Sand Wash Basin stallion
Be still my wild heart. This is Star, also pictured a few days ago with the setting full moon. Isn’t he phenomenal?
Note the ears in the sagebrush in front of Star. That’s the yearling colt in his band (his son?), Meteor.
And notice that big, big, wide-open country. Mustang country, for sure!
Stallions Cosmo and Kiowa have an early morning chat at the dawn of a beautiful September day in Sand Wash Basin.
These two boys entertained themselves for a while on a beautiful morning in Sand Wash Basin. Mostly, they were too far for decent photos, but then they came trotting past us – us being other peacefully grazing bands. They carried their own energy through and past.
This sweet sorrel foal was a beautiful subject at sunrise in Sand Wash Basin. Love those backlit whiskers!
This handsome hunky stallion is Star, and he lives with his family in Sand Wash Basin, in northwestern Colorado. He posed extremely considerately Sunday morning with the setting full moon.
This past weekend, Michelle Sander, Aleta Wolf, Stella Trueblood and others with Great Escape Mustang Sanctuary and Sand Wash Advocate Team, along with Gina Robison with BLM’s Little Snake Field Office in Craig, hosted about 50 people who came from near and far (including Texas, Missouri and Toronto, Canada) to help with work projects that directly and indirectly benefit those gorgeous mustangs.
SWAT members are directly responsible for the successful PZP program in Sand Wash Basin. In place for just about three years now, it’s having a direct impact on slowing the population growth of this popular herd. BLM plans a bait-trapping operation there later this fall, with which SWAT and GEMS will be intimately involved. BLM plans to remove 50 horses. They’ll go to Cañon City for “processing” (brands, vaccinations, gelding, etc.), then to GEMS, in northeastern Colorado, to be gentled and offered for adoption through GEMS’ partnership with BLM as a TIP storefront.
Read more about the great weekend of camaraderie, work projects and MUSTANGS in this Craig Daily Press article.
SWAT and GEMS and all the folks associated with these groups are doing phenomenal work for this beautiful herd. Any chance you get, please send out your thanks to these ladies and gents. They are compassionate and passionate, considerate, caring and vastly knowledgeable.
In short: They rock. 🙂
For those of you waiting for a way to tell BLM that you won’t stand for the mass slaughter of wild horses and burros in holding, please visit the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign’s website: http://act.wildhorsepreservation.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=23589
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Right after I sent my own comments, this popped up in my emaill from a friend: http://news.trust.org/item/20160914201301-s43hn
Thankful. 🙂
But we need to continue to tell BLM – and the U.S. government – that the threat of slaughtering and/or sterilizing our wild horses and burros is not acceptable. Humane solutions exist – including PZP and reopening ranges that BLM has zeroed out, enabling horses in holding to return to the dignity of life on the range.
If these awesome folks look familiar, they should. They returned to Spring Creek Basin recently to install the water trough below the basin’s second catchment.
In that first photo, they’re celebrating because this trough – shown filling with water – now is full of water for Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs. 🙂
Ginormous thanks to (top photo, left to right) Justin Hunt (BLM range tech), Pat Amthor (4CBCH), Kat Wilder (advocate), Frank Amthor (4CBCH), Garth Nelson (BLM range specialist) and Carol Capps (4CBCH)! Our mustangs have even more water, thanks to you all!
Pretty Raven in the secret forest.
Many readers know that Raven was born and raised in Sand Wash Basin and came here in 2008 with Mona and Kootenai to help boost our genetics. Because Spring Creek Basin’s appropriate management level currently is just 35 to 65 adult horses, BLM periodically introduces horses in order to help keep our herd’s genetics viable, per a recommendation by equine geneticist Dr. Gus Cothran (at my alma mater, Texas A&M University).
An EA has recently been released for a bait-trapping operation in Sand Wash Basin. Information about where to send your comments by the Sept. 4 deadline may be found here, in a news brief in the Craig Daily Press.
“The BLM seeks comment on the Environmental Assessment of this gather plan, available at the Little Snake Field Office at 455 Emerson St., Craig, CO 81625 and online at: 1.usa.gov/23gjg6w. Public comments will be most helpful to the BLM if received by Sept. 4. Written comments can be mailed to the Little Snake Field Office or submitted via email to blm_co_sandwash_hma@blm.gov.”
(Note that the website indicated in the press release leads to an error page.)
Of note in the very positive category, Great Escape Mustang Sanctuary and Sand Wash Advocate Team are specifically mentioned for their partnership with BLM in managing this herd: “Our partnership with SWAT and GEMS has been vital to meeting our goal of maintaining the health of the Sand Wash wild horses and the lands they depend upon,” BLM Northwest District Manager Joe Meyer said in a news release.
Also: “While confined in a corral, BLM employees and Sand Wash Advocacy Team members would identify mares, that would be treated with a contraceptive called PZP, which delays fertilization, before being released back to the range. Up to 50 young wild horses would be removed for placement in the Great Escape Mustang Sanctuary training and adoption program.”
Please take a look at the EA and send comments. SWAT volunteers are currently using fertility control in Sand Wash Basin, and they need support in order to continue their efforts to manage this herd well.
A few days ago, American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign alerted wild horse and burro advocates to some good news: BLM Colorado doing good things for our wild horses.
“Please sign the petition below to THANK BLM Colorado for leading the way in humane management that Keeps Wild Horses Wild! Your signatures will be hand delivered by our friends and wonderful wild horse advocates TJ Holmes and Kat Wilder, along with a thank-you card to the BLM.
“Let’s give credit where credit is due and support the BLM when it takes important steps in the right direction! Hopefully, the ongoing success of the humane management programs in Colorado will encourage other BLM districts across the West to implement similar programs.”
Also:
“On Aug. 4, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Colorado will hold its annual public hearing on the use of motorized vehicles in wild horse management. While we are usually critical of the BLM’s wild horse policies, this hearing provides a rare opportunity for us to SUPPORT the progress that the BLM in Colorado has made toward implementing humane management of wild horses in that state.”
Please consider signing the petition – click here to go to AWHPC’s site – to let BLM Colorado know that you’re aware of the good things happening with mustang management in our state, and that you’d like to see these good things continue – and spread to other states and other herd management areas. At that meeting, Kat Wilder and I will present BLM with the thank-you card that honors all that BLM has done and all that BLM is doing to support our wild horses staying wild on their home ranges.
We have come a long way with BLM managers who are willing and committed to working with volunteers to ensure “thriving natural ecological balance” on the rangelands our Colorado mustangs call home. We will always work to ensure the best management for our wild ones.
It may not be the tale she wanted to tell, but Kat Wilder’s latest “Mustang Tales,” written exclusively for American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, tells a tale that mustang adopters should read.
Maka
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 