© kurt golgart, blm - range magazine · wild horses in the west is wrapped in emotion and myth and...

WINTER 2011 • RANGE MAGAZINE • M1

Special Report

MUSTANGLegends and myths. Faith, hope and charity.

It’s personal. The entire question of what to do aboutwild horses in the West is wrapped in emotion andmyth and magic words like “legends.” But it’s also real-

istic in an overwhelming number of free-roaming equinesthat pose a threat to agricultural economy and even feder-al budget expenditures that reach into billions of dollars.

There is no easy answer, but adding levels of bureau-cracy and politics to reach an emotion-driven solutionhas only made the problem more difficult. Most of thewild horses today were as 75-year-old rancher GeorgeParman described them, “my horses,” meaning they

were probably turned loose when they could serve nopractical purpose. The cowboy answer to their over-breeding was sometimes harsh, but it was meant tomaintain a balance on the range, and not to drive thewild ones to extinction. Now, 40 years after passage of alaw to save them from cowboys, the herds have doubledand emotions have become more unreasonable.

What was once a practical answer has been madepersonal along with every new effort since. In the end,both the horses and the land may have to suffer thepolitics.

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M2 • RANGE MAGAZINE • WINTER 2011

Mustang. The word alone sings withwild freedom and romance. It is inthe bedtime stories of Black Beau-

ty and Flicka, Fury and Silver without theRanger. It’s Marilyn Monroe, knock-kneed ona desert playa screaming through tears at theroughly handled capture of wild horseschased out of a Nevada canyon by an oldbiplane trainer. And it’s the immemorial gritand courage of one unlikely woman to over-come her own frailty and rescue an Americanlegend.

Now, half a century and perhaps half amillion horses later, there is another surge tosave the wild ones from extinction. This timeit’s symbolized by a photogenic young whitestallion named Cloud, a growing library ofnew books on the romantic spirit, hours ofInternet blogs, and an opulent savior indesigner riding togs with a resumé thatincludes ownership of the great thoroughbredchampion Cigar. It is also a hidden agenda ofsome extremist and opportunistic environ-mentalists who care less about loving horsesthan they do about hating cattle and ranchers.

The Hollywood images and the well-done, but Disneyesque, documentaries last along time with indelible memories of horsesgiven human characteristics. And inevitablythat produces the tears to aid a flow of emo-tion demanding that the horses be returnedto “their” wild range where, even without see-ing them there, kind hearts will be warmedwith just the thought that they are free.

But legends and myths and even moviesand videos are also prone to exaggerationsand mistakes, tall tales and even lies. Anotherwinter approaches, perhaps another hard one,and for thousands of horses roaming onsparse high-desert land, overpopulation oftheir herds may lead to disaster untold ingleaming images of dried-out water holes,pounding snow and dead or dying mares andfoals. And if that consequence must be men-tioned at all, wild-horse advocates will blamethe fading numbers of livestock producers forsomething made to happen beyond theircontrol.

In some ways, the plight of the wild mus-tang of the West has long been burdened bymyth and distortion. Mustang is taken fromthe Spanish term mestengo, meaning a strayanimal, but popular belief has always associat-ed mustang with the romantic steeds of con-quistadors, and later vaqueros with theirlyrical skills as drovers, and beyond that toAmerican Indian ponies carefully bred forspeed, endurance and color. While someherds in remote protected areas may still carrythe bloodlines of Iberian horses first broughtto the American continent in the 16th centu-ry, most of the wild horses in the West todayare inbred from a variety of other Europeanstock lost or turned loose well into the 20thcentury by owners who had no further usefor them or simply could not afford to feedthem. But “feral horses” doesn’t quite havethat ring to it. So call them wild or even mus-tang. The truth is that there is no convincingevidence that they are about to go extinct.

This isn’t the first time free-roaminghorses have been thought to be doomed.Indeed, hardly more than a century after thearmies of Hernando Cortés and other Span-ish explorers rode their horses north andwest into Southern California, missionariesthought the best idea was to eliminate asmany as possible by stampeding some20,000 of them into the sea to drown, orrunning them off cliffs, or penning theminto corrals to starve. It was in part to denythem to the Indians, but also because therewere so many of them they were threateningmission crops. There are no accounts ofwomen crying, but surely some did.

In the wars that followed westward expan-sion, federal cavalry led by Sherman andCuster massacred hundreds of Indian poniesin addition to the tribes themselves as ameans of denying the survivors transporta-tion, defense, and hunting. Yet it is still anec-dotally noted that President U.S. Grant saidthe West was overrun with a million wildhorses at the end of the 19th century.

On-call environmental scientists todayargue that the horse was not an introduced

species on this continent, but actually thedescendants of so-called “dawn” horses thatwent extinct in America in the last ice age11,000 years ago. By that account, we shouldsave some range for woolly mammoths andsaber-toothed tigers, just in case the radicalgreens find a couple of surviving specimensto be “reintroduced,” as they prefer to describethe wild herds.

But for the horses we have today, you haveto blame Columbus, who on his second voy-age brought horses as well as other livestockto Hispaniola. After that, the colony-seekingking of Spain directed that every expeditionto the New World would carry horses. Thatmay not totally be to blame, but ironically thebreed of Andalusian horse is today extinct in

Legends & MythsMustangs have become political pawns. They are symbols of freedom to most,useful victims or unwelcome villains to some, and a collective albatross onfederal Interior policy that satisfies nobody. By Tim Findley

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Spain. Some private American breeders of theSpanish mustang might, in fact, have the onlyones left outside of those few on remote wildranges in the West.

Now in third-generation family man-agement, the Cayuse Ranch in Oshoto,Wyo., dates its stock from Ferdinand andRobert Brislawn, who in the 1920s set out tocapture and save stallions and their bands ofmares and foals in Utah and Nevada thatdisplayed the Spanish-mustang traits. Trueto their perceived intelligence and desire forfreedom, the best of those stallions, a buck-skin named Monty, slipped the gate and dis-

appeared into the mountains with all hisband in 1944, never to be seen again, butadding to the legends.

Still, the truth is that for all their gloriouspast and incredible colors and traits, nobodyseems to want them in their backyard. Privatebreeders say horses aren’t selling, and theBureau of Land Management, which mighthave a few, can’t even give them away. In fact,the BLM is thinking of ways to pay landown-ers willing to board horses at federal expensein fenced freedom.

So woe is the mustang. And what now?Sixty years ago Velma Johnston, a Reno

secretary, found herself driving behind a live-stock truck she thought was carrying cattle.But when she drove closer, she realized theywere horses being hauled to a slaughterhouse.“They were injured and bleeding,” sherecounted to many interviewers, “and theonly thing keeping them from falling was thatthey were packed in so tightly.”

The undoubtedly gruesome experiencemade Velma the secretary into Wild HorseAnnie, the tireless advocate for mustangs whospent the next 20 years winning passage of thehistoric Wild Free-Roaming Horses & BurrosAct of 1971. Unique in intent, it not only pro-


“Thunder,” Mare Tag #9615, came to the Litchfield corrals in Northern California on Sept. 7, 2007. She’s seven years old and available for adoption. She wastaken from the Wall Canyon Herd Management Area with 103 other excess horses. In October 2010 there are still close to 100 horses on the Wall Canyon HMA.

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tected wild horsesfrom slaughter oreven harassment, butalso created anentirely new missionfor the BLM and theU.S. Forest Service.The BLM hadreplaced the Depart-ment of Interior’sGrazing Service in1946 as a means ofmodernizing use offederal lands forgrazing and mining,but it was hardlyeven noticed byranchers in Nevada,especially where thebattle for land andwater betweenranchers and settlerswas seldom as muchof a problem as it had been elsewhere beforethe Taylor Grazing Act.

Horses in the arid and sparsely vegetatedSilver State were made abundant first by thepassage of settlers into California when des-perate emigrants facing the desert eitherturned their horses loose, or, as often, atethem. The population of unclaimed horsesgrew so great that at one point in the 1870sthe state of Nevada put a bounty on them. Astory in the Eureka Sentinel in 1926 quotes anearly federal forestry official, James Gurr, assaying, “The killing off of worthless mustangsis one of the best methods of conservingrange feed for cattle and sheep and domestichorses.” He told of seeing herds of them as herode the stage into the old capital at Austin.

But in northern Nevada, the U.S. Armyalso came to agreements with local ranchersto mingle well-bred Army studs with theranchers’ own grazing horses to produce mili-tary remounts for World War I. Incrediblythat agreement was in effect well into the 20thcentury. With so many horses mingling withthe ranch stock and with cattle prices unpre-dictable, many ranchers became part-timemustangers, capturing wild horses and cullingthe best of them for sale as working or ridingstock. The rest they sold the same way theydid cattle. It wasn’t cruelty, it was economics,and to Wild Horse Annie it was horrifying.

Annie was nobody’s fool. She and herhusband owned a ranch themselves wherethey raised horses. In time over the next 20years, she would tell of hate mail and eventhreats delivered to her by livestock producers

all over the West. But, particularly in Nevada,where the largest herds roamed over vast fed-eral land covering 89 percent of the state,many ranchers gave Annie grudging respect.Some sincerely admired her perseverance

even in the face of childhood polio that stillseemed to distort her appearance.

Annie did not hate ranchers, and she didnot expect that the wild horses should beallowed to overrun and destroy cattle grazingrights on federally controlled land. But shecould not bear the cruelty in what she hadseen as the cowboy sport of capturing andselling wild horses for extra income. Slowly,and often painfully, she drew support for astep-by-step campaign that would first endthe practice of shooting the horses from air-craft.

The good times were just then comingback on the ranching West after grim years ofthe Great Depression when ranchers wereforced by the government to kill their owncattle to prevent a glut on the market, andthen World War II, in which even horses weretaken by the military to meet its needs formeat as well as transportation.

But now, the war was over. Not only theUnited States, but Europe was in a period ofhopeful recovery. Beef prices were up, and thebenefits of new technology and heavymachinery developed during the conflict wereappearing in surplus off-road vehicles andtractors. If it was a return to good times,

Arthur Miller wrote “The Misfits” for his girlfriend Marilyn Monroe while hewas waiting for a divorce in Reno in 1956. The movie helped get the Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act passed in 1971. BELOW: Mustangers in the1950s. This is what Wild Horse Annie wanted to prevent.

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though, it was also at a cost to the character ofranching. Both horses and cowboys weregradually becoming excess labor, less valuableand too expensive to maintain. Many cow-boys were offered a perk to their low wageswith periodic roundups in which they couldcapture wild horses on the range for theirown use and to supplement their wages.

The best of the ponies were culled tobecome part of the cowboy’s own string. Oth-ers less desirable, often the descendants ofthose untaken military remounts, were sold tothe processing plants, perhaps for pet food,but more and more as Europe recovered, tomeet the demand for what was, and still is,considered a delicacy in France and othercountries including Japan. The price perpound of a 1,000-pound horse in Europe andAsia soon matched and exceeded that for 600-pound finished cattle.

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The great American playwright, ArthurMiller, spent some time at a divorce resortnear Pyramid Lake, northeast of Reno, castingaside memories of his marriage and begin-ning to pen a screenplay for his new love,Marilyn Monroe. He watched the horse gath-ers nearby and saw them as a metaphor forthe dying West. It was all there in “The Mis-fits.” Monroe was cast as a waitress with herchildhood crush Clark Gable playing an agingitinerant cowboy looking to make a few buckswith the help of the younger wrangler Mont-gomery Clift and Eli Wallach as the pilot of anold biplane trainer. It was a western on theend of the West, and in a strange way becamean allusion for tragedy among those involved.Released in 1961, it was the last finishedmovie for both Marilyn and Clark.

Within short months both Gable (whoseinsistence on performing his own stunts wasconsidered a contributing factor) and Mon-roe (whose breakup with Miller may havecontributed to her suicide) were dead.Though considered now to be a classic,Montgomery Clift, on his own deathbed afew years later, was asked if he’d like to see“The Misfits” again on TV and was said tohave replied “absolutely not.” It was recordedas Clift’s last words.

