kept changing the subject and made Richard Nixon sound like a truth telling saint. Their personal attacks on horse people like the Cloud Foundation and Madeline Pickens make you realize just how small minded and jealous these bureaucrats are while drawing a paycheck from the American taxpayers. They even discredited Dr. Cothrans, saying he recanted his 150-200 minimum viable Pryor herd statements later, while offering no tangible proof. Down is up, and up is down in the land of Oz. The BLM's insistence that the lame foals and adults - driven down the Pryor mountain a full 12-20 miles and 5,000 feet of elevation - are not "injured" is pure hogwash. Ask any equine vet- lameness is a symptom of either injury or functional disability, at least in the 21st century. BLMSpeak is a dangerous, cruel dialect: No real horseman would drive a month old foal that hard down the mountain with a helocoptor if they didn't want to kill it, or didn't give a d@mn if it survived the winter. The American people - and our horses - will be far better off when we round up this pack of liars and send them to the permanent holding pens of the unemployment lines. common sense
I'm sorry but Sparks statement about Cloud being off limits is not true. Thecloudfoundation even told us that Cloud was not guaranteed his freedom after this most recent "gather". We have out of season foals being born because of PZP that the BLM forces on the mares. Cassidy a 2 month old colt was lamed because of the inhumanely long run down the mountain. Other horses tied up and colicked. The BLM sites contractor availability as a reason for this early "gather". If the contractor had a conflict with his own calender he had no business even bidding for this job. The BLM should have moved on to the next contractor in this case. The BLM shows by its own actions that they don't have the horses welfare in mind. They just want the horses and us to go away so they can lease out all those lands to ranchers. Another Horse Hugger
This is insane, and has to STOP,the land and the horse belong to the American People, and the ones who are aware of this are outraged. Some don't know what our goverment(BLM) is doing. Leave the horses alone, they are the American Icon. God has put these wonderful animals there for a reason,like you and I were put here, not to be rounded up and sent to slaughter. They were meant to be FREE!!!!!!!!! CMN
We have a great National Treasure in our wild mustangs, and we have another bureaucratic agency, the BLM, "managing" the magnificient horses to the point of extinction. As American citizens, we must demand that these horses are afforded the protection that deserve and are entitled to. JoAnn

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American Mustang, Saga in the Sage

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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