Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Six vehicles. One ATV. Twenty-six bipedal humans. Most bands in Spring Creek Basin.

Crazily excellent weather (temps in the comfortable 80s, not blistering 90s or sizzling 100s). Perfect breeze. … NO GNATS (how that’s even possible, I don’t begin to know).

Earlier this week, I was joined in the basin by several members of the Colorado Wild Horse Working Group and associated people, including BLM herd manager Mike Jensen and Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla, and (very) long-time Spring Creek Basin advocates and amazing friends Pat and Frank Amthor and Tif Rodriguez.

Some background: In May 2023, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 23-275 into existence. In a nutshell, “in 2023 the Colorado legislature passed Senate Bill 23-275 to provide resources and support efforts to ensure the long-term sustainability of Colorado’s wild horse herds and rangelands.”

Among other things, the bill created this working group, made up of a wide variety of “stakeholders,” to share information and consolidate that knowledge into specific recommendations to legislators in the Colorado Legislature and to the governor. To that end, the working group started meeting last October, and members will offer a first (draft?) report of recommendations by Nov. 1, 2024. Among other folks from other groups and state and federal agencies, representatives of each of Colorado’s herd management areas and wild horse range are members of the group: Stella Trueblood with Sand Wash Advocate Team (Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area); Cindy Wright with Wild Horse Warriors for Sand Wash Basin; Judy Cady with Friends of the Mustangs (Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range); Kathy Degonia with Piceance Mustangs (Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area); and yours truly for Spring Creek Basin (and you know that I truly took advantage of the geographic field trip to hammer the difference between Spring Creek and Spring Creek Basin!).

At our meeting in swanky Telluride the day before, our group members, excellently facilitated by Heather Bergman with Peak Facilitation Group, started to more narrowly define what we would like to present to legislators and the governor as recommendations to best support BLM’s management of wild horses on federal lands in Colorado … AS WELL AS populations of wild/feral/trespass horses in the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado, the Southern Ute Reservation, the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, where horses from both the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation and the Navajo Nation are crossing state, tribal and monument lines drawn (by humans) in the desert rock and sand to roam without benefit of legal protections or management.

These include the creation of a state-funded and staffed wild horse program, possibly within the Colorado Department of Agriculture (through which the working group is currently led by Wayne East, ag/wildlife program manager with CDA); staff/monetary support for fertility-control efforts and the same for adoptions and adopter success with their mustangs; an advisory board for the aforementioned wild horse program within the state; and the potential creation of a state wild horse preserve.

To quote a BLM manager at a different event, the wild horse (and burro) situation is … prickly. It’s thorny. It’s controversial. It’s complicated. It is surrounded by passionate folks. Seemingly, there’s not a lot of (noticeable?) compromise. I think that at its base, our goal is collaboration supported by the compromises that are essential. Colorado probably leads the nation (or at least the 10 Western states that have herds of wild horses and burros) in support of our mustangs. Each of our herds has an associated advocacy group working for the long-term good, successful management of those herds and their ranges. That’s not to say there aren’t challenges or that more support wouldn’t be welcomed and isn’t essential. It’s a big issue, folks, and “black and white” doesn’t begin to describe the myriad of other issues involved and necessary to consider. I will say that this Colorado Wild Horse Working Group is the among the best I’ve been part of in working toward compromises and collaborations – and best management practices – for our mustangs. And I’ve been in this world for a very long time (nearly 17 years).

I was happy – and also nervous – to welcome folks to my sacred space, my happy place, my HEART place … to see the valley and basin I call home and the horses that are the loves of my life. Spring Creek Basin is so very dry right now, but Mother Nature cooled the air and brightened our vistas (red-flag warnings the previous three days in a row meant the dust level was high) and – amazingly – quelled the gnats (!). And the horses. … I can’t tell you how many people thought I was “communicating” with my mustangs to present the very best wild horse experience imaginable. 🙂

Those weren’t all the folks present, just those associated with the working group. At the end of the field trip, my advocate friends and I had a little something special for Mike Jensen, who retires at the end of this month after 30 years with the Bureau of Land Management. To say we are losing someone respected and essential is to do a grave injustice to the end of an era and his partnership and leadership. That’s for another post.

Thank you, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your visit with our mustangs in the very best place (if one of the driest?! (and I don’t mean to overlook or disparage other places in even worse drought than we’re in)) in the universe.

Pictured in the first image at the top of this post (with titles as accurate as I can remember or look up), left to right: Derek Padilla, Tres Rios Field Office manager; Lynae Rogers, on-range wild horse lead for BLM in Colorado (she also juggles a lot of off-range duties); Kathy Degonia, Piceance Mustangs; Tracy Scott, Steadfast Steeds; Sandra Solin, American Wild Horse Conservation; Judy Cady, Friends of the Mustangs; Stella Trueblood, Sand Wash Advocate Team; Tessa Archibald, Homes for Horses Coalition; Abe Medina, Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners; Will Benkelman, Peak Facilitation Group; Mike Jensen, BLM rangeland management specialist and Spring Creek Basin herd manager; Elise Lowe-Vaughn, Rewilding America Now; TJ Holmes, Spring Creek Basin darter and documenter; Wayne East, ag/wildlife programs manager, Colorado Department of Agriculture and leader of the working group; Maggie Baldwin, Colorado state veterinarian with CDA; Tim Brass, Colorado Department of Natural Resources; Lucy and Trish Menchaca, alternative livestock & special permits coordinator, CDA; Emily Blizzard, acting director (?), APHIS, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.