But maybe no other film made about themodern West has ever had such a politicalimpact. Annie’s rapidly growing legion ofsupport had a cinematic vehicle that was likea psalm to their cause. In 1959, with the helpof a former classmate, Nevada CongressmanWalter Baring, she won unanimous passage of“Annie’s law,” making it illegal to use mecha-nized vehicles or weapons to capture or kill

wild horses and burros. It was a first step, butstill far from what she envisioned to save thefree-roaming animals.

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In the tiny northwestern Colorado town ofMaybell where he was born and raised on afamily ranch that struggled to survivethrough the GreatDepression, DaveCattoor had beenriding after mus-tangs on the nearbyRed Desert since hewas 12. Every sliminch of him wascowboy. He rodeoedas a bronc rider withthe legendary CaseyTibbs throughanother 25 years tothe equally memo-rable Larry Mahan.But Cattoor, whomet and married hiswife of 46 years, Sue,in Maybell, mightdeserve to be morelegendary than anyof them. He and Suewould witness thechanges coming inthe West as no otherspossibly could. Andhe was destined towin the admirationof Wild Horse Annieherself.

It was another 10years after “The Mis-fits” and more thanthat since Annie’s lawmade shooting mustangs illegal that shewould achieve passage of the historic WildFree-Roaming Horses & Burros Act. Eventhen, it required a flood of letters fromschoolchildren to Congress that she engi-neered as the heaviest mail campaign on thegovernment since the Vietnam War.

Passed easily and signed into law by Presi-dent Richard Nixon in December of 1971, itdeclared America’s wild horses to be “livingsymbols of the historic and pioneer spirit ofthe West,” putting them in a unique categorybeyond even the Endangered Species Act. Itwas a victory for the children, most of whomwould likely live their entire lives without everactually seeing one, and, of course, for Annie,whose entirely grassroots achievement wasaccomplished without professional help and

with precious little funding. Its grand lan-guage, however, didn’t mean the pioneer spiritof the West was finished.

Annie was passionate about ending theslaughter of horses, and sometimes almost asemotional as the choir of tearful women whofollowed her, but she was also a daughter of

the West, born to a ranching family whoseDouble Lazy Heart Ranch was now her andCharlie’s home. She understood horses in apractical way, and held no illusions.

“I have never referred to the wild horses asbeautiful, noble creatures, because they areneither,” she told Sports Illustrated in 1975.“Today’s wild horse is not the glamorousmustang of long ago. He is, for the most part,underfed, scrubby and inbred.” To Annie theywere part of the lyric and the melody linkingus to our past, but they were not the wholesymphony. Before she died in 1977 sheadmitted that she had even become allergic tothem, breaking out in hives when she had anycontact with a horse.

The new law on horses and burros, how-ever, carried significance beyond merely the

Velma Johnston and husband Charlie owned the Double Lazy Heart horseranch in Wadsworth, Nev. After starting her crusade to prevent cruelty to feralhorses, she became known as Wild Horse Annie.

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preservation of two American icons. Beyondprotections provided even to endangeredspecies, the singular category of wild equinesrequired constant care and enforcement ontheir behalf. They could not be simplyreleased into regions only dubiously their“native” habitat unthreatened by any preda-tors except, rarely, mountain lions. More thanthat, the law assigned to the BLM the task ofmanaging the horses and burros on federallycontrolled land in 10 states that still support-ed cattle grazing, hunting and other uses bythe public—land that by many years of con-tracts and agreements was intended for pro-ductive use, especially by livestock growers.

Many ranchers could see what was com-ing from still another level of federal regula-tion added to the already tense relationshipwith BLM and Forest Service agents. Takingadvantage of a “last chance” offered them, andwith support of their county authorities,many ranchers moved to claim every horseon their federal allotments. In some cases,such as the Red Desert in Wyoming or thevast Sorenson Ranch near Elko, Nev., that wasa daunting task, covering thousands of squaremiles of mountains and sage where hundredsof those old Army remounts still roamed.Only one mustanger in the West had the rep-utation that made him capable of the job.Dave Cattoor.

The BLM at the time was like a group ofcrossing guards told to protect the wreck ofan ice-cream truck at lunchtime. Sixty percentof the horses and virtually all the burros left

loose in a trail of broken dreams by failedprospectors were in Nevada. From the begin-ning, that was where the BLM would concen-trate its efforts. But the federal land officerswere underequipped, underfunded, and lack-ing training for their assignment. Loose hors-es had always been the problem of the state orthe county or the ranchers themselves. Assomeone pointed out, there were feral catsoverrunning Catalina Island, and goats on anisland in the middle of Mono Lake with nofederal laws suggesting what to do aboutthem. But horses on federally managed rangeweren’t even adequately categorized betweenwild and just free-roaming stock. The BLMwas uncertain not only of where to find them,but also of how many there really were.

So like just about everybody else involvedin 1975, it just watched Dave Cattoor for awhile. Cattoor jumped at the chance whencontracts were offered to claim horses whilethe BLM prepared some plan.

All his life since he could fit a saddle, Cat-toor had followed the wild ones, capturingmany with a variety of methods that neverincluded shooting them or intentionallyharming them. Often, he just watched them,fascinated by their social structure, takingnote of their habits. “All those people whothink they know so much have pictures intheir minds of the herds running, with manesand tails streaming like flags,” he says. “Butthey don’t run in the wild. They may trot oreven gallop, but it’s not normal for them torun, and certainly not far. If you think about

it, even the best thoroughbreds cannot runmuch more than a mile before they tire out.”

That was key to the most common way heand his crew would gather the horses, bychasing them on saddle mounts until theunshod wild horses would become footsoreand slow down to be herded toward disguisedpens, often following a domestic “Judashorse” trained to turn aside at the lastmoment. Cattoor, thrilled by the chase, never-theless hated to see them arrive so brokendown and exhausted in the hidden corral.Often, they would leave behind the foals andolder mares that couldn’t keep up and that hiscowboys could not circle back for. For them, itmight be a struggle to survive. Cattoor knewthe airplanes tried by some could not slowdown to ease the panic of the horses runningbefore them, risking injury to both the wildones and saddle mounts. There had to be abetter way.

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The new law called on the BLM to establish asustainable balance with its new obligations,finding where the horses and burros were,and designating that with a new bureaucraticacronym, HMA, or herd management area,then dividing that region for the forage itmight produce between the AUMs, animalunit monthly, of both cattle and horses. Thehorses were assigned an AML, or appropriatemanagement level, to share in the forage.When a herd exceeded its AML, the excesshorses would be gathered and offered foradoption. The law did not allow just moving

Madeleine Pickens, left, at “Mustangs on the Mall” in Washington,D.C., in May 2010, a tribute to “our American heritage.” Shedescribed herself as “over the moon” with joy at achieving “victory” inher campaign to save the American mustang. Not a single strand inher own golden-blonde mane seemed disturbed as she made herYouTube announcement to friends in Dallas after a three-day trip toSacramento and Washington, D.C., last fall. But Pickens was alsoobviously ahead of the gun in claiming to have come to an agreementwith federal authorities to begin a “pilot program” for her fabulousdream of a vast western sanctuary for thousands of “legends” currentlyunder control of the BLM. ABOVE: Madeleine and T. Boone Pickensmarch through Oklahoma State University’s football field at halftimeto celebrate “Saving American Mustangs.”

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them to areas where they had not been estab-lished in 1971. Herd management by theBLM thus became a bean counter’s job, tryingto keep account of the balance promised onthe range. It satisfied no one.

No matter how trendy and politically cor-rect it has become to call ranchers “wild horsehaters” and “armchair anarchists generallyignorant of the real world,” all the freshlyarrived mustang experts with their bigotedviews of the rural West have demonstratedagain and again that they don’t know jackabout ranching. Ranchers in Nevada and else-where have lived with wild horses for genera-tions, accepting and admiring their inspiringspirit as part of their own life on the range.But horse herds increase rapidly, by as muchas 20 percent a year, and even doubling theherd within four years. When too many hors-es began to deny feed to their cattle, or, evenmore serious, when the herds began todestroy watering facilities built by the ranch-ers themselves, the wild-horse herds wereculled and reduced. It was a business manage-ment decision, not a grudge against wildhorses.

But it’s true as ever that ranchers greatlytrust their own management over that pro-vided by the government. When the BLMfirst took on the job, it estimated that therewere just over 17,000 free-roaming wild hors-es in the West. By the end of 1971, it hadrevised that figure up to 24,000, and by thetime Dave Cattoor introduced the horses tothe helicopter, it was more than 60,000. Mostranchers regarded that as thousandsshort of the truth.

Arguments still rage overwhether horses, with a jaw structurethat allows them to bite off grass inroot-wrenching clumps, or cattle,which have recessed teeth that pullat the grasses with sometimes thesame result, do more damage to therange. Horses will feed on sage andother forage that cows seldomtouch. But the horses will also grazeover larger areas, selecting the bestfeed among even grasses and forbsranchers hope to set aside for win-ter feed. Both animals will seek thesame water sources, but horses willstomp a stream or even a troughseeking water for the herd. TheBLM recognized that in allowingmore cattle than horses on grazingallotments, but countered theimbalance by allowing free range tothe horses throughout the year,

while regulating cattle to limited months ofgrazing.

“I watch the horses bust through gates onmy own property to reach water or feed,” saysEureka rancher Roy Risi, “and there is noth-ing I can do. It will put me out of business.”Even grain and corn growers were helpless toprotect their fields from the wild herds.

There was another generally ignored reali-ty that gave truth to the lies of wild-horseadvocates claiming the BLM steadily reduced

the HMAs established after the law by refus-ing to turn captive horses out on some areas.The fact was that cattle grazing on westernfederal lands had been cut in half since 1940.Some of it was due to federal regulationsrequiring that herds be reduced to numbersof cattle that could be moved to private pas-ture for several weeks a year. Much of it camefrom the economic pressure added by BLMregulations reducing the cattle herds. But allover the West, ranches began disappearing, so

often marked by old wooden windmillsrusted to a stop above empty watertroughs, or springs dried up from lackof attention, or acres of dried grass andvanished wildlife in the ghostly memoryof those who gave up. More than 30percent of the reduction in cattle graz-ing was counted after 1971.

Had the BLM turned excess horsesand burros out to those areas, it wouldhave been committing them to thirstand starvation. The ranchers had main-tained the springs, reservoirs and waterdevelopments and, in most cases, thiswater had been appropriated from thestate and is owned by the ranchers. Thegovernment does no maintenance andprovides no help to the survival ofspecies in an area returned to the lifelesscondition noted by the first explorers inthe 18th century. “I’ve seen it myself,”says George Parman, a Nevada rancherfor 75 years. “In a bad winter, the horseswould group together in a canyon seek-

The only time the helicopter pressures the horses is during the last few seconds before the trap.

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Dave and Sue Cattoor. Wild Horse Annie wrote to Dave in 1975,saying, “To the glowing reports of your capabilities given to me...Iwish to add the thank yous of this organization (WHOA) and of mepersonally. Thank you for your expertise and for having the sort ofcrew of cowboys you had to carry it out.”

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ing shelter and feed, and we wouldn’t findthem until spring—colts starved at the belliesof dead mares, even studs broke down anddied in the cold. Only the coyotes fed.”

But the horse advocates wouldn’t see that.They didn’t care how many family ranchesfailed and gave up in decades of federal pres-sure to develop a comprehensive, or at leastunderstandable, plan for government man-agement of lands the BLM insisted on callingpublic, but often treated as some sort of polit-ical fiefdom.

What was left was a deeply harboredresentment of many ranchers toward theirown federal government, and still steadilygrowing herds of wild horses more preciousthan ever to the romantically sensitive peoplewho didn’t understand the danger to them orto the ranchers they actually needed to sur-vive. Political activists feeling their oats amongthem tried to suggest it was a plot by “corpo-rate ranchers,” another obvious lie.

