Why Wild Horses?
October 16, 2013Wild Horses: December is the Cruellest Month for Salt Wells Creek Part Two
December 16, 2013Wild Horses – December is the Cruellest Month for Salt Wells Creek Part 1
A week before Thanksgiving I received a press release from the BLM Rock Springs office that stated that the Adobe Town /Salt Wells Creek Roundup was going to begin tomorrow. I had been calling and emailing the Rock Springs office of the BLM every two weeks since the Decision Record was issued for this roundup in August, asking when they were planning to start. I was given no warning. I was certain that this was occurring at all this year was due to pressure from the Rock Springs Grazing Association who has been demanding that all wild horses be removed from private lands on the checkerboard area of the Salt Wells Creek Herd Area and the Adobe Town Herd Area.
- The captured mares
I was told that public observation opportunities could be limited due to private land on the checkerboard, and to get there soon if I was to observe. I could not get there at the beginning, but I was there for the end.
They removed 668 wild horses from Salt Wells Creek, a huge herd area with over 1 million acres. Only 39 stallions and 40 mares were returned to the area, and 3 horses died.
http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/Wild_Horses/13atsw-gather.html
The horses were not rounded up on Thanksgiving, but they were the Saturday after, with no public observation allowed. The contractor, the Cattoors, were trying to finish this up before an arctic cold front entered Wyoming.
The Mare and Foal pen
I drove up highway I-80 on Monday with 50 – 60 mph winds buffeting my vehicle and the huge big rig trucks that roared by. The winds are often a precursor to a storm, which was clearly blowing into Wyoming. The release of the 40 mares who had been treated with birth control, PZP, was scheduled for Tuesday, the next day, so I was determined to get there. When I arrived in Rock Springs, I went immediately to the Rock Springs Short Term Holding facility. These are the corrals where the captured horses are brought after being removed from their homes and families. Here they are tested for Coggins, given vaccinations, gelded, sorted, possibly adopted, and then ultimately sent to other locations.
It is a grim place, one I hate visiting. I always hope I do NOT recognize any of the horses I see. Seeing the horses separated by sex and age into arbitrary groups with nothing to do but endure is incredibly depressing, especially after seeing these horses in the wild. It is a soul killing place, where the horses are provided the basic necessities of food and water, and some are provided medical care when needed, but the freedom that is an essential part of their being has been removed and the light has gone out of their eyes.
Young stallions playing
I watch some of the stallions, not yet gelded, run and play, frisky with the threat of the weather coming in. It was almost worse to see them this way – they had not yet settled into their fate. I see a stallion snaking some other stallions – here he has no family to move around, but still has the instinct.
The stallion snaking to move other stallions
I could not see the pens of weanlings from the visitor overlook, the foals that had been separated from their mothers for the first time, and I wonder if this was deliberate. Usually during the summer the youngsters are easy to view, perhaps to encourage adoption, as they are the most “adoptable” group. Not now however, but I did see pens of mares with foals too young to be separated from their mothers.
The next day everything has changed
I head to my hotel, and the evening brings the storm with a vengeance. The temperature plummets, and it is zero degrees with I don’t know what wind chill when I get outside in the morning. Everything is white, and the snow is blowing sideways. I am unsurprised when I get a call that tells me the release of the mares has been delayed.
I decide to go back to the Short Term Holding facility and layer my clothing carefully. When I get out of my vehicle and trudge to the overlook I catch my breath in the strong wind. This is a totally different place in the grip of the storm. Snow blows hard across the corrals, and the horses are coated with ice and snow. The more dominant horses are eating hay, while the more timid wait their turns. Eating hay is the best way for these horses to stay as warm as they can because there is no shelter here. I had been told that there were wind breaks for the horses, but I did not see them. I know the sick pens have shelter, but not the rest of the facility.
The mares and foals
The mares and foals stood unmoving, seemingly frozen in place. I did not see any of them move from where they were standing while I was there.
These wild horses are uniquely suited to their environment, to thrive where domestic horses could not, but if they had been in the wild, they would have sheltered next to hillsides, in gullies, in draws that are natural windbreaks – they would not have been taking the full brunt of the wind and snow as they were here, trapped in pens, unable to move away.
Watch Carol’s appearance on the CNN Jane Velez Mitchell Show discussing wild horses and the situation in Rock Springs at the Short Term Holding Facility that aired on Tuesday, December 17 at 7:00pm Eastern Time here:
http://www.hlntv.com/video/
My heartfelt thanks for the support and sponsorship of the Wild Horse Freedom Federation on this trip. http://wildhorsefreedomfederation.org/
Related Articles:
From Wild Hoofbeats:
https://www.wildhoofbeats.com/blog/why-wild-horses
From Straight From the Horse’s Heart:
http://rtfitchauthor.com/2013/12/06/tribute-to-the-lost-wild-horses-of-wyoming/
From The Cloud Foundation:
19 Comments
I feel powerless:( this breaks my heart
[…] December is the Cruelest Month for Salt Wells Creek Horses […]
Christine, we are not powerless if we all work together! Start making phone calls, sending emails and writing letters. Let your voice be heard, together we can make a difference!
