Wild Horses – December is the Cruellest Month for Salt Wells Creek Part 1
December 13, 2013Wild Horses – Please Comment about the BLM’s Planned Roundup at Great Divide Basin
January 6, 2014Wild Horses: December is the Cruellest Month for Salt Wells Creek Part Two
The mares spill out of the trailer
On Wednesday morning last week I was in Rock Springs, waiting to hear if the weather was better and it had stopped snowing, and I heard that we were on for the release of the mares. These are mares rounded up and removed from Salt Wells Creek. Only 40 mares will be released, all treated with the birth control drug PZP, and only 39 stallions were released. 668 wild horses were rounded up, and most of them are at the Rock Springs Short Term Holding facility.
I can see the wide eyes of the snow crusted mares
The trailers pull out first
I followed the BLM out to where the mares had been held for the past 3 days in pens, and saw the two horse trailers pull out, heading through the Adobe Town Herd Area. I saw the snow crusted forms of the mares in the trailers, and could see their wide eyes. They had no idea what was going to happen to them.
We drove over 2 hours on snow covered roads
The trailers in the lead, in this snow covered terrain
We drove over two hours through snow covered roads, and the high this day was zero degrees. It seems as though we are driving through most of the Adobe Town Herd Area and I wonder when we are ever going to get to the location to release the mares.
The mares run for high ground
Finally I see the horse trailers stop, and they have stopped ironically at the trap site used in the 2010 Adobe Town Roundup at Poison Buttes, where hundreds of wild horses lost their freedom. I always get a bad feeling when I am in this area.
The first mare out
Still covered with snow they run
Running up the ridge, then over
As I am preparing to get out and set up to photograph the release of the mares, Dave Cattoor opens the first trailer door. Mares come spilling out and I run toward the trailer, and am told to stop. I keep going and try to get some photographs as the second trailer door is opened. The mares run out and head up the hill so they can get a good look around in this new area. These are mares rounded up in the Salt Wells Creek Herd Area, but they are being released in Adobe Town, at least 30 – 50 miles from where they had been rounded up.
The second load of mares arrives
As the mares disappear, I am determined to wait here until the Cattoors come back with the second load of mares. We wait 3 1/2 hours. I keep my vehicle running so I have heat, and I am assured that this time they will wait until I am set up to let these mares go. It is getting colder and darker, and I am hoping that they will arrive before the end of this very short winter day.
The first mare out in this strange new place
The second mare follows
The mares move away from the trailers
Finally the two trailers pull up, and I am on top of the hill waiting this time. They open the door of one of the trailers, and a lone red mare comes quietly out, looking around this unfamiliar world. Then another mare follows. I think that the mares are smart to look around and not rush off at a gallop, and imagine that the stallions probably did just that.
The mares go up the hill and one turns to look at me
Two mares pause with frozen breath surrounding them
The mares from the second trailer catch up
The mares trot up the hill, the group from the second trailer catching up to the first group as they pause and look over at me on the next hill. I am silently cheering them on, here in this strange new place, 1/2 hour before the sun goes down, temperatures falling fast.
The mares carefully go down the hill
All twenty mares stay together
Still there is no doubt in my mind that they are the lucky ones, who still have their freedom, and they have each other on this coldest night. As I drive back toward Rawlins in the twilight the temperature is now minus 11.
They do not look back – who can blame them?
Driving back in the very cold twilight
The next morning I head back to this area and the temperature gauge on my car says it is minus 16 when I first get there. I use my binoculars and look for horses. I do not see any sign of the mares, and I am sure they headed as far away from where they were released as possible – who can blame them?
A family band of wild horses in Adobe Town
Another family in the snow
I do see several wild families on a far ridge about 5 – 10 miles from where they were released, and I feel joy to see them on this frigid morning – there are still wild horses in this area. There is a palomino foal with a wooly coat, and he reminds me of my adopted mustang Mica.
Cattle on public land
As I drive I see black forms on a hill with Haystack Mountain in the background. As I drive closer, I see that it is cattle grazing on public land.
The Rock Springs Grazing Association is relentless in their drive to have ALL wild horses removed not only from private land but also from public land that they have leased, that they consider their own. These four herd areas are targeted: Salt Wells Creek, Adobe Town, Great Divide Basin and White Mountain. All four of these herd areas make up over 2 million acres, and almost half of the remaining wild horses in Wyoming live in these areas.
Only a few days after the mares are released, the Rock Springs BLM releases their Scoping Document for rounding up the wild horses horses in Great Divide Basin. It has only been 2 years since this herd was last rounded up.
http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/info/news_room/2013/december/10rsfo-gather.html
You can comment on this plan for removal of the wild horses from Great Divide Basin until January 10, 2014.
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:
24 Comments
Thank you Carol for following them during this very difficult time. Will watch you on CNN tomorrow.
Thank you thank you for all you do to fight for these beautiful innocent souls!
Thank you for posting this! I can’t believe people really want to get rid of the wild horses! They are beautiful creatures and deserve to be free! I’ll watch you on CNN tomorrow!