Dave Cattoor was kept working, gatheringhorses for the BLM like shoveling sand fromthe beach. In 1982, he met former Vietnampilot Jim Hicks. They became close friendsand partners using older Bell helicopters(which Cattoor learned to fly) in a test to herdcattle, and then employed the method as Cat-toor’s long-sought solution to gathering wildhorses in a more efficient and humane way.The veteran Bells, like those used in the filmand TV series “M*A*S*H,” featured a fullplastic bubble around the cockpit, allowingthe pilot to clearly see everywhere around andbeneath him. “Better than a saddle horse,” saysCattoor, not meaning to offend the poniesthat got him there.

With the helicopter, it wasn’t necessary torun the horses, except in the final momentswhen they might hesitate outside the gate.The chopper could stay at a relativelyunthreatening altitude that would set thehorses off at a trot. If mares or foals got leftbehind, it could hover and backtrack, gentlybringing them into the fold. The horseswould arrive at the gate uninjured and with-out sore hooves, all in less time than it hadtaken with saddle horses.

Even if it took an amendment to Annie’slaw, it was also just what the BLM needed.There were other contractors, but none weretrusted more than Cattoor. Working eightmonths a year, all over the West, his heli-copters gathered an estimated 150,000 horsesbetween 1975 and 2010.

Year after year, through politically chang-ing administrations and unreliable budgetpriorities, the BLM tried to sell its adoption

program, advertising on billboards and TV,even offering a website with photos, sort ofcombining the style of used-car sales andimpoverished children. There were absurdmoments like those in California when sub-urbanites showed up to adopt a burro with asmall U-Haul moving van in tow behind theirFord Mustang. And there were actions by mil-itant environmentalists who broke open cor-rals in attempts to set the horses free.

Most troubling, however, was the fact thatthe BLM simply could not keep up with thejob. Ranchers complained that a gather in onearea would end up releasing horses in anoth-er. Attempts to find new cooperation with thehelp of a state advisory body were disruptedby weeping women from the organizationAnnie helped form, Wild Horse OrganizedAssistance (WHOA). Opinions were hard-ened on both sides, while the population ofwild horses steadily increased, both on therange, and in the capture corrals. The livinglegends were becoming political pawns: sym-bols of freedom to most, useful victims orunwelcome villains to some, and a collectivealbatross on federal Interior policy that satis-fied nobody. Militants raged as usual, womencried as if on cue, and ranchers appealed forunderstanding, but none of them really lis-tened long enough to sort out all the lies.

Dave and Sue Cattoor cowboyed onthrough it all. “A lot of it was flying,” saysDave, flashing a sardonic grin and a thumbs-up, “but it was still Wild West, Hi ho, Silverhelicopter.” He still found it hard to believethat the government would pay for whatmany cowboys had enjoyed doing for noth-ing. By the second Reagan administration, theBLM had corrals scattered around the Westholding 10,000 horses that nobody seemed towant for 25 bucks or any price. Pasturerefuges established in Oklahoma and Kansascouldn’t hold any more, and one desperateplan offering to give away 100 horses to any-one who would take them backfired withnearly scandalous impact when many of thehorses turned up at the two remaining horseslaughterhouses in the United States. TheBLM had a budget of $51 million for moregathers that by 1990 totaled more than 40,000wild horses and burros with almost no placeleft to go. The price of feed alone threatenedto bankrupt it.

It was a perfect setup for anyone wantingto show concern for the environment atalmost no risk. A cause just made for celebri-ties. Who didn’t love horses? And who didn’tthink cowboys were just born mean? “StopWild Horse Captures” proclaimed a Holly-wood billboard. “Call Bruce Babbitt.” Presi-

Stud dominates young colt. He doesn’t want competition from his own son, but that often happens anyway.OPPOSITE: Battle for the mares—many returned to the range temporarily sterilized with PZP to slow down herd growth. The shot lasts one to two years and then has to be repeated. But how to find the right mares?

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dent Clinton’s Interior secretary certainlyseemed the right guy. With what seemed like agrudge against his own Arizona ranchingfamily, Babbitt vowed to break the “agricul-tural apparatchiks” he saw as having toomuch influence. Within months after beingapproved for the cabinet post, he was touringthe West, threatening to raise grazing fees andfurther cut the numbers of cattle on publicranges. The ranchers, losing their land andtheir livelihood to one regulation or another,feared they had nowhere to turn except to thecourts.

So now, a BLM with already too littleexperience on the ground was forced toface more and more paperwork in theoffice. It couldn’t stop the gathers and itcouldn’t just get rid of the horses. It was allpart of the stampeding federal law. Ideas toamend the Wild Free-Roaming Horses &Burros Act to allow for destruction of atleast older horses or the sale withoutrestriction of horses held for adoption forfour years or more were whispered like sac-rilege overheard by a swelling congregationdemanding their rescue.

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In 1995, filmmaker Ginger Kathrens found apale-colored colt with a herd grazing in the

spectacular Pryor Mountain Wild HorseRefuge of Montana and Wyoming. He waspart of the much-valued few horses in isolat-ed areas that could trace their bloodlines tothe true Spanish mustang. Kathrens namedhim Cloud and began filming a much-acclaimed record of his life that today, 15years later, is periodically revisited for eagerlyawaiting viewers on The Nature Channel.Cloud and his band are given human charac-teristics in the film’s narration. They have fanclubs and children’s books in which “daddies”and “mommies” produce “babies” with per-sonalities and inevitable tragedies. The BLM’sattempts to protect that rapidly growing herdwith new water resources were met with shrillcries that the government would “murder”Cloud, making the stallion even morefamous.

For more than a quarter century, throughthe lifetimes of Wild Horse Annie’s children’sbrigade and the administration of dozens ofBLM directors, handfuls of Interior secre-taries, and seven presidents, the BLM hadtried to meet its obligations under the 1971law and its own 1975 standards to bring bal-ance and peace to the herds of wild horsesand burros on federal land. But by the newmillennium, there were more wild horses on

the range than when it started, and a nearlyequal amount of captured horses held in cor-rals. More than 200,000 of the wild equineshad been adopted for fees of $25 to $125 ahead. Total cost of the program was in the bil-lions, and there was no end in sight.

There were always critics, and variouslywell-educated wildlife experts with simpleanswers and manipulative political motives.The impolite but all too obvious observationproduced books speculating about women’slove of horses. It couldn’t be denied that mus-tangs’ best human friends were usually theladies, not all of whom burst into tears oncue. Wild Horse Annie seldom cried, and thatmight be the only characteristic shared withthe woman who seemed to want to take herplace in American culture. Annie was tootough to cry. Madeleine (Paulson) Pickenswas too rich to bother.

Fashionably styled to a silky, almost ani-malistic appearance of her own, Pickens pre-sents herself with a cultured immigrantaccent and a regal attitude that expects atten-tion from waiters and secretaries. There is atelling photo of her with a slightly bemusedlook as she listens to the coatless and bolo-tied Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at a meet-ing in his office. Salazar signed the photo,

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thanking her “for all your efforts to help wildhorses.”

She told a reporter that when she firstarrived in the United States in 1969 to residein a beachfront house at Marina Del Rey,Calif., that she had no idea horses were beingslaughtered for food. In fact, if she was evenaware of Wild Horse Annie, she didn’t men-tion it. Madeleine Richter—or MadeleineFarris, as she was known then—was born toan English Christian father and a Lebanesemother at a time when Beirut was consideredthe Paris of the Mideast. What is known ofher early life seems both mildly mysteriousand exotic, working first as a model and flightattendant on Pan American Airlines andsometime in her 20s capitalizing on that toform her own company providing cabincrews for corporate and private jets. By oneaccount, she left Iraq just before the takeoverby Saddam Hussein’s Bath Party.

In the United States, her good looks and

cultured cosmopolitan style gave her a placeamong the young, beautiful and rich in theCalifornia new-wave aristocracy. A black beltin the martial art of tae kwon do, she was fea-tured with lavish photos in a 1976 edition ofBlack Belt Magazine. One of her closestfriends was diet-entrepreneur Jenny Craig.She was still, though, something of a mystery.Her bio lists her first husband as Mr. Richter,and her daughter, Dominique, was born in1980 with that last name. The bio offers nofurther description or dates for Mr. Richter.Madeleine’s private jet crew business mightsurely have brought her in contact with for-mer test pilot and founding president of Gulf-stream Aerospace, Allan Paulson, althoughthat is not mentioned.

What is known is that in the 1970s, Paul-son started a second career as one of the mostsuccessful owners of thoroughbred racehorsesin U.S. history. Paulson lived in, and appar-ently later owned, the Del Mar Country

Club—a lavish and highly exclusive play-ground founded by Bing Crosby, with its ownzip code, and considered among the threewealthiest communities in the United States.It wasn’t too far from Marina Del Rey, buteven from there, it was a long way up the scaleof high living.

It’s unclear how or exactly when, but itwas Paulson who introduced Madeleine tothe greenest grass world of high-stakes horseracing. They were married in 1988, and soonknown as the most admired couple in theoverdressed paddock, not only for their style,but for their extreme success with 85 stakes’winners and seven champions, none greaterthan “America’s horse,” Cigar, which went onto tie Citation’s record with 16 straight winsearning nearly $10 million.

Paulson died in 2000 at the age of 78.Madeleine was a very well-cared-for widow ofonly 53. All too soon, however, she found her-self in a battle over Paulson’s Living Trustdirecting that her stepson, Michael Paulson,become the sole trustee of the family’s 60-horse racing operation. Madeleine claimedthat her late husband wanted the racing stocksold off. After more than two years of an acri-monious legal battle, the judge finally sidedwith Michael, naming him and his two broth-ers sole trustees. “As part of the settlement,”reports said, “Madeleine Paulson will receivethe Del Mar Country Club…and anotheroceanfront property in Del Mar.”

Still a prominent figure at the track, butout of colors to race as her own, Madeleinekept her head up, always looking higher. In2005, she married one of the 900 richest menon earth, Texas oil magnate T. Boone Pickens.Was this an American success story, or what?Their first public act as a couple was to con-tribute to relief for the people of New Orleansafter Hurricane Katrina. T. Boone donated $7million to the Red Cross while Madeleine setoff on an unprecedented campaign to rescuehundreds of dogs and cats and other pets leftbehind by their owners. She hired a full-blown jetliner to carry most of them off to aMarin County, Calif., shelter where theycould be either reclaimed or adopted by oth-ers. Her reputation as a philanthropist for ani-mal causes soared.

But Madeleine and T. Boone were aboutto encounter some high-roller reluctance of akind they just weren’t used to hearing in DelMar or Dallas. By 2007, they had led the fightto shut down the last horse slaughterhouse,and Madeleine was following her dream bymanaging a bill through the U.S. House ofRepresentatives making it illegal even to

It’s a challenge to stay ahead of the pack out on the range. Competition is fierce. Scars show this stud hasalready had many fights. Now he’s after a mare. Perhaps he won his last battle.

