by “Mustang Jack”
More Mustangate!
I have been saying it all along! The BLM,US Forest Service,US Fish Game and Wildlife,and the United States Geographical Science service, donot have a specific formula to determine accurate AUM’s (Animal Unit Month).For those of you who do not know what an AUM is, I will sum it up in a nut shell for you. It’s how much a foraging species eats on a month to month basis. The BLM and ecologists blame the degradation of the rangelands on wild horse overgrazing.They claim that the wild horse infringes on other native species foraging rights. They also claim the wild horses eat rare and protected vegetation that grows on the rangelands. Nothing, and I mean nothing is further from the truth than those fabricated analysis’s.
As you have read,the BLM has gone beyond their usual scope of tyranny and hired a known convicted horse killer to do their dirty work.
How apropos is that for the BLM to hire an outlaw?
WOW! Talk about irony,conflict and controversy all in the same breath.. What a movie this would make huh?
Little did Cloud’s herd know when they awoke on that September morning that their lives would change forever..
Just what do horses endure during a day of being chased miles upon miles by a machine with whirling,chopping blades?
Our National Icons being run into the desert dirt by the BLM - photo by Terry Fitch
Allow me to give to you a small graphic example.
First the Bell 206 type helicopter swoops down and tries to get the alpha mare to head in the direction where the shift chutes are waiting. The chopper pilot insistently swoops and makes passes over the herd until they change their direction..Once the direction has been change the horses are pursued from the rear by what they feel is something equivalent to a giant buzz saw. Needless to say it scares the hell of them.
I will try to explain to you from my experience of working with domestic horses just what happens physically to a wild horse when it’s natural instinct to flee from fear is actuated.
Within the first mile of the chase;
Their resting heartbeats race from about 45 beats per minute to an overwhelming 200 bpm in just a matter of seconds. There blood pressure soars to an astounding 200/110
and higher..Their respiratory rate increases from 15 breaths per minute to a mind blowing 50-75 breaths per minute.
The second mile;
At this point of the horrific chase, their vascular system
are so overtasked and surging with blood they are about to explode.. Their lungs are screaming for more oxygen as they continue to try and escape the glass faced,steel predator.
The third mile;
Their vascular walls begin to weaken from the pressure exerted from within.Major blood vessels and capillaries rupture and begin to fill the spongy lung tissue. Some horses have already succumbed to the seemingly endless journey. Any foals in the herd will have long been separated and probably have died from exhaustion by now.The weakest of the herd will eventually succumb to exposure.
The last and final mile;
The chutes leading to the makeshift traps finally come into view of the helicopter pilot about as he skims over the dusty terrain kicking up prairie dust in the wake of the predators steely rotors. The end of this pilots days journey is near. The beginning of the horses nightmarish journey has just begun.
There are men spread out all around the traps.Some here and some there,stalking and crouching to not spook the incoming herd as they approach the chutes.
The scene is like something out of a movie that I have seen over and over again. Dust flying from the stampeding herd and the swirling vortex of dust kicked up from the chopper rotor makes it almost impossible to see or breathe. This time its not a movie!
The horses file down the chute and into a penned arena. The men shut the chutes makeshift gate and the horses are now corralled. The round up team begins its processing.
I could literally feel the horses subdued sorrow and anguish among their exhausted appearance. They run frantically around and around looking for a breech in the walls of their prison. Perhaps a last ditch effort for them to regain the freedom that they will probably never see again.
The men on the other side of the walls slap their hats at them and poke and prods them to keep them back from trampling the soft sides of the pen.
I could empathically feel their pain.My chest was heaving as theirs heaved,my head pounded as theirs pounded,and I wept as they wept.
The sun begins to set and some of the mares are still nervously pacing looking for their foals. The colts and stallions are separated as the mares are left to be inoculated with contraceptives.
For some? Adoptions await! As for the most of them they are subjected to life in captivity or destined for slaughter.
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Categories: The Force of the Horse
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Thank you Mustang Jack, what you described is animal abuse and they have been doing this for years. The Diamond Mountains round up in 2004 and the Sand Wash round up last year was horrific. No more round ups, no more adoption programs. Cloud’s herd put the icing on the cake for me. I am heartbroken. As far as I’m concerned they have enough in holding that they destroyed, or do they?. American Wild Horses must be left alone so they can roam our ranges and re build their herds.
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Indubitably it is abuse! It’s outright cruelty! Through exuberant amounts of hidden lobbyist’s money the BLM seems to have been able to sidestep and skirt around all animal rights laws. They trivialize their mistreatment of the horses as being something that they equate to being nothing more than a few bumps and bruises.
For 65 years the BLM has gotten away with atrocious methods of rounding up horses. They will continue their onslaught until they rid the ranges of what they and ranchers consider as vermin.
The BLM and all of their constituents will continue to defy any laws and restrictions that prohibits this kind of cruelty. It’s clamorous torture to the horses on the BLM’s part to say the least!
When will it end?
When the last horse stands?
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“When will it end?
When the last horse stands?”
Not if we can help it! Thank you for a most penetrating article. I’m sure you caught the comment from the BLM that Cloud and the others weren’t lame: “Footsore isn’t lame.”
There must be a special place in Hell…
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Mustang Jack and Suzanne, I got this weeks opening line from you:
Dear President Obama (Biden, Salazar, etc)
What will you say when asked “Where were you when the last wild horse vanished?”
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Roxy,
I am flattered to have had so much of what I have said on this board quoted all over the internet. That is precisely what I hoped to do when I began to share my personal experiences of the last 3o plus years.
It’s not that I am looking for notoriety or fame..It’s that your acknowledgement to a mere question that I believe we all should be asking.”Where will President Barack Obama be when the last horse vanishes”?
I realize that it sounds like we have been defeated. Realistically we are losing this battle and the casualties are mounting as we comment and blog all over the web..The BLM is planning their next roundups and we havent gotten any further than emails and faxs..If wild horse advocates are unable to rally together and change the tides in the horses favor within the next 2 years..We will be faced with the stark reality that there will be no wild horses left within the next decade. They,(the BLM) will have accomplished their goal.
The fate of the wild horse is in our hands!
What we do from here on out will determine the outcome of the wild horses future..
The destiny of the wild horse is the destiny of America!
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Mustang Jack – well, thank you and R.T. and Ms. Kathrens and so many for sharing your talent with words.
Yes – that is IT:
“The destiny of the wild horse is the destiny of America!”
Its all about little tipping points, one at a time, it is a web (I mean like spider web) – how do we connect the web?
I will continue to believe we are doing that. Next week I’ll open with “Where were you when the wild horse was saved – our Americn icon of Freedom, when America was saved?”, push and pull, negative then positive, something has to push someones buttons out there. Not that I think these e-mails are getting read, but keeps me driven!
I’m getting some local help with the Coalition idea – we are strugeling to stay generic enough. Found a Myths and Truths already on another web, will try to work with them, but they seem to have a very specific point of view, rather than a “universal” perspective.
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I’m sure you’ve already been there, but just in case, check Hooflinks http://hooflinks.blogspot.com/
I keep writing letters too. At least it gives me something to do but worry and cry on my own horse’s shoulder.
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Thank you Mustang Jack for putting to words the feelings that I experienced with Cloud’s roundup. I felt their sorrow and it hit me hard every night after I left.
Will it ever end? I know I for one will never give up….
I told myself I could not endure going to their “adoption”, but now I am heading there on Friday…to be there for them and help them through this if I can help in some way…I am still holding on to the “dream” that they will some way find their