Time to talk about the adoption related to the roundup. We have some educational opportunities in the works that I think will both draw adopters and help people keep their mustangs.
Our groups – Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, made up of representatives from NMA/CO, Four Corners and Mesa Verde Back Country Horsemen, and San Juan Mountains Association – are already working to promote the adoption. I’ve been doing it with my talks that started in February this year, we have letters to the editor and “public service announcements” out to several local newspapers, and we are going to post fliers in locations around the region. BLM also will do some advertising. No matter how BLM divvies up the horses post-roundup, probably 25 or fewer horses will be available for adoption.
NMA/CO has enlisted the services of a local trainer, Ems Rapp of Durango – who adopted a Spring Creek Basin colt (Rock On) in 2007 – to help adopters with their new horses. NMA/CO will pay for her services, and we will encourage each adopter to take advantage of this offer.
It is important to note that this is an offer made by the COLORADO CHAPTER of the NATIONAL MUSTANG ASSOCIATION and has nothing to do with BLM.
We hope it will help folks get started on the right “hoof” with their mustang, and we hope it will lead to greater retention of adopted horses.
If you are local, plan to adopt and want more information, call Pati Temple (NMA/CO board member, adopter of several mustangs) at (970) 564-8400. She will be coordinating training help with Ems.
All the activities related to the adoption will take place at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds, a few miles east of Cortez, Colo., on U.S. Highway 160.
From 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, the evening before the adoption, Ems will give a presentation at the fairgrounds with her gorgeous boy, Rock On, now a 6-year-old. (Incredibly, I don’t have any pix of them!) This also is a change from the usual – instead of pulling a terrified young mustang away from his/her compadres, Ems will show potential adopters all the great potential of their mustangs, using Rock On as an example of mustangs in general and Spring Creek Basin mustangs specifically!
Rock On does, in fact, rock, and we think you’ll love him as much as we do. He also will be on-site the day of the adoption (Saturday, Sept. 24) as an ambassador for Spring Creek Basin mustangs.
In addition, Vern and Jeri Friesen (4CBCH members) will be ambassadors with their mustangs, Dolly and Lipton (2000 adoptees), and Wayne Goodall will be there with Tumbleweed II (2005) and his grandson, who also has a Spring Creek Basin mustang, adopted in 2007, I think. Vern and Jeri have taken their mustangs back to Spring Creek Basin almost every year to ride during 4CBCH’s annual wild horse count, and Wayne has a long history as a mustang ambassador. Dolly, Lipton and Tumbleweed are awesome!
Adoption activities will start at 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Montezuma County fairgrounds. I believe this is when BLM will start taking applications from potential adopters. The bidding will start at 10 and end at 11 a.m.
This will be “silent bidding,” as opposed to “auctioneer-type” bidding – you’ll write your bid on a sheet that corresponds by number to particular horses (they’ll have the number tags by then) – and update your bid as people bid against you (and you against them!).
For each adopter, I plan to have available a packet that contains information about their horse – photos, sire and dam, birthday, siblings and simple history, including any insights to their personalities and/or fun stories. I will be at the fairgrounds both days to talk to people about the horses. Another thing I’m thinking about doing pulls another idea from Matt Dillon of the Pryor Mountain herd, who had information sheets at the 2009 Pryor Mountain adoption that listed each horse by number and name. So if you’re familiar with the horses through this blog, you’ll be able to find them by name.
Our groups will have volunteers present to also give advice and information about their experiences with the herd. Some of these folks have been visiting the basin for up to 15 years!
Mesa Verde Back Country Horsemen will have drinks available right at the table where Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners will have other information.
We want the adoption to be more than “bid and haul.” We want to provide information that will help ensure that our horses, which are becoming your horses, have long, happy lives with you who adopt them.
Again, if I can answer any questions, leave a comment or email me at mtbgrrl (at) fone (dot) net.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
Super job! IMO, this would be a great model for all live adoptions. It would have to be tailored for specific events, but you have the basics covered, plus some excellent “perks”. I hope folks will take the NMA/CO training offer seriously. I always wonder what people, especially first-timers, do when they bring a wild horse home and find their way over their heads. And I’m happy about the silent bidding. If that’s not the norm, it should be. Some auctioneer revving up the the crowd is the last thing horses barely off the range need!
“… they’re way over their heads.” So much for my proofreading skills!
I bought a mustang from a private party; he was headed to the sale yard (and from there, a painful route to Mexico). Like so many mustangs that end up at the sales, probably the owners had glorious intentions of bonding with a wild treasure, but it takes a real commitment of time money and love to raise any horse, and good training doesn’t necessarily gaurantee the commitment will last forever. Orion was 4 when he was gathered, then shipped around to holding facilities in the West, and finally to Canyon City and out in the auction again. A couple bought him, took him to his new home – a small pen in the back of their shop, and there he stood for 7 years. So much for training. I found 2 newly adopted (and trained) geldings at 2 different homes I visited; both were enclosed in small pens surrounded by junk junk and more junk. How is that for a relocation experience? The good stories get “published”, but look around at the numbers in the weekly want-ads and monthly sales. Do some research. THE BLM DOES NOT CHECK UP ON ADOPTEES. And while you are at it, visit a holding facility like the one near Salt Lake. It’s organized, well managed, hay and water are always available. There are many large pipe-fenced pens, even surveilance cameras. Visit in the winter when these once beautiful, wild animals stand with their heads low, eyes withdrawn, wading through muck over their fetlocks, and listen to the coughs and watch the snot and puss draining from countless noses.
So why do we need to remove these horses? They have good feed (despite their range being reduced over the years), they look good (despite being torn apart in 2007 and needing a much larger herd size to be genetically viable). But maybe therein lies the answer. Why has their range been reduced and why is their herd size continually lowered to the point that they no longer can maintain a strong genetic structure? Are they in someone’s way? Does this sound like any human cultures you may have studied in your school history classes?
“We are dedicated to managing healthy wild horse herds that are in balance with other public land uses and resources.” This is the standard BLM quote on the matter; not “We are dedicated to these wild horses, and to protect them by upholding the law as it was stated in its original context, IN ALL WAYS”. So read it now as, “We are dedicated to uphold the all-powerful interests of the mining and resource extraction industries, and will jump to their commands, including removal of wild horses on potentially mineral-rich property (and eventual extermination if need be) so that the activities of such industries will not be under the scrutinizing eye of the public (even though this is their land).”
I have always liked the quote, “Know what you stand for or you will fall for anything”. In this case, do some real FOOTWORK on this issue or you will continue to be fooled by the lies of those best of bed-partners -Government & Big Industry.
Judy Pentz
Paradox, Co.
Wow-you are really making the best of a tough [and sad] situation. I hope you will be able to keep us posted both on the horses that are adopted and [especially] the horses in the holding corrals.
I am going to give a speech on how natural PZP darting and bait trapping are better than roundups, but I need more advice on trapping- if you have time, could you inform me of the benefits of trapping? Thanks-for all of this!