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transport horses to Canada or Mexico or any-where for that purpose. There was the oldromantic flame again, saving the horses withan easy ride through the House that suddenlycame to a stubborn halt at the gates to theU.S. Senate.It wasn’t just Nevada being overrun by

abundant unwanted steeds. Most of thecharming bluegrass country people imaginedas the playground and retirement home ofthoroughbreds was near to capacity, andnobody talked about what might happeneven to champions that turned out to be fail-ures as studs, such as Cigar himself. Besidesthe money horses, there were quarter horses,dray stock, rodeo broncs, pony-ride Shetlandsand who knew what put out of work by theever deeper economic recession. All needingexpensive feed and care.Before closing that last slaughterhouse in

2006, just under 100,000 horses a year wereslaughtered in the United States. Some camefrom Canada, and though the BLM denies it,some may have been taken off the wild range,but most of them belonged to somebody, andmore than Pickens wanted to admit once hadpedigrees. When Congress wordlessly set theslaughter bill aside, T. Boone blamed hisfriends in the cattle industry. But it was thethoroughbred breeding industry, the jockeys,and the gamblers who were dragging theirfeet in support. Madeleine said she got somad, she took to her bed and cried.The lady from Lebanon is obviously used

to getting her way. Even without T. Boone’shelp, she didn’t need to fool with school kidsand letters. It was with her influence thatCongressman Nick Rahall then produced theROAM (Rescue Our American Mustangs)Act in 2008. Rahall (D-WV) was appropriate-ly head of the House Resources Committee,but the only connection he had to the realWest seemed to be a DUI in California and a$60,000 lawsuit from a Las Vegas casinodemanding payment of gambling debts. Hewas, though, also of Lebanese heritage, per-haps just a happy coincidence. His bill,demanding an immediate moratorium onhorse gathers, chugged right through theHouse in 2009 and then was put over on theside track already occupied by the SlaughterAct. Madeleine needed to make the govern-ment a deal it couldn’t refuse.

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Ken Salazar is desperate. The Interior secre-tary doesn’t tell that to country reporters withwhom he refuses to meet, but his wholecareer in a cabinet job that has eaten thefuture of many men, including Babbitt, may

depend on finding some way out of the wild-horse mess. The serious bottom-line beancounters have warned him that going on theway it has will not be sustainable, and theGeneral Accountability Office pointedlyreminded the secretary that a part of the WildHorse & Burro Act provided for euthanasia ofhorses that could not be disposed of in anyother way.Salazar brought former Nevada BLM

director Bob Abbey backfrom another position totake charge of the program,as if Abbey’s years-longknowledge of the impossibletask might produce somesolution. Abbey went at itlike Gen. George S. Pattonfinally turned loose, planningto use most of the $50-mil-lion budget to gather asmany as 12,000 horses in thenext two fiscal years and sortthem out from there with thehelp of birth prevention andsterilization to create a man-ageable wild-horse popula-tion of around 26,000. Atleast that many would still beheld in corrals hopelesslyawaiting adoption, butAbbey meant to take it a stepat a time.Abbey called Pickens’

plan to establish a hugeNevada refuge for horsesalone “untenable,” and hewas joined by hunting andwildlife groups, scientistsconcerned about rangepreservation and even achapter of the Sierra Clubobjecting to Pickens’ plan to release 20,000 ormore horses into a sanctuary that couldbecome like a natural zoo for visitors eager tosee the living legends. The concept was calleddisastrous by some ranchers and, pointedly, “ahome for welfare horses” by others.Salazar’s change in policy to allow

observers to witness the gather in the Calicorange on the northern Nevada/Californiaborder at the beginning of this year was nohelp to his problem. The gather of some 2,400wild horses resulted in the deaths of a record34 horses either during the gather or later atholding pens in Fallon, Nev. It was a smallpercentage of the horses brought in off therange, and due mostly to their condition inthe overpopulated herds, but the observers

from an array of activist organizationshowled that it was evidence of the BLM’s“murder” of the horses.Dave Cattoor is an easy-going, straight-

talking guy who didn’t mind it when the BLMused to keep observers at a distance, but hedidn’t object either to talking to some of themwhen the rules changed. His wife Sue hadalways attended to publicity matters withtheir own website and a willing response to

questions. But now, they had to travel toAbbey’s selected HMAs with bleacher-fullcrowds rooting for the mustangs.By the cold January of 2010, with the big

Calico roundup north of Reno reaching itspeak, the horse advocates were accusing Cat-toor and the BLM of recklessly overfilling theFallon holding corrals. Cattoor, however, wasstruggling with the rainy and foggy weather,waiting for breaks for the safety of the horsesand the helicopter pilots he now guided fromthe ground. Mrs. Pickens had announced herintention to view the gather, and Cattoorassumed the rumble he heard from the areaof the private airstrip at the Soldier MeadowsRanch on the Black Rock Desert was wherethe Pickens entourage would land. But sud-

For fiscal year 2010 (Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010), BLM counted 4,673 burros in five states. Most were in Arizona (2,248) and Nevada (1,177).

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denly, and without radio contact, three largehelicopters veered off and headed into theWarm Springs gather area, appearing sudden-ly below and in front of where Cattoor’s Bellswere gently urging two groups of horsestoward the trap.

“One of my pilots was herding somehorses and, like always, was way above themjust letting them drift toward the trap,” Cat-toor says. “Madeleine’s three helicopters camebetween him and the horses and caused thema lot of unnecessary extra stress. But moreimportantly, they put both our pilots in dan-ger of a midair collision. I assume Madeleinewanted pictures.”

Cattoor, seeing that the horses had beenscattered by the intrusion, aborted the gather,called his two pilots back and went lookingfor some explanation, but Mrs. Pickens wasbusy in an interview with “Good MorningAmerica.’’

T. Boone couldn’t have managed her nextmoves better himself—or maybe he did.Madeleine looked good on TV, and she oper-ated a busy set of websites that served as herown news bureau. Nobody in the mediawould dare question the Mustang Queen.Even so, things were not all that certain in the

castle. From Del Mar to Saratoga, the moneywas slowly coming to an end that would keepher slaughter bill and Rahall’s moratorium inthe realm of impractical good ideas. And evenamong environmentalists there was openopposition to allowing the horses to overpop-ulate and drive out native wildlife from thedelicate range. Madeleine at least wanted aNational Academy of Sciences probe thatcould produce a national horse show of hear-ings, but it seemed now less likely to put herin the winners circle.

Still, she had one last potent tool. She hadthe money and she went shopping.

It is the real tragedy of the American Westthat so many legendary family ranches con-tinue to fail, either because of unpredictablenew laws or regulations, or because new gen-erations decide it is no longer worth the trou-ble. And Madeleine didn’t have to shop forbargains. In two vast ranches reaching acrossnortheastern Nevada, she felt she found thedeal Salazar just could not refuse.

“I know what she’s after,” says Dave Cat-toor. “It’s the Sorenson property. I’ve beenthere before, and, funny thing, it’s on ourschedule to gather 2,400 horses up there inJanuary. I wonder what Madeleine will say.”

Cattoor was right at least about the ranch.Madeleine purchased the Spruce Mountainsection of the Sorenson property along withan adjoining ranch capable of providing feedthat together take a big chunk of northeastNevada. Abbey was reluctant to talk about theoffer, but Pickens had already laid out con-gressional support for a minimum 1,000-horse “pilot program.” It would create hervision of an eco-sanctuary where city familiesand others could drive along carefully con-trolled access to see for themselves wild horses“running free.”

Whether Abbey may still find it unten-able, and whether other area ranchers can getused to living near a home for welfare horses,it won’t end the tale of the mustang.

They are living legends, after all, hardlysuited to theme parks. �

Tim Findley has nothing against wild horses,rich ladies, or naïve naturalists. He even feelsan unusual sense of empathy in this case forthe BLM. “In a way,” he says, “they sort ofdeserve each other.” But when he took thisassignment last summer, he underestimatedthe passion of the RANGE boss and discoveredhe was a long way from San Francisco.

After a roll in the mud (rare in the desert), mustangs continue to graze the Onaqui herd management area 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. This HMAencompasses 43,880 acres and extends from Johnsons Pass south to Lookout Pass. Stock reservoirs for livestock and wildlife and intermittent streams fed by wintersnows and spring runoff provide adequate water for the herd. The AML (appropriate management level) for this HMA is from 121 to 210 horses.

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Madeleine’s BackyardDriving north toward Wells, Nev., on U.S. 93,Spruce Mountain seems to slide into view likea fabulous ocean liner crossing a great bay oftawny grasses and deep, green sage. It is easyto imagine them out there, grazing slowly inscattered bands, or following the trails intocool shade of heavy forest covering the10,000-foot mountain. An ever-changingtableau of a West that perhaps never existedbefore.

These 600,000 acres of both deeded landand federal allotments, along with another22,000 acres of federal land attached to the4,000-acre Warm Springs Ranch are meant byMadeleine Pickens to become her sanctuaryfor the American mustang.

She claims to have already reached a“handshake agreement” with Bureau of LandManagement officials for a “pilot program”that would introduce 1,000 wild horses to therange, but Pickens has said that ultimately shewants to put at least 11,000 horses on the landshe imagines as an “eco park” for visitors tosee and come close to “American legends” liv-ing out their lives in a natural setting.

It is an enchanting idea, easy to sell toEastern politicians and urban dreamers fromwhom she is seeking support. But like endingsforced on any great epics, it carries the dangerof great tragedy. “If you have to ask,” as the oldcliché goes, provides some respectful roomfor questioning how much it cost, but with-out doubt Pickens has invested a large portionof her wealth and, likely, some of that of herhusband, in a concept offering very little pos-sibility of paying for itself, and, according tomany critics, a realistic possibility of disasterfor both the horses and the range.

Seldom visited by tourists, the Spruce iscentered in spectacular high country ofnortheastern Nevada with mountains, forests,and more-abundant rainfall than most of thestate. The property is a combination of salesby two prominent Nevada ranching families.The land contains 26 wells and 17 naturalsprings. Irrigation on fields at Warm Springsproduces grains and other feed to supplementthe natural forage. Pickens says it will beentirely fenced.

Even so, it is an expensive proposition tomaintain horses indefinitely in unpredictableweather. Pickens has formed a nonprofitfoundation to run the sanctuary, but shewants the BLM to pay $1.25 a day for eachhorse it takes out of its current holding facili-

ties. She points out that it would be a savingsof over a million dollars a year from the $5.75a day the BLM expends for each horse in itsholding facilities. Beyond that, Pickens pointsout, her foundation would use the entirestipend to maintain the project and not drawoff any of the money in profit.

New facilities, she says, including a high-tech learning center and recreational oppor-tunities will “cater to the needs and interestsof anyone who visits. It will generate signifi-cant tax revenues for local government, pro-vide jobs and other revenue associated withtourist travel.”

So far, federal officials have been reluctantto jump at the opportunity. Range studies andlegal questions on the BLM’s obligation tomaintain the land for multiple use will cer-tainly follow. Wildlife groups and some envi-ronmentalists worry that a single species may

drive others out, and ranchers familiar withthe region suggest that Pickens is underesti-mating the toll taken by heavy winters in theregion.

Taking the most extreme of the “deal,” theBLM would still be left with responsibility forsome 40,000 horses on the open range andheld in pastures and corrals. News of Pickens’offer, meanwhile, has produced similar offersfrom more or less trustworthy landowners tobegin pilot programs of their own.

And there is always that other question:How long would this sanctuary last? Mightpeople get bored after a couple of years andprefer, once again, to imagine the wild onesout there running free? Might they not evencome to resent the gesture, well-meaning as itwas, of a very rich lady explaining memoriesof horses to people she doesn’t really know? �

Mrs. Pickens’ ranch includes 10,233-foot Spruce Mountain in eastern Nevada, 14,000 deeded acres andhalf a million acres of federal grazing land, currently permitted to run cows. Madeleine says her horsepreserve will be fenced and all studs will be gelded. AT TOP: Sunset in a wild horse eye.

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FROM THE BLMThe real story. By JoLynn Worley, Office ofCommunications, BLM Nevada state office.

The estimated current free-roaming popula-tion of wild horses and burros exceeds bynearly 12,000 the number that the BLM hasdetermined can exist in balance with otherpublic rangeland resources and uses. Theappropriate management level (AML) isapproximately 26,600. Nevada has the highestnumber of wild horses and burros: 18,888,which is 6,200 animals over the AML of12,688.Off the range, there are more than 34,500

other wild horses and burros that are fed andcared for at short-term corrals and long-termpastures. As of August 2010, there wereapproximately 8,800 in corrals and 25,700 inMidwestern pastures. All wild horses and bur-ros in holding, like those roaming the publicrangelands, are protected by the BLM underthe 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Bur-ros Act.