For the horses,
Charisa
HOPE FOR THE EQUINE
http://hopefortheequine.weebly.com
Thank you for raising awareness of these beautiful creatures! They deserve life and a place to call home!
You really bring the emotion home Carol….thank you for opening our eyes to the truth. ..As beautiful as you photos and subjects may be…The cruel reality breaks my heart.
Many many thanks forgoing and being a witness to this horrible travesty. If I were still allowed winter snow driving I would’ve happily joined you but my car accident from several years ago prevents me from snow driving. Too chicken to try driving it still I suppose.
Besides I wouldn’t have recognized the territory–from the 2010 roundup.
The checkerboard is and was dumb from the get go.mit was extremely self serving and short sighted. They set the horses up for failure from the start. BLM has never made it a goal to protect the horses. They can say how they love the horses all they want–but till REAL ACTION follows words it’s just gums flapping in the wind.
Many thanks to WHFF for helping you with the finances. And thank you to your bosses for letting you off from work so you could help us.
How unspeakably cruel to release them so far off their home range in the dead of winter. The first mare off the second trailer looked very thin. The two hour drive had to have been very hard on them as well. The whole lot of BLM managers are beasts! Worse than beasts. As for the caTtle on the range, I’d bet my last dollar they are there illegally.
I so agree, Janet. This was cruel. How far apart are the mares from the released stallions? I will never accept this kind of disregard. It is dangerous for them to be in a new place just going into winter when they have just lost their family bands.
I was never able to get an answer from the BLM as to were the stallions released in the same location as the mares, just that it was the same area, but the stallions were released on Sunday and the mares on Wednesday, so when or where or if they meet up is anyone’s guess.
Thank you Carol. This is painful to read about. Can’t even imagine how frustrating & heartbreaking it is to be right there with them. Your eyewitnessing is so important. Will be watching you on HLN here. That is the channel her show comes out on in my area. Didn’t find her on CNN. Blessings Carol & to all those fighting for our wild ones.
Thank You so much Carol for showing all of us whats going on out there. This is so unexcusable!!! I dont knoe if anyone has seen the atricle I posted on the “walefare ranching”. It gives alot of info about why our wild horses and our predators are being exterminated! Everyone please read it..ans Carol ill repost it just incase you havnt seen it. Oh my god what there doing to our wild horses is so wrong!!!! So coincadentale now that they’ve reopened the slaughter houses. If the cattle ranchers wont fence in there heards and actually feed and take care of them, were going to be loosing much more wild life and public lands! the BLM, Obama and Cattle Ranchers are out of control!!!
Sorry about the spelling. my phone is an old one.
Thank you so very much for braving that frigid weather to document the mares’ release. I will never understand cruelty. It is beyond my thinking. Some times when I get so discouraged signing petitions, writing letters & seeing nothing change…I have to think about people like you that are right there, seeing horrific sights, but fighting on. Being on the east coast, this is the least I can do & will continue to do.
Where are the rest of the horses?
That is a very good question. I initially though that all of the remaining horses out of the 668 rounded up were in the Rock Springs Short Term Holding Facility – that would mean 586 mares, foals and stallions would be there. When I visited however there seemed to be less horses than that. I then heard that most of the stallions (the ones rounded up before the last day, Saturday) were sent to the Gunnison Short Term Holding Facility in Utah but I have NOT been able to confirm this – despite emails and calls to the BLM from myself and Ginger Kathrens of the Cloud Foundation. We have also not been able to confirm the number of horses at the Rock Springs Short Term Holding Facility, which is disturbing.
What is most disturbing about this is that the Bureau of Land Management is a federal agency subject to full transparency to the public who pays their salaries and budget with our taxes. This is open and blatant corruption, but how to end it is a never ending question. Do you have any ideas, Carol.
Demonstrations seem to go noticed but without generating change – just look at the immigration efforts which have no beneficial outcomes. What can we do that we are not doing?
When this round up began I was checking the “Gather reports” and it said the first horses from the first day’s removal were taken to the infamous Canon City. I can no longer find these gather reports. Someone needs to to find out how many are in Canon City! I have written this all over FB at the posts on this roundup and not had any responses. Please call Canon City, they know you. Thank you for being there, Carol!
[…] photographs and reports can be seen on her website, Wild Hoofbeats, here and […]
Why can’t they geld some of the stallions. Wouldn’t that be easier than giving the mares something to prevent pregnancy?
Dear Joyce,
The birth control drug they are giving the mares currently is not a permanent sterilization, as gelding the stallions would be, so it would be reversible later if the population dropped.
Those mares were transported in frigid weather in an open trailer. They must have been freezing. That is animal abuse.
[…] Carol Walker, at WildHoofbeats.com, reports: […]
Hi there, I enjoy reading through your post. I like to write
a little comment to support you.
i think it is neat that you try to keep on thier toes about these wild horses with the way the crooked goverment is killing so many of them anyway. virginia