This is stallion Kiowa, I think. His band and Cosmo’s band were close together and with a few other bands the couple of mornings I was fortunate to visit with them. He’s a pretty hunky guy – don’t you love that studly profile?!
On alert
24 09 2016Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Advocacy, Mustangs, Partnership, Sand Wash Basin, Work projects
Harvest moon
23 09 2016
The full, magnificent, phenomenal, gorgeous, spectacular, astoundingly amazing and very full moon rose over Sand Wash Basin the night before SWAT’s/GEMS’ Rendezvous.
Wow! Magic.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Categories : Sand Wash Basin, Uncategorized
Gosh, so golden
22 09 2016
A pretty mare in Cosmo’s band walks through sagebrush golden with the rising sun in Sand Wash Basin.
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Advocacy, Mustangs, Partnership, Sand Wash Basin, Uncategorized
Watching the sun come up
21 09 2016
Over the next however many days, we’ll be sharing some of the wild beauties that call Sand Wash Basin home. I may or may not know their names, but one thing is for sure: They are beautiful, and they are incredibly healthy … and they are loved by many, many people around the world.
This is stallion Cosmo in the first light of a beautiful September morning.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Categories : Advocacy, Mustangs, Partnership, Sand Wash Basin
Sand Wash Basin advocates get ’er done
20 09 2016
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. 🙂
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Advocacy, Education, Fence work, Fertility control, Mustangs, Partnership, PZP, PZP-22, Sand Wash Basin, Wild horses in the news, Work projects
Black is beauty
17 08 2016
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.
Comments : 5 Comments »
Categories : Adoption, Advocacy, Education, Fertility control, Mustangs, Partnership, PZP, PZP-22, Roundup, Sand Wash Basin, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Wild horses in the news
Stripey type
22 04 2016
Here’s another, closer look at Hollywood’s most excellent leg stripes.
This fantastic stallion represents introduced blood/genetics – his mother came to us from Sand Wash Basin. We’re pretty happy to have him. 🙂
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Partnership, Sand Wash Basin, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Focus
5 01 2010To ease your hearts a bit and focus on our mustangs so worth saving, check out Pam Nickoles’ latest blog post about her visit to Adobe Town (Wyoming) and Sand Wash Basin (http://nickolesphotography.wordpress.com/) and/or check out this video by Nancy Roberts of a Sand Wash band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL3tFG5GZbw
I love the sound of the horses moving through their landscape and the sound in the background of the ravens!
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Nancy Roberts, Pam Nickoles, Sand Wash Basin
Sand Wash Basin blog
23 12 2009I’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!
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Categories : Advocacy, Sand Wash Basin
Sand Wash, part 2
31 07 2009Here’s another round of photos from my visit to Sand Wash Basin. I took a lot of photos Saturday, July 25, but although we saw quite a few horses Sunday, I didn’t take a single picture. It was enough to drive through the area with Amanda, talking, spotting and enjoying wild horses.
We saw Picasso’s, Corona’s and Cosmo’s bands again, Cyclone and his mare again, and a few of the bachelors we photographed Saturday. We also saw a couple different bands: a black and white pinto stallion named Domino and his band, and a bay stallion named Koda/Coda/Kota (?) and his band. Each band had foals.
The whole experience was just wonderful!
Here are a few more pictures from Saturday.
Bachelors
Three of the six bachelors we photographed. The stallion at right is Cayenne – perfect!
Boy chat
There were two very light (“white”) bachelors, two darker/medium grey boys, Cayenne and the sorrel with flaxen mane and tail from the first photo. One of the darker greys stayed up on the hill and never came down to mingle with the others while we watched.
Sentry
This is the bachelor boy who never came down to join the party.
Easy to spot
The two light greys together.
Cyclone
Cyclone and his mare were just off the road in about the same place both Saturday and Sunday.
Cyclones mare
Like Amanda said, Cyclone’s mare is readily identifiable by her frost-bit ear and “blood mark” on her left shoulder. These two were very calm and not bothered by us at all while we took pictures of them from the road.
Corona
Loved the contrast of his beautiful palomino coat against the coming storm.
Coronas grey mare
This colt is the one that reminds me so much of Storm! This seemed to be the mare that wasn’t too sure of us. I think Amanda said (??) the pinto mare and the sorrel mare were with him before the gather … very cool that they reunited!
Corona with sorrel mare
Sand Wash view
Looking westish-northwestish toward the storm. Only the palomino pinto mare is missing from this image. All three foals are in a little bunch at right.
Picasso and band
There’s Picasso – center – with both his mares and foals. I kept seeing similarities between the Sand Wash horses and other wild horses I know. The pinto mare at right reminds me of Chrome of the Little Book Cliffs, once Phantom’s mare, and the bay mare at left reminds me of Grey’s mare that was mistakenly sorted into the stallion pen during our roundup.
Picassos mares
I know from Amanda that Picasso was gathered and released, but I don’t know about his mares. The pinto foal’s markings look like a jigsaw puzzle, don’t they? On this left shoulder, where you can’t see because of the bay mare, there’s a little speckling of “freckles.”
Picasso
It’s hard to take your eyes off of him … especially in person!
It was just a darn nice visit. 🙂
Comments : 6 Comments »
Categories : Sand Wash Basin
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 