[…] Carol Walker, for WildHoofbeats.com, writes about her heartbreaking observation of the wild horse ro… […]
So is there anything we can do to help?
Yes there is. Stay tuned to the Wild Hoofbeats website and the Cloud Foundation website and the Wild Horse Freedom Federation website for news and alerts, call and write Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and call your Senators and Congressmen.
Thank you Carol for your vigilance and heartfelt efforts. Your reports are heartbreaking to read so I can only imagine how difficult and emotional this has been for you. I live in Upstate New York in the Adirondack Mountains. These last couple of days it has been in the minus numbers with added wind chill. My horses have their full coats grown in plus their Rambo heavy blankets on. They have water that is heated and as much gay as they want with a sheltered area to huddle together.
I worry about my horses and then I look at these pictures and it is like how can you say you are hungry when you look at starving children’s pictures.
What the BLM is doing to our horses is abomidable. I am so full of frustration and anger. I write and call all the time.
I often think we should take a more aggressive stand and maybe let,”the minks out of their cages”. If I didn’t think the BLM would shoot them as they raced for freedom I seriously would consider it.
Anyway, this has been a long hard road and I know that we will be frustrated for a long time at every turn we take.
It’s so hard to see this happening and to feel so impotent about it.
Again..Thank You for your loving kindness
Debbi Mowka
Thank you Carol for your vigilance, it has to be depressing to go through this without much recourse. Hard to believe this is happening. My grandfather kept 100 head of unbroken Pintos just because he loved them, back in the 1950’s in Wyoming, even though he did graze cattle on leases. Hate to see ranchers contributing to these roundups. I would be interested in bearing witness to
these things when possible, with a little notice. My first contact with other wild horses was the Pryor herd in the early 1980″s, when I was working on the introductory guidebook, Big Horn Country, by Jerry Sanders. I wrote the history and took the cover photo of the mustangs. Being retired, I am fairly flexible in terms of following these roundups. Let me know if there are things I can do to help.
Russ Bessette
What can we say Carol except thanks for putting yourself out in the elements to bring us this report and these heartbreaking photos.
In a conversation with Dean Bolstadt it was confirmed that delay for weather was not an option as RSGA was standing ready with a contempt of court suit in hand pushing this action forward.
It seems cattlemen rule the roost not just with the BLM but with the courts as well.
Thanks again!
Thank you so much, Carol. Everybody please send Carol’s report to your D.C. Rep. and Senators. This is an outrage and nothing but cruelty.
Carol,
Thank you for your work for our Wild Horses.
HORRIFIC and HEARTBREAKING!!!
Many of us have seen wild horses in the wild and also have seen wild horses in the BLM corrals and with the exception of still eating and breathing … there are almost no similarities … their true wild lives are gone forever. So sad and so wrong.
This is absolute madness. No one in their right mind could ever think that this was anything but evil. Only someone unscrupulous, with something to gain financially, would think that treating America’s Wild Horses and Burros like this is acceptable. To rip these families apart with no regard for their safety, comfort, and well being….takes people with no hearts, whatsoever.
What is wrong with these people – why did they do this at this time of year? Heartless cruel and no reason! This is just another showing of how government needs to get their hands out of things like this they just make it worse!
little did we know how much worse this would get yrs later!!! heartless!!!any rep that allows this must NEVER be in any office again! Animal abuse is the worst and our own demise as all prophets said throughout time! civil disobedience not obsevation we have seen enough of the meat mafia!! the fbi wants all evidence of blm and fws abuses and we have it!!! give it!! 1800 call fbi do it en masse now!
Thank you for your vigilance. It is so cruel and breaks my heart to see this. I wrote letters and voiced my opinions over and over re Rock Springs and all of the round ups, but it never seems to help. I will keep trying. Bless you for caring and working hard for these magnificent animals.
This is just sad and horrific! I will send these pictures to my senators, in hopes they will give a darn. OH, the anger and frustration is huge!
Thanks for documenting and bringing the truth to the public. I visited the Rock Springs corals this summer on my trip out there. It was hard enough looking at them in the summer so I know how awful it must have been to see them stuck in those corrals with nowhere to go in the snow and wind.. Many dappled grays in those herds which I remember seeing in the wild. Thanks again. Jo Danehy
WOW you are an incredible lady for all you do. You have my deepest respect.