Wild Horse and Burro BudgetLast fiscal year (October 2008-September2009), holding costs were approximately $29million, or about 70 percent of the entireenacted program budget of $40.6 million forthat year. Money rerouted from other pro-grams increased the amount BLM spent tomore than $50 million in FY’09.This fiscal year (2010), which ends Sep-

tember 2010, holding costs are expected toexceed $38 million out of a total wild-horseand burro budget of $63.9 million (plus anadditional $2.1 million in 2009 “carryover”funding).

Anti-gather Advocates Call for a Moratorium on BLM Gathers

A moratorium is untenable given the fact thatherds grow at an average rate of 20 percent ayear and can double in size every four years.The ecosystems of public rangelands are notable to withstand the impacts from overpop-ulated herds, which include soil erosion, sedi-mentation of streams, and damage to wildlifehabitat.The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses &

Burros Act, Section 1333, mandates thatwhen it is determined that an overpopulationexists on a given area of the public lands,action is necessary to remove excess animals:“[BLM] shall immediately remove excess ani-mals from the range so as to achieve appro-priate management levels.”

In the absence of an effective fertility con-trol agent, predators, or other natural popula-tion controls, the BLM removes excess horsesand burros every year to assure that numbersare in balance with the land’s ability to pro-vide sustainable forage and protect rangelandhealth. By contrast, wildlife population num-bers are controlled mainly through huntingwhile domestic livestock use is strictly con-trolled through the terms and conditions out-lined in grazing permits.

Public Rangeland VegetationMost western rangelands produce only a fewhundred pounds of vegetation per acre annu-ally, compared to mid- and tall-grass prairies

in the central and eastern United States,which can produce several hundred poundsof vegetation annually.In Nevada, many areas receive an average

of only five inches of precipitation each year.These sites often produce only 50 to 100pounds of usable forage per acre. The averageNevada mustang needs about 1,000 poundsof forage per month, which would be 12,000pounds of forage a year. At 50 pounds of for-age per acre, a horse would need 240 acres.The actual number of acres needed to sup-port one horse may actually be much greaterbecause much of Nevada is too steep, or has alot of brush and trees, or is too far from waterto be used by wild horses and burros. �

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Three BLM employees assist and protect observers during California’s Twin Peaks gather. As of August2010, there were 25,700 horses in “permanent” holding pastures in Oklahoma and the Midwest, and closeto 10,000 more in temporary holding facilities in Nevada, California, Oregon and Wyoming. Of 1,799horses and burros gathered at Twin Peaks, 450 horses and 72 burros remain on the HMA. Lawenforcement officers are there because of threats received via the Internet, and the fact that the nearbyLitchfield horse corrals have been attacked several times. Fences have been cut, an incendiary device ignitedand burned down a barn containing 250 tons of hay, and the BLM’s Litchfield office was burned to theground. Back in 1989, the Litchfield mascot, a burro named Walter, was stolen and beheaded.

Wild Horse and Burro NumbersFiscal Year 2010 (Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010)

Wild Horse & Burro Herd Populations and Appropriate Management Levels (AML) by State

State Horses Burros Total Total AMLArizona 400 2,248 2,648 1,676California 4,079 1,069 5,148 2,190Colorado 888 0 888 812Idaho 596 0 596 617Montana 150 0 150 120Nevada 17,711 1,177 18,888 12,688New Mexico 119 0 119 83Oregon 2,461 15 2,476 2,715Utah 2,724 164 2,888 1,956Wyoming 4,564 0 4,564 3,725

Total 33,692 4,673 38,365 26,582



NOTES FROM THE DIRECTORBy Bob Abbey, Bureau of Land Management.Excerpted from an OpEd in Roll Call, Aug. 10,2010, with permission of the BLM.

Because of the BLM’s spiraling off-the-rangeholding costs and the formidable challenge ofdealing with unadopted horses, the Govern-ment Accountability Office (GAO) recentlyfound our agency’s wild-horse program to beat a “critical crossroads.” In response, secretaryof the Interior, Ken Salazar, and I announcedan initiative last October [2009] as the firststep toward putting the Wild Horse andBurro Program on a sustainable course.

The public has been invited to help shapethis initiative by offering ideas to a strategydevelopment document that is posted on theBLM’s home page. Everything is on the tablefor discussion except two things: (1) theeuthanasia of excess healthy horses for whichthere is no adoption demand; and (2) theunrestricted sale of unadopted animals.Although these controversial managementauthorities exist in the 1971 wild-horse law, asamended, the Interior Department and theBLM will not consider those managementoptions as part of the new strategy underdevelopment.

As work on this new management strate-

gy unfolds, it is regrettable that false claims,misleading statements and false characteriza-tions about the BLM’s actions, motives andintentions relating to wild-horse management are circulat-ed on virtually a daily basis onthe Internet by activists seekinga moratorium on wild-horseroundups.

Such a moratorium isuntenable. It would be devastat-ing to the health of publicrangelands and would be con-trary to section 1333 of the1971 Wild Free-Roaming Hors-es & Burros Act, which directs the BLM todetermine whether an overpopulation of wildhorses and burros exists, and, when makingsuch a finding, to “immediately remove excessanimals from the range so as to achieveappropriate management levels.”

Lawmakers and their constituents con-cerned about wild-horse issues should visitblm.gov for accurate, timely information onthe BLM’s management of wild horses andburros. There, they will find a link to detailedinformation on all aspects of the BLM’s WildHorse and Burro Program, including real-time information about ongoing or upcom-ing horse gathers.

One web page, “Myths & Facts,” debunksfalse allegations against the BLM, such as theclaim that it is selling or sending wild horses

to slaughter. In fact, the GAO notedin an October 2008 report that theBLM is not in compliance with aDecember 2004 amendment to the1971 wild-horse law that directs itto sell excess horses or burros“without limitation.” The BLM hasalso established a presence on Face-book, YouTube, and Twitter tomaximize our outreach to theAmerican people on wild-horseand other public-land manage-

ment issues.The BLM respects the passion shown by

activists pushing for a moratorium on wild-horse roundups, but the debate over propermanagement must not be distorted by allega-tions and characterizations that have no fac-tual basis.

The BLM is committed to the well-beingof America’s wild horses and burros, both onand off the range. By working to achieveappropriate management levels on westernpublic rangelands, the BLM will ensure thathealthy herds can thrive on healthy publicrangelands, both now and for generations tocome. �

BLM experts and Dave Cattoor carefully select safe places to bring in the horses. The helicopter pilot flies high and slow, until they get close to the jute wings whichblend into the desert until it’s too late. Note the Judas horse leading them into the holding corral just before transport.

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DISENFRANCHISED & MARGINALIZEDElyse B. Gardner was interviewed at the TwinPeaks wild-horse gather on Aug. 20, 2010. Acertified shorthand reporter from Novato, Calif.,and a vegetarian, she has acted as an observerand blogger on many wild-horse gathers.

There are 32,000 AUMs allocated to livestockand between 5,600 and 9,000 allocated to wildhorses in this 798,000-acre Twin Peaks HMA.On this HMA they say they counted 2,300horses. These are BLM figures. They have

decided their AML (appropriate managementlevel) should be 448 wild horses up to 700-something. This is tragic for us Californians,and I take this personally because I live here,because if I want to go out and see wild hors-es, it’s going to be really hard to find them. Doyou know that the wild burros, which get soleft out, number only 282 in this HMA? Doyou know how many they want to leave? TheAML for wild burros as set by BLM is 72 bur-ros. How are we going to see them? Remem-ber that BLM has 160 million acres of federalland that it manages for livestock grazing. Outof that 160 million acres, only 26.6 million areset aside for wild horses. The horses are disen-franchised, marginalized.I’m not the numbers person, but I believe

horses should have a fair, equitable share, ontheir own home range. Look where wild hors-es are left. The most harsh, sparse, wild starkplaces in Nevada and they are thrivingbecause they are native. They did evolve here.

They are not feral.Horses are nomadic. They discipline and

teach manners. Horses are very social, theirlives are social structures, so this is why theseroundups are particularly cruel and inhu-mane for them.I’m from New York originally, Long

Island. I’ve always been sensitive to animalsand other people as well. I empathize withthings and people. I want my life to count forsomething. Things for the horses got so badthat they actually had to pass a congressionalact unanimously to protect our wild horsesbecause they were at a minimum, fast disap-pearing—that’s the first paragraph of theact—which means they were going extinct bythe hand of man.Horses are a national treasure—amazing

animals. They are not dogs, they are not cats,they are unique in what they do. As fright-ened as they are of everything, they are preyanimals, they trust us as their leader and theybond to us and they will carry us into war andthe mustangs are amazing horses. Duringthese gathers, this is the last moment of theirlife as a family. Their free lives are just aboutover. As far as they are concerned right now,they are running for their lives. The babies arestruggling to keep up. The ground is hard.The lava rock is really hard on babies’ feet thataren’t even hard yet. We are running theseanimals with a helicopter. This is wrong. I’mout here because the suffering is going on andthe fear, which is even worse than pain for ananimal. I feel it and I feel like it’s almost blas-phemous for us to sit here and chitchat aboutthe cost to taxpayers while my friends arebeing run. It is a violent running out of theirhome. The helicopter might try to keep themin a walk, which is all very polite, but the factof the matter is you don’t have to have ableeding heart to want to keep the animalshealthy. A man I met on a plane when I wascoming back from Washington, D.C.,watched some of my mustang videos on mycomputer and said, “This is government-sub-sidized animal abuse.”This is my state of California, this is Twin

Peaks. It’s 798,000 acres, there are thousandsof cows and sheep, they are not taking them,they are taking my horses, they are taking mywild horses in disproportionate numbers. I goevery day after this roundup activity is doneto the Litchfield holding corrals and they may

be saying there aren’t many injuries but youstand there and you look. Imagine you are inyour living room, you got your grandchil-dren, your son and daughter and maybe yourparents, you got multiple generations andsome invader comes along and makes youleave, and you are running and you arescared. You might be able to go three miles,but your little kids won’t and your parentswon’t. These are families—people say, oh,horses are healthy, these are healthy horses,they can do it, but these are whole generationsin these bands. They are families. We are bru-talizing these animals. They are losing every-thing right now. You see them running in,that’s the last time they are ever going to seetheir family again. They hit that trap, the stal-lion is taken out, the mares, if the foals are sixmonths or older, are separated right nowfrom their mothers, never to see them again.Listen to them crying out to each other.

Tell me that they are not talking to each other.I heard it. I saw it. I see it over and over again.If you believe that and you choose to do noth-ing about it, then you are lacking a compas-sion gene. �

WHERE ARE OUR BABIES?Carla Bowers was interviewed at the TwinPeaks wild-horse gather on Aug. 20, 2010. A part-time rental property manager, wife of a Bay Area general contractor, she says she’s“semiretired” and lives in Volcano, Calif.

I’m an independent and I work with all themajor wild-horse organizations in the UnitedStates. I’m known as a numbers person andI’ve been involved in wild-horse advocacy for10 months. I’m a newbie at this.I knew that we had wild-horse roundups

in the past but I didn’t realize until last Sep-tember when I learned kind of accidentallyon purpose that the Pryor herd in Montanawas being rounded up by the BLM. When Iinvestigated further about that, I was appalledthat the BLM would go in and gut such asmall herd already of less than 200.Congress found horses to be an integral

part of our American way of life, and thatthey enrich the lives of the American people.They do. I think the wild horse should be ournational mascot, not the eagle. This is my firstroundup, but I’ve reviewed and seen all thevideos that are on the Internet, but in order tobe able to see this in person I had to workwith myself mentally and emotionally tobuild myself up to handle this.I am grateful that the roundup personnel

are doing their best to minimize the trauma

From the Heart

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on these animals but I am against the wholepolicy in Congress, land management the wayit is done, the way the AUMs are figured. I goback way before we even get to a roundupstage, so when we’ve gotten to the roundupstage, it tears my heart out that all the wildhorses are being so marginalized and so mini-mized.

