I’m so excited to alert readers to a new blog that follows the wild horses of Sand Wash Basin, in northwestern Colorado.
Nancy Roberts lives in the area and visits often (check out her pictures of the horses in the snow). What a great new resource! She also adopted a colt after the 2008 roundup, so hopefully we’ll get to follow his progress as well! 🙂
Welcome to blogging, Nancy!
Special report by Peabody award winner George Knapp — A hard-hitting and eye-opening investigation into the wild horse issue and BLM’s management practices. This is a must see! Please circulate far and wide.
Watch the 5-part series (Video Gallery, upper left on the page): http://www.lasvegasnow.com/global/story.asp?s=11285225
The AWHPC Team
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
www.wildhorsepreservation.org
Pam Nickoles has some offers to help benefit wild horses. Check it out:
and
In June, I wrote about Dan and Karen administering the first PZP doses to mares from the Carson National Forest: https://springcreekwild.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/pzp-partnership-in-the-carson-national-forest-nm/
Learn more about Karen’s Sky Mountain Wild Horse Sanctuary here: http://skymountainwild.org/
Direct link to a story about Dan and Karen using PZP (also linked from Karen’s Web site): http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/carson-national-forest-Forest-first-to-use-contraceptive-on-wil
We learned that Karen was able to get a grant to fund the PZP program for the Carson NF mares, and that set our wheels in motion. Now we have to write a proposal asking the BLM to allow us to pursue funding to implement a PZP program –Â which could start as soon as this coming spring! – and agree to have Dan and Karen come back to administer it. This is the good news I alluded to when I broke the bad news about Chipeta’s colt, Joven. Best of all, Dan and Karen get their PZP doses directly from ZooMontana in Billings, so we won’t have to worry about the PZP changing hands and freezing and thawing and re-freezing and re-thawing so many times during BLM transport.
Also, our herd population stands at 49 horses (BLM does not count foals till they’re a year old), we’re still well within our AML (35-65), and so we were told the next gather likely will not be until at least 2011. In the meantime, I hope our BLM is watching the goings-on at Pryor Mountain. One thing I’m happy about there is that bands are being kept together. Also, with Matt Dillon’s documentation of the horses and MOU between the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center and BLM that they provide herd information, I’m hoping we can duplicate that partnership when it comes time to round up and remove some of our horses. I’ll never be happy about that, but I also will never condone horses starving on an overgrazed range when it could be prevented. A PZP program here will hopefully slow the population growth of the herd, allowing more horses to stay wild longer. And knowing about Dan and his method, I hope we’ll never again hear helicopter blades churning over Spring Creek Basin.
Dan and Karen are awesome. Extremely knowledgeable and friendly – it was like meeting old friends from our first handshake. My hope is that someday every herd manager in the country will know Dan and Karen. I hope a contract between them and our BLM is in our immediate future, for the horses’ sake.
Here are some random pix from that day, taken in the morning before everyone arrived:
Hannah and Sable
Butch and Storm
Pinon
Mouse and Steeldust
Sage
Hollywood
Mona, Kootenai and Kreacher
Kootenai and Kreacher
Kootenai
Mona and Kreacher
As soon as I say this, they’ll leave, but if you’re in the area to visit Spring Creek Basin, I would be surprised if, out of all those 49-plus (with foals) horses, you did NOT see this little threesome. They have been hanging out in the area surrounding the water catchment for months now. The grazing is not the best, but the water is. The other bands seem to have been going for forage over quality of water, and the only other horses I’m pretty sure have used the catchment recently are Traveler’s band and the bachelors Cinch and Bruiser. Hollywood’s band has been in that general area the past two weekends; I have not seen them at the catchment. Most recently, I saw Hollywood trying to drink from the pond area off the road to the old trap site. I did not see any water from the road, and I did not go closer … Poco and Roach followed the band past the “pond” without even stopping to try to drink.
Lots of controversy surrounds the Pryor Mountain gather set to begin soon, but I would urge you to visit the Pryor Wild blog – http://pryorwild.wordpress.com – and click on the link to Matt’s thoughts in the current first post. He might spend more time on that range than anyone, and as director of the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center, it’s his job to spend a lot of time thinking about those horses and their long-term health and well-being.
This statement particularly caught my attention:Â “Why not work with the BLM when such a relationship is for the benefit of the PMWHR and the herd?”
Why not, indeed? Our Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners group here is trying to do just that, and while the wheels of government turn slowly (enough to frustrate a saint), I think we’re starting to see the benefits of our partnership with the BLM … for the benefit of the – our – herd. I do hope to have a post up soon about last weekend’s visit by Dan Elkins and Karen Herman from New Mexico, who came to visit the herd area for a hopeful contract gather in the future. Dan does the gentle, humane, very successful type of gathering and removing wild horses called bait trapping, and we’re very excited to know him and Karen and encourage a partnership with them and BLM in Spring Creek Basin in the future.
In the meantime, please do read Matt’s thoughts on the Pryor herd.
Deanne Stillman’s response to LA Times editorial against the ROAM act: http://www.laobserved.com/intell/2009/07/end_of_the_line_for_wild_horse.php
Deanne Stillman is the author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, a must-read. http://www.deannestillman.com/
Here’s more on this topic: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-boyles31-2009jul31,0,2957337.story
Email today from the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign:
The Restoring Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act – HR 1018, introduced by U.S. Representatives Rahall and Grijalva, passed in the House of Representatives this morning. The bill amends the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act by adding important new protections and provisions, such as the banning of helicopter round-ups and the reclaiming of land lost by America’s wild horses over the past 30 years. Thank you so much to all who raised your voices in support of this critical piece of legislation. Now we need to prepare for the Senate vote!
On behalf of the horses, thank you for your support,
The AWHPC Team American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
For you Colorado readers out there, particularly those on the Front Range, this might be of interest to you: Michael Blake, author and screenplay writer of “Dances with Wolves,” will be at Zuma’s Rescue Ranch later this month to do a book signing for his new book, Twelve the King, a tribute to his mustang stallion.
The event will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 24, at Zuma’s Rescue Ranch, 7745, N. Moore, Littleton, Colo. For more information, call (303) 346-7493 to R.S.V.P., or visit their Web site at http://www.zumasrescueranch.com
Please take a moment to read Pam Nickoles’ latest blog post about the happy situation her mustangs, El Mariachi and Hope, now enjoy: http://nickolesphotography.wordpress.com/
It has been a long and difficult journey for all of them. As Pam writes, the story is not over, but just a few months ago, this outcome did not seem close or maybe even possible.
As an aside, Pam is an advocate for wild horses who uses her considerable photographic talent to show these animals in all their beauty and get them into the spotlight in an effort to preserve and protect them.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 