Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Please take the time to listen to this documentary by Amy Hadden Marsh about how BLM conducts census reports of wild horses and burros in the West: http://www.kdnk.org/article.cfm?mode=detail&id=1293643372755. Follow that link, then click the arrow under “Documentary; Wild horses caught in the crossfire” to the right to play. It’s not too long, and it’s very informative.

One of the best things I’ve done since starting my mustang advocacy was to grab onto the idea of documenting each horse in my herd, which I learned in short order after witnessing the first day of the Little Book Cliffs roundup in September 2007 (and later meeting documenters and darters for that herd, including Marty Felix and Billie Hutchings) and then meeting Matt Dillon, director of the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center and writer and photographer of the Pryor Wild blog, later that same month. I knew a good thing when I saw it! In 22,000-acre Spring Creek Basin, it took me about 2.5-3 months of weekend visits to document the 43 horses left after the 2007 roundup and be sure I had seen them all.

Amy is a master’s degree candidate in wild horse management (where do I sign up??), and she has put together this oral documentary that touches on a lot of interesting points, including how BLM counts and estimates populations. The documentation of Spring Creek Basin’s and Little Book Cliffs’ herds are mentioned, as well as counting flights over Piceance Basin.

Follow Amy’s blog at From Western Colorado.