The BLM is taking more than 2,000 hors-es off this HMA and when a few horses arereleased back onto the range, they wonderwhere are our babies? And then the otherthing I think is very important to realize isthat when we do these massive numbers ofremovals from one area, like Twin Peaks,compensatory reproduction will kick in. The458 horses that are left out here are going togo, whoa, where is everybody? Where dideverybody go? And they are going to go, uh

oh, let’s make babies,let’s make babies, butthen we are puttingin PZP mares, tem-porarily sterilizedmares, which isgoing to upset thestructural integrityof the herds.I feel that the way

that we are roundingup our wild horses,the process, is notreally acknowledgingor respecting or hon-oring the social fab-ric and socialintegrity of the

bands and the herds. Due to massiveremovals of the majority, if not all, of thefoals, compensatory reproduction kicks inand that is something that the BLM needs tolearn a little bit more about.

We have 654 million acres of federal landsin the United States. Of that, the BLM man-ages around 250 million acres and we havecattle grazing on approximately 160 millionacres of BLM land, and our wild horses arenow only allocated 32 million acres. Out ofthat 32 million, 26 million are managed byBLM and six million are private lands that areinterspersed within the HMAs.

I have a very strong spiritual connectionwith these animals. The horses know we arefighting for them, and 10 months ago I real-ized it’s time for Carla to get involved. Thehorses need Carla. �

BLEEDING FROM NOSES...

The Bl M, responsible for managingmost of the remaining wild horses andburros in 10 western states, [is] nowrunning horses 10 miles or more overrough volcanic terrain with helicopters.Horses bleeding from their noses inthe thick dust, very young foals sepa-rated from their mothers, a mare with abroken leg and a colicking mare havebeen observed by a dedicated team ofadvocates observing the Twin Peaksroundup.—R.T. f ITc H, “STRaIGHTf ROM THE HORSE’S HEaRT” Bl OGGER,auG. 17, 2010

DON’T FORGET THE BASICS

Our problem is that no one is listeningand the Obama administration hasdecided to focus on BIG issues (healthcare, finance reform) and is not goingto chase after teeny-tiny issues like wildequines. Big mistake, Mr. President.The ecology, cap and trade, unemploy-ment are all highly interconnected. Thisis about keeping the big-money busi-ness people somewhat satisfied. Sadly,Mr. President, you have forgotten thebasic idea that to let injustice andimmorality thrive, you jeopardizeEVERYTHING noble you hope toachieve.—DENISE, “STRaIGHT f ROMTHE HORSE’S HEaRT” Bl OGGER, auG. 15,2010

Carla Bowers shoots video of Sue Cattoor, as Sue explains the gather process.BLM staff and observers look on. OPPOSITE: Elyse Gardner makes a point.

VIOLATING CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTSLaura Leigh was interviewed at the Twin Peakswild-horse gather on Sept. 4, 2010. Laura is aproduction artist, writer, photographer andblogger from Bainbridge Island, Wash.

My grandfather was an original teamster. Hedrove a team of Percherons and deliveredmilk in Brooklyn. My dad was a police officerand my first horse was a retired officer. Thathorse was amazing. He worked in EssexCounty, N.J.

I like horses. For the last year and a half, Ihave followed the wild horses. The only wayto really learn what’s happening is to be hereand observe the gathers. I pretty much liveout here. I’m driving a little SUV but I have apickup with a cab and a big dog. I am a pro-duction artist and a journalist, so I sell art-work and write about the horses.

I think that one day this will be gone,which is one of the reasons that drove me outhere. We have a public lands grab and aresource grab that’s happening here rightnow. We have corporations like BP, like Bar-rick Gold. It depends on which HMA you aretalking about. Out here, we have an issue withNevada where, because of mining, the waterdown there is really bad.

I’ve been in Colorado, Montana, all over,and driven 70,000 miles in an old pickuptruck in five months so I’m living on the road.I went to the Tuscarora gather in northernNevada. It’s a 225-square-mile HMA. Theynever moved the trap once. Gathered thiswhole area from one corner. They said thewater emergency was right in the south forkof the Owyhee Desert and horses could notget down for water and that other watersources were dry. They are dry all the time.

There was water down on the river. This iswhere the 228 horses were gathered in twohours and left in the trap site and when theycame back in the morning, they found deadhorses. That’s how they discovered the wateremergency. They discovered their water emer-gency after I filed the lawsuit, not before. Thedocument that supported it by their five-panel team was dated the day we went tocourt.

One of my issues with Nevada is that theBLM was closing public land during the Tus-carora gather. They were only going to allowpeople down in the three HMAs—Owyhee,Rock Creek, and Little Humboldt—for twodays to watch. Well these are the horses I’mafraid for because it’s right in the beginning offoaling season. It was their first gather of theyear and I know these horses really well. I wasup there five weeks before the gather and I

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know what it looks like. They closed publicland [around the gather] and inhibited myeven getting near it, to get in there and photo-graph. With private property to cross before

you can get to the public land, there’s no wayto get anywhere near their trap. They wereviolating my constitutional rights, they can’tclose public land like that, so we took it tocourt and the judge said, no, it is a violation ofthe Constitution. They opened it.

Later, I observed at Twin Peaks, 11 days inall. I was there with The New York Times andthey put the Times guy right in the jute [thewings coming into the trap] but they would-n’t let me down there. I brought a guy fromCBS out and I’ve been telling the BLM heneeds access. You learn something new everytime. Today they added my name to accredit-ed press and let me closer so I could see somemore of the gather.

The only way to really know what’s goingon at a BLM gather is to experience it. You

have to be there. The data of this whole sys-tem of the Wild Horse and Burro Program isbased on guesswork. They’ve now finallyadmitted it and asked for a $1.5 million studyto be done by the National Academy of Sci-ences, so they are now finally admitting thatwe didn’t know what we were managing. InOctober 2008, BLM did its own internalreview of how they assess the range, how theydo data, and found that it was inadequate andsometimes nonexistent and again based onguesswork. So you’ve got a framework basedon guesswork and data plugged into it that isinadequate or inaccurate by their own admis-sion. OK, you don’t even know if the brakeswork and you’re stepping on the gas.

I consider wild horses a huge spiritualresource and a reminder of what it is to be anAmerican and what’s important that doesn’thave a dollar sign and that’s the greatestresource. I’ve heard we have 33,000 to 38,000in long-term holding. There are more horsesin long-term holding than there are on therange. It’s different than cows. Horses are easi-er on the range. A cow uses its tongue andpulls plants up by the roots. Horses haveincisors and they cut low, so when a cowcomes in you need to reseed and when ahorse comes through you don’t have to.

Right now we’ve got 262 million acresmanaged by BLM and 66 percent of that landopen to grazing. Only 10 percent of that landis open to wild horses under law. Within that10 percent, horses are supposed to be giventheir fair share of the resource. In 1971 theysaid here’s the boundaries. Well, horses, theymove. Here’s the HMA and every spring theycome off that HMA. Within that 10 percent,that’s the only place wild horses are so I’mactually talking about a bigger picture withinmultiple use, within fair share. Right now,[mineral] leases are being given out on publicland at such a rate that, by BLM’s own assess-ment, they can’t even get personnel to theground. We need to slow down on some ofthese extractive industries and make sure thatthe other interests that are on that land—thatincludes wild horses and livestock—don’t getwiped away, because this is our land and itbelongs to all of us, and not just extractiveindustries, not just natural gas, and not justthe guys making money off the stimuluspackage because all their new projects need tobe pushed through. We need to join togetherto figure out a way to get an accountable sys-tem of management on this land before theresources and the land is gone. �

FORTY YEARS EXPERIENCE

Compensatory reproduction and repro-ductive self-regulation among wild-horse populations are similartheoretical ideas that are not borne outon the ground, particularly in wild-horse herds that are grossly overpopu-lated for the amount of available forageand water.

After the BLM gathers and reducesa herd management area to its appro-priate management level, there is lesspressure for available forage and waterwhich results in healthier mares andfoals and subsequent increased sur-vival. Based on BLM’s 40 years ofexperience in managing wild horses,except due to significant environmentalfactors, foaling rates appear to havestayed fairly consistent with no signifi-cant increases or decreases observedin relation to the number of horseswithin the herd. should additional andimproved empirical knowledge aboutcompensatory reproduction evolve, theBLM could consider developing aresearch strategy to evaluate the theo-ry on wild-horse populations.—Jo LyNN

Wo r Ley, o f f iCe o f Co MMuNiCATio Ns, BLMNevADA sTATe o f f iCe

LET’S GET MORE LAWYERS

Many moral causes had masses thatdidn’t give a rat’s butt and those thatgave their hearts in counter-insurgencyefforts never gave up. We will not giveup. The pain is knowing how our American icons are being brutalized,murdered and thrown on the human-decided dump heaps of this life. That ishard to live with because we know thetruth about the evil. Never give up!!!But we do need some very, very smartlitigants.... No more showing our handto equine butchers…. Let’s get somemore lawyers.—DeNise, “s Tr Aig hT f r o M

The h o r se’s h eAr T” BLo g g er , Aug . 15,2010

Laura Leigh has a degree in wildlife biology. She considers wild horses a huge spiritual resource and areminder of what it is to be an American. For months, she has been following the horses all across the West.

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DESPERATE CRIESLisa LeBlanc, blogger, excerpted from “Diary ofa First Time Wild Horse Stampede Observer,”SFHH, Aug. 16, 2010.

We walked, finally, to the furthest point wewere allowed—an area marked by pink plas-tic ribbon festooned around scrub brush,about a two-minute walk. As we walked overshards of shattered lava rock, I noticed thearea was covered with piles of fresh horsemanure and hoofprints of all sizes, very dis-tinct, not having been softened by the con-stant breeze on the desert floor. It washeartbreaking for me, knowing that in theprevious 12 hours, this place had hosted a

herd of wild horses, unaware their freedomwas nearly at an end, most likely forever. Per-haps the trap site was chosen for its proximityto where horses gathered to socialize.

As we approached the line, the helicopterwas already pushing the first group of horsesdown from the hill above the trap site, whichmay have been as much as a half-mile awayfrom where we were allowed to watch. Themouth of the trap fell below the area; whilewe could see the helicopter pressuring thegroup of perhaps 30 horses into the trap, wecould not see them enter it. We could seewranglers, in white shirts and red shirts, andwe could see whip sticks flapping occasionally.We could not hear them, the horses; perhaps

their desperate cries were also car-ried away on the desert breeze....

As the horses were pushed fur-ther toward the trap, other observersmade their way back to the viewingarea. I stayed behind, to record mynotes on my blue-black friend. Oneof the political activists stayedbehind to prepare her video cam-eras. Minutes later, I looked up intime to see a small family—perhapsfive or six, a black bay, four or fiveblue blacks and a tiny blue-blackfoal no more than two or threeweeks old—trotting toward me, nomore than 30 feet away. The activistwas walking toward the viewingarea; I whisper to her loudly. Sheturned toward me, still not seeingthem. I pointed at them; she pointedher camera. As they approached us,stupidly, I pointed up the road. Theyturned in that direction, trottingaway from the helicopter and thetrap. The activist and I watchedthem as long as we could until theydisappeared into a gully, then up themountain beyond. We held eachother and teared up the way womendo when witnessing a remarkable

event. And it was the most joyful and gratify-ing moment of the day—an oath of silencebetween co-conspirators, two humans and asmall band of horses. We would never tell.

But because fair isn’t fair in the realm ofthe roundup, the joy did not last. An hourlater, the helicopter had found them and,again, drove them down the side of themountain. I ranted and raved, concerned forthe foal traveling over that great distancetwice in one day, when I was firmly but quiet-ly reminded by another advocate there wouldbe no reprieve—for any of them. And myanger would serve no useful purpose.

To their credit, this tiny family drove thehelicopter hard, repeatedly testing the pilot’sskill. It took as long or longer to finally getthem to the trap site. And it was there mycourage failed; I could not bring myself towitness for them their final step into thattrap.… �

This image is of a woman observing a gather in the west Utahdesert. The photographer took hours to combine three layersin Photoshop—the woman, the clouds, and the horses.

