Wild Horses: Mica Meets Monty
September 9, 2012Wild Horses In Estes Park, Colorado this week! Talk and Art Show
October 9, 2012
Wild horses being driven in by helicopter, soon to lose their freedom
Currently, the BLM is accepting public comments on a scoping document with the deadline of September 19, 2012 for its preparation of an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) for an eco-sanctuary for wild horses in northeastern Nevada.
A mare nuzzles her foal in Sand Wash, Colorado
Yes, this is indeed the eco-sanctuary that Madeleine Pickens and her Save America’s Mustangs Foundation is proposing. Mrs. Pickens’ plan to give the horses that are currently in holding a better life in a natural setting and using BLM cattle grazing allotments to do so is a worthy goal.
Formerly wild mares in a Long Term Holding Facility in Kansas
However, the BLM, in its Scoping Project Brief, http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office/blm_information/nepa/nenvwh_ecosanctuary.html is indicating that in order to set up the eco-sanctuary, they are considering removing all of the mares from the Spruce Allotment, gelding all the stallions, and also removing the mares and gelding the stallions in the surrounding Antelope and Goshute HMAs.
This would mean the complete destruction of three wild horse herds in Nevada. The BLM cannot be allowed to take this action. This could set a very dangerous precedent for sterilizing and zeroing out wild horse herds all over Nevada and the west, and replacing them with sterile herds of unrelated horses. Their eventual extinction will be guaranteed.
Here is video provided by Elyse Gardener of the Public Open Houses that the BLM held about the Eco-Sanctuary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNdtSWesP0o
Mare and foal in Sand Wash, Colorado
I have been observing and photographing wild horses in the wild on our public lands in Wyoming, Colorado and Montana for over 9 years. One of the most essential, and unique characteristics of these wild herds is that they live in families. The stallion is the protector of the wild family, ensuring their safety and fighting for that right when necessary. The mares are the heart of the family, bearing the foals and raising them to grow up and one day have their own families. The bonds between mares and their foals, and between stallions and mares who have been together for over a decade are incredibly touching and inspiring to see.
The stallion in front, protecting his family in Adobe Town, Wyoming
I have spent thousands of hours observing the interactions of family members as well as interactions between families and between the wild families and the bands of bachelor stallions who do not yet have their own families. Watching them is nothing like watching a group of unrelated geldings and mares in a pasture. If the BLM is successful in carrying out this plan, something precious, unique and fragile will have been destroyed forever.
Wild stallions in Sand Wash, Colorado
I have visited tow Long Term Holding Facilities in Oklahoma and in Kansas, where the mares are together, then the geldings are in separate pastures. There are no foals. There is no family behavior. These horses are strangers to each other. They are in fenced pastures. While the horses in Short Term Holding are housed in undeniably grim corrals with no grass and no shelter, depriving yet more horses of their families and their freedom is not an acceptable alternative.
Canon City, a Short Term Holding Facility in Colorado
Thousands upon thousands of wild horses have already lost their families and their freedom, and currently many of us are still fighting to keep America’s wild horses where they belong – on public lands, in their homes, with their families, wild and free.
A wild mare and her foal, still free in Adobe Town, Wyoming
Please comment by September 19 to the BLM and tell them that this plan they are considering in Nevada of sterilizing 3 wild herds for the sake of an eco-sanctuary is not what we want for these herds, and not what we want used as a model for managing our wild herds.
Please comment on this plan by September 19th.
BLM Elko District Office, Wells Field Office
3900 E. Idaho Street
Elko, NV 89801
Attn: Wild Horse Eco-Sanctuary
Comments can also be faxed to (775) 753-038 or emailed to: EcoSanctuaryComments@blm.gov.
You can read more about this plan and comment online here at American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6931/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=11631
and read more on the plan here:
http://rtfitchauthor.com/2012/09/11/pickens-wild-horse-plan-betrayed/
6 Comments
This must not be allowed to happen! What is going on here? This is American history! I’m so sick of this! There are so many things destroyed out of expediency. What needs to be done? I guess it doesn’t matter who is President, then. Anything that is beautiful and sacred can be destroyed and put away if it is decided that it is no longer needed. These are not household pets to be neutered. These are wild animals which should be protected. I can see selective sterilization of the old or lame, then let them live out their lives in peace, but this??? Let those who have the knowledge be the ones to decide. Oh God will judge mankind for what we are doing to His creatures. This upsets me so. What can I do? Where do I write? Let me know, please.
You’re not going to have to worry about the cattle rancher lobbies much longer, so don’t jump into it too soon and destroy the wild horse herds for them.
This would be a travesty!! I remember the thrill I got the first time I ever saw a wild mustang. They are on land so far out that they are not a bother for anyone!! Leave them roam on BLM land!!
Thank you or your incredible work and effort in saving the wild herds
People will not stop until we acquire everthing. Nothing is sacrid anymore and it is maddening that we are really powerless to stop it. I will try, I will fight, but man eventually will take over and ruin everthing so that that have acquired everthing and the world will be a mess. Laws need to be made and made to never change to keep what natural and free alive. These creatures were around long before we were so why can’t that be respected? It’s all about money abd greed. BLM shame on you.
Being Native American, no one knows better how the government is made up of greed. They rounded up our people the same way… This is as barbaric as the mid evil days, no different. The white shirts and ties know nothing about the land…they push pens and make laws with no concern to the free horses. Leave the free…FREE I am ashamed of this country.