ICONIC SYMBOLS

Wild horses are such an iconic symbolof the wild west they can tug on Ameri-can heartstrings like no other animalcan. So nationwide protests againstthe roundups got plenty of public sup-port. There are even now moves inc ongress to have the whole pro-gramme [sic] stopped.

Bill phillips is 83 years old. you cantell by the date of birth he hasengraved on his silver belt buckle. Ashe took me off into the range to findmustangs grazing wild, he explainedthat it is essential to reduce their num-bers in order for the herd to survive.“There is such meager vegetation andso little water the land can’t support thenumbers of wild horses currently livingon it. unless they are rounded up andcaptured, a slow death from starvationor dehydration awaits many of thesebeasts.”

For 2,000 formerly wild horses herein Northern c alifornia, a different fateawaits. Some will be adopted for just$125 and either put to work or kept aspets. But adoption rates are falling justas roundup numbers are increasing.So more than a few of these animalswill end up in early retirement in theMidwest, grazing fertile pasture at tax-payers’ expense for the rest of theirdays.—SARAh SMiTh, c hANNeL 4, u NiTed KiNGdOM, AuG. 15, 2010, AT The

TWiN peAKS, c ALiF., GATheR

IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY

Give me a break, the BLM could notmanage their way out of a wet paperbag let alone treat wild horses in ahumane manner. Not only can’t theycount they are so sold out to big-timespecial interests that they have fully lostsight of their mission and the law. Andyou, the contractor, are right there in themiddle of the mix violating our constitu-tional rights while you stuff your pockets

full of our money. That’s what it is allabout, isn’t it? Money. Both with theBLM and with you, neither of you give agnat’s ass about the horses and you willconcoct lies and untruths just to justifyyour skewed position and opinion. All ofyou lost your way a long time ago andbetween yourself and the BLM the truthnow means what you want it to be onan hourly basis.—R.T. FiTc h, “iN My

h uMBLe OpiNiON” BLOGGeR, JuLy 10, 2010

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THE VALUE OF HORSESPatricia A. Evans, Ed.D., director, equine science, Scottsdale Community College.

The wild-horse issue is one of the most press-ing in range management today. Unfortu-nately, the issue is so political that manypeople in agencies are remaining quiet. Thereis not a whole lot out there in the scientific lit-erature on horses and range. There are, how-ever, some well-known, science-based facts:

� A horse (depending on size) eats 1.2-1.5more (in AUMs, animal unit months) than acow/calf pair. Horses eat continuously—about 14 to 20 hours a day as opposed to cat-tle that generally eat in the morning andevening with time in between for rumination.

� Feral horses can survive on poorer qual-ity forage than cattle because of their constantconsumption and dietary needs.

� Horses, due to their dentition, impactplants much more aggressively than cattle.They also tend to “spot graze,” which can bedetrimental to some plant communities.

� The ever-growing number of horses onthe range is one of the most pressing issuesthe BLM deals with annually.

Over the past several years, unwanted andabandoned horse numbers have been on therise for several reasons including the econom-ic downturn, which has affected horse own-ers’ ability to maintain their horses, and thelack of horse processing. The closing of thehorse-processing facilities has hurt the equineindustry with lower horse prices and a flood

of horses that are not marketable. Horse own-ers now facing tighter budgets have to be real-istic about paying for the upkeep of an animalthat can run from $2,000 per year to manytimes that number. On the low side, the horseis managed at the owner’s home with nolabor costs and minimum values for veteri-nary and farrier care. This annual cost can risedramatically with a horse that needs extensiveveterinary intervention, corrective farrierwork and stabling at a boarding facility.

With the closure of the horse-processingfacilities, horse owners lost the ability to take ahorse to an auction and expect a reasonablesale price. With the market flooded and nooutlet for the lower-end horses, the price foralmost all horses has declined dramatically.Horses that would have brought $700 at auc-tion, now bring as little as $50, or do not sellat all. The horse-processing facilities broughtabout a humane end of a horse’s life and usedthe 300 or more pounds of meat to feed zooanimals and people around the world. With-out processing, horses can suffer an extendeddeath through starvation or thirst.

No horse owners want to see these ani-mals suffer, but this is what has occurred sincethe processing facilities closed. Instead, thefacilities need to be established here in theUnited States again with good oversight ontransportation and handling in them. Once ahorse is dead, the environmentally smartthing to do is use its remains as best we can. �

From the Head NOTES FROM ’98Anthony L. Lesperance, commissioner, Elko County, Nev., testimony for House Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, July 13, 1998.

It is obvious that the Wild Horse & Burro Actwill never be able to accomplish the AML goalof 27,000 head without significantly increasingcongressional funding. Further, it is also obvi-ous that maintenance of the AML will not beaccomplished, if obtained, without significantlong-standing financial support from Con-gress. The cost of the program, based on theremoval of a single horse since the inception ofthe program, is in excess of an average of$1,392 per head. Based on the above facts, theper-head cost can only continue to escalate. Atsome point the patience of the average Ameri-can taxpayer must be considered. As a taxpayer,as well as a county commissioner, I muststrongly urge you to realistically consider alter-native concepts, such as privatizing the gather,and simply using the BLM for licensing andoverseeing. Provisions could readily be madefor a dual program of adoption and humanedisposal to cover the cost of the operation. It ispossible to convert a growing tax liability intoat least a financially self-sustaining program.

The congressional management of theWild Horse & Burro Program is typical of themany resource problems faced in the Westtoday. It represents an attempt by Congress,dealing with a multitrillion-dollar budget, tomicromanage a few-million-dollar problemthat could in fact be managed far more effec-tively at the local or state level. A very effectiveargument can and has been made over the veryownership of these animals, and that argumentdoes not support federal ownership; they arewildlife within the state, and in Nevada wildlifeis the property of the state. Perhaps the realquestion for Congress to resolve is not themanagement or the cost of the management ofthese animals, but, in fact, what truly consti-tutes a federal feral horse or burro. Correctlyresolving that issue will go a long way inremoving the frustration of this program fromthe hands of Congress.

Regardless of what path Congress takes onthis issue, it is for certain that continuation ofthe present program will not accomplish thestated goal of obtaining 27,000 animals. Fur-thermore, the cost of an effective program willonly continue to escalate under the present setof circumstances. Additionally, not controllingthe wild horse and burro population will onlycontinue to add to the degradation of the west-ern ranges, the consequences of which areunacceptable, and a fact which only Congresscan ultimately be held responsible for. �

In the Litchfield, Calif., temporary holding corrals, above, there are currently 1,000 horses—the maximumfor space available. At the Palomino Valley corrals north of Reno, Nev.—capacity 1,650—there are 1,500.There are tens of thousands more on “permanent pastures” on Midwestern ranches and farms.

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LACK OF MANAGEMENT DOESN’T WORKBarry L. Perryman, Ph.D., is an associate professor of rangeland ecology, Department of Animal Biotechnology at the University ofNevada, Reno.

The Free-Roaming Wild Horses & Burros Act(1971) and the Public Rangelands Improve-ment Act (1978) require the Bureau of LandManagement and the Forest Service to man-age wild horse and burro herds in a mannerthat allows for a thriving, natural ecologicalbalance. The legislation designates specificareas (herd management area or HMA) thatwill support the animals, based on where theyoccurred when the law was enacted. The leg-islation also requires that an appropriatemanagement level (AML) or herd size bedetermined for each HMA. The AML allowsthe population to vary within a range that hasan upper and lower herd size, and providesauthorization for removal of excess animals.

Wild horse and burro populations gen-erally increase quite rapidly, growing at anaverage rate of 18 to 25 percent per year. Inreality this means that herd size can doubleabout every four years. As herd numbersincrease, a greater burden is placed on theresource base within an HMA; that is, asherd numbers increase, forage demand alsoincreases. This is why wild horses and burrosare often found outside of their designatedHMA in search of feed, and why their physi-cal condition is often less than desirable. Infact, they are frequently emaciated and starv-ing during drought situations.

When there are more horses and burrosthan the forage base can support, all kinds of

problems result. Habitat degradation occurswhen grazing intensity from horses and bur-ros is unchecked. When there is no forage forhorses and burros, there is also no forageavailable for other herbivores like pronghornantelope, jackrabbits, and other small mam-mals such as mice and voles, as well as graniv-orous bird species. Wildlife without forageequals starvation. Habitat degradation alsoreduces or eliminates hiding and thermo-reg-ulation cover for any number of species. As

plant cover and density decreases, soil erosionpotential increases along with the potentialfor invasive species proliferation. All of thesenegative effects have occurred on HMAswhere horse and burro numbers have beenuncontrolled for a number of years. Duringtimes of drought, the effects of horse- andburro-caused habitat degradation canbecome even more acute. It is impossible tomanage public lands for multiple use whenhorse and burro numbers are out of control.

Wild horses and burros exist today withno large predators to control their popula-tions. There are isolated incidences wheremountain lions and grizzly bears have takenwild horses as prey, but it is very uncommon

and only occurs in a few places where thehabitat of both prey and predator overlap.The only way resource managers have tocontrol horse and burro populations isthrough the gather process authorized by thelegislation.

Resource managers control the popula-tion levels of every other large grazing animalin the West. Domestic cattle and sheep num-bers are controlled through stocking rateauthorizations and have been cut almost inhalf over the past 20 years. The populations oflarge, wild grazers and browsers such as ante-lope, elk, bighorn sheep, mule deer, and insome cases bison, are controlled through thehunting process. Appropriate population lev-els are determined through scientific method-ologies and excess animals are harvested onan annual basis. Why should wild horses andburros get a pass?

Many so-called wild horse and burroadvocacy groups oppose any management ofpopulation numbers. This no-managementscenario has not worked and will not work.The natural regulation theory espoused fordecades by the National Park Service in Yel-lowstone was an abject failure. That is why wehave wolves in the Greater YellowstoneEcosystem now. The proponents of this self-regulation, no-management concept must bestopped. If successful, their efforts will pro-duce ecological disasters that will last fordecades—even for hundreds of years. Cur-rently, we do not have the technology andfunding to fix these potential disasters ifindeed they can be fixed at all. We should stopthese efforts now rather than face the conse-quences of their folly. �

COME SEE THE TRUTHTony Diebold is an experienced wildlife photog-rapher and an outfitter in Nevada’s high desert.

Once again the hypocritical horse lobby’s igno-rance of the true situation is epic! The WarmSprings Canyon HMA in the Calico HillsHorse Management Area has not had cows forover three years due to lack of adequate feedand water. The Sheldon National WildlifeRefuge has not had cattle in almost 20 years.Both have serious environmental damage, andhorse foals as well as native wildlife are dying.Most of the feral horses in Nevada are living on10 percent of the best land we have. The situa-tion will not just go away without intervention.

The Wild Horse & Burro Act was enactedfor the purpose of protecting wild horses andburros as part of the natural system of the pub-

lic lands. In it, Congress gave the secretary ofthe Interior the authority to manage popula-tions of wild horses and burros “in a mannerthat is designed to achieve and maintain athriving natural ecological balance on the pub-lic lands.” Nevada’s wildlife, including wildhorses, are starving because of zealots, and any-body who argues that the Calico Hills complexor the Sheldon Refuge can support as manyhorses as it currently does should get out of thehouse more. Do not let your hatred for the cat-tle industry and your ignorance overshadowthe most important issue—our great state’swildlands and the native wildlife in them.

There are no horses in Yellowstone orYosemite national parks because they woulddestroy the parks like they are destroying Neva-da’s high desert and its native wildlife. I havenever owned a cow, but I have owned over 20

horses in my 65 years. The difference is that Imanaged mine. Too many people want tomake decisions from warm and fuzzy SanFrancisco townhouses that affect many animaland bird species in our state. How do youknow more than the BLM range biologists andlocal residents who are out there every day?When was the last time you got out to Nevada’shigh sage country to see or be shown the obvi-ous damage done by the overpopulated feralhorses?

Come on up to the Black Rock Desert andsee what you are helping to destroy. I will show[you] the truth. I live in the Black Rock Desert,and we see the resource being destroyed bite bybite every day. Nevada is one of the most envi-ronmentally sensitive states in our great coun-try and deserves better than to be turned into ahorse corral. �

Barry Perryman on assignment in Turkmenistan.

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America’s free-ranging horses are a belovedwestern icon—and a potentially destructivenonnative species that threaten native speciesand habitats.In the late 1500s, Spanish explorers intro-

duced domestic horses to North America.Over time, some of those horses escaped orwere turned out, creating a population offeral horses. In recent decades, the populationon public Bureau of Land Management(BLM) lands has soared from 25,000 in 1971to 69,000 today. More than half of these feralhorses—about 37,000—range freely on pub-lic land, while 32,000 are maintained in gov-ernment-run corrals and pastures at a cost ofabout $40 million annually.Current management practices are severe-

ly restricted by popular opinion, which hasfailed to consider the devastating impact offeral horses on native species and naturalecosystems or the growing and substantialcost to taxpayers.The Wildlife Society hopes to educate the

public about this increasingly critical prob-lem. As an advocate of science-based manage-ment of feral horses, it has compiled answersto some common questions:

What’s the difference between wild and feral horses?Wild animals’ ancestors have never beendomesticated—modified by selective breed-ing—whereas feral animals’ ancestors wereonce domesticated but are now free-rangingin the absence of human care. The “wild”horses in America are actually feral, thedescendants of domestic horses introduced toNorth America by the Spanish in the 1500s.

Didn’t horses live in North America thousands of years ago, and doesn’t thatmake them native?Although many now-extinct horse speciesevolved in North America, modern feral hors-es are descendants of horses that were domes-ticated in Europe. There are similaritiesbetween certain genes in modern horses andfossil horses from North America, but geneti-cists do not believe that they are identical ormembers of the same species. Horses wereabsent from North America for 10,000 yearsafter going extinct during the Pleistocene.Since then, the western United States hasbecome more arid and many of the horses’natural predators, like the American lion and

saber-toothed cat, have disappeared, changingthe ecosystem and the role horses play. InBeever & Herrick 2006, the authors state that“horses should be considered ecologically aspart of a novel disturbance regime in theGreat Basin (rather than as a native species).”Feral horses are not a natural part of the exist-ing western ecosystem.

How do feral horses affect native habitats and wildlife?Free-roaming herds currently range across18.6 million hectares [45.96 million acres].Feral horses damage landscapes by tramplingvegetation, hard-packing the soil, and over-grazing. Areas inhabited by feral horses tendto have fewer plant species, less plant cover,and more invasive cheatgrass, and this canhave a pervasive influence on the entireecosystem. The small reptiles and mammalsthat depend on burrows and brush cover tosurvive and breed are less abundant in horse-occupied sites (except for deer mice, a speciesknown to thrive in disturbed landscapes).Desert snakes, lizards, and amphibians occu-py a wide range of ecological and trophicniches, and often serve as a link betweentrophic levels. If their populations are severelyreduced or disappear entirely, larger ecosys-tem simplifications may follow. Anotherstudy found that bighorn sheep, a nativeungulate with populations in decline, avoidwater sources when horses are using them.Feral herds aren’t restricted to lower eleva-

NOT LIKE IT SEEMSBy Eric Reid, wild horse and burro specialist,Delta Wild Horse Facility manager, FillmoreField Office, Utah.

The horse found dead at Skunk Springs lastsummer (photo #1) was most likely kicked inthe head by another horse competing for thewater and space. If death was not immediatethen his injuries and the situation he was inwere the causes of death. His demise was notdrought-related (photo #2) even though limit-ed available water attributed to the outcome.Skunk Springs is in the Conger Mountain

HMA on the Utah/Nevada border. It consistsof 151,506 acres of public and state lands. TheAML is 40 to 80 horses, based on limited avail-able water sources. There are no cows on theallotment but noncompeting sheep graze thesame country.Population in September 2010 was 290

horses—four times over forage allocations.After 218 horses were removed, within threedays this spring came back (photo #3) and wasable to provide more water than the needs ofthe remaining horses.Forage and water in desert regions are lim-

ited and must provide basic needs for wildlife,wild horses and permitted livestock. As popula-

tion numbers exceed that to which the landcan support, reductions need to be made withall users to protect the loss of vegetation fromhigh levels of utilization. If the land (vegetationand water) is not managed properly with long-term goals, then there will be no resources forwildlife, wild horses or livestock.BLM’s goal is to manage the resources for

the long-term sustainability of wild horseswithin the HMAs. If the BLM is not focusedon this goal and the resource is lost, naturewill take care of itself and the public will losethe wild horses due to starvation and/ordehydration and the land will need years torecover. �

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Q&A with The Wildlife SocietyThe Wildlife Society was founded in 1937 and represents over 9,000 wildlife professionals. It is committed to science-based policy and the highest standards of scientific integrity.

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tions like cattle, and often range tohigher elevations to graze. Thatmeans that when horses are addedto an ecosystem, little habitat is leftundisturbed, from the grassy plainsto steeper, rockier areas.

What can the BLM do to manage the feral-horse population?A variety of management policieshave been used since the 1970s.Efforts are made to adopt out thehorses, and under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act, it islegal to euthanize unadoptablehorses. However, this option isn’tused, and horses that aren’t adopt-ed by the public are held in tempo-rary or permanent enclosures. The animals removed from

ranges now far outnumber theones adopted or sold as demandfor feral horses has dwindled. In1998, all but 14 percent of horses offered foradoption found homes. In 2008, the mostrecent year for which BLM data is available,nearly a third of those horses were not adopt-ed. Secretary Salazar’s new plan proposes fer-tility control and moving some captive herdsto the Midwest or East. However, it remains tobe seen if this plan will be effective in control-ling feral-horse populations. The BLM andthe Department of Interior must work withwildlife professionals and others to develop aplan to manage feral horses in an ecologicallyresponsible manner. Lethal managementoptions may need to be considered if theBLM’s and DOI’s new plans for populationcontrol fail to curb feral-horse numbers.

Western rangelands cannot continue to sus-tain an ever-expanding population of feralhorses.

How much does it cost the taxpayers to support feral horses in captivity?The total cost of rounding up and maintain-ing feral horses has been rising rapidly, from$38.8 million in FY’07 to $63.9 million inFY’10. President Obama’s budget request forthe BLM in FY’11 includes $75.7 million forthe program and $42.5 million from the Landand Water Conservation Fund to buy land fora preserve in the East or Midwest. The num-ber of short-term holding facilities rose from14 in 2001 to 24 in 2008, while the number of

long-term holding facilities hasincreased from one in 1988 to 11 in2008. The cost of these holding facili-ties is $34 million out of the totalFY’10 budget of $63.9 million. Costsare projected to increase in the com-ing years if the program does notchange, especially as adoption ratesare slowing. Given continuing feral-horse population growth, loomingfederal deficits, budget reductions,and other priority needs for conser-vation, this program is likely unsus-tainable.

Are the roundup methods currentlyused to remove horses humane?When the BLM determines thatrangeland is deteriorating due tooverpopulation, it removes feral hors-es by herding them into holdingpens, usually with the use of heli-copters. The animals sometimes run

for long distances, and animal-welfareactivists have raised concerns about suchtreatment. However, roundups do not seemto have any negative effects on feral horses. Inone study, horses that were herded, but notcaptured, showed the same reproductive suc-cess and daily activities as horses that neverexperienced a roundup. BLM reports lessthan one percent mortality directly caused byroundups. These findings suggest thatroundups are a humane way to remove hors-es from rangelands and the only viablemethod of population control if lethal mea-sures are not considered as a managementoption. �

THE CALICO COALITIONJoint press release regarding the Calico Com-plex wild-horse gather dated Jan. 14, 2010,from Jeremy Drew, president, northern Nevadachapter of Safari Club International; ShaaronNetherton, executive director, Friends of Neva-da Wilderness; Tina Nappe, wildlife co-chair,Toiyabe chapter of Sierra Club; and LarryJohnson, president, Coalition for Nevada’sWildlife.

The above-listed groups (Calico Coalition)have produced this joint press release regard-ing the Calico Complex horse gather that iscurrently ongoing in northern Nevada. Mem-bers and leaders from all four groups madeon-the-ground observations of the problems

associated with the overpopulation of horseswithin the complex well before the gather wasscheduled. The groups have and continue topublicly support the gather to get horse popu-lations within appropriate management levels.The Calico Coalition fully supports the

presence of horses on public lands. However,active management of horse and burro herdsmust be conducted in accordance with the1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses & BurrosAct. The Act requires that the BLM managehorses in a “thriving ecological balance” and inaccordance with other multiple-use mandates.This includes keeping an inventory of horsepopulations on public lands and immediateremoval of excess animals.A recent ruling against an injunction on

the Calico gather reaffirmed the BLM’sauthority and duty to gather excess horses.

Since the ruling there has been a very well-orchestrated public campaign to halt the gath-er despite its accordance with applicable lawsand reaffirmation by a federal District Court.The subsequent media campaign has pro-duced a public outcry that has not always beenbased on factual information. Furthermore,the debate has wrongly been narrowed andframed as a clash between the horse advocatesand public-lands ranchers.The Calico Coalition was formed to assert

what we believe matters most in this debate!That is the health and long-term sustainabilityof the native wildlife and ecosystems withinthe Calico Complex. These four groups haveunited in order to call everyone’s attention todoing what is best for our public lands that wecollectively treasure. �

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RANGE/Mustang © 2010Publisher/Editor: C.J. Hadley � Lead Reporter: Tim Findley � Designer: John Bardwell

Published by RANGE magazine, P.O. Box 639, Carson City, NV 89702, with assistance from Range Conservation Foundation and Nevada cowboys.775-884-2200 � Fax 775-884-2213 � www.rangemagazine.com

“Mustang” $5 each; 10-19 copies, $3 each; 20-plus copies, $2 each (while supplies last). 1-year subscription to award-winning quarterly RANGE magazine, $19.95.

1-800-RANGE-4-U (1-800-726-4348)

TOO MANY HORSESArt DiGrazia is manager of the BLM RidgecrestWild Horse & Burro Corrals, Ridgecrest, Calif.

In September 2010, there were 400 horses andburros at the Ridgecrest Wild Horse andBurro Corrals in Ridgecrest, Calif., with 400more expected from the Tonopah Reveillegather in Nevada a few weeks later.

In the past, the adoptions, especially in theMidwest and East, were good. People reallyliked the wild horse as a companion animaland still do but what happens now is that, ofcourse, with the economy the way it is, folks

have to put their money intoother things. The adoptionfee for the horse itself is$125 but that’s just the tip ofthe iceberg. Horses are vac-cinated and blood-testedand dewormed when youadopt them but you have tobuy a facility for the animal,a trailer to transport, andpay for feed and vet bills.

There are a glut of hors-es in the United States andwith no slaughterhouses,

very few choices for sick, old orlame horses. I used to run wild-horse sales in the Midwest wherethey would be able to adoptalmost 200 head of animals in aweekend. The best weekend weever had was 1986 or 1987, andthat was in Kearney, Neb., whenwe adopted 320 horses in oneweekend. Now, any place we go,whether it’s California, Nevadaor even the Midwest in certainareas, we’re lucky to sell two orthree. �

Mustang dance, east of Reno, Nev. There are about 38,365 horses on the western range, with a capacity for 26,582. Close to the same number are in temporary orpermanent holding facilities. Contrary to what kindhearted animal lovers, bloggers, Hollywood actors and Willie Nelson say, there is no danger of extinction.

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© kurt golgart, blm - range magazine · wild horses in the west is wrapped in emotion and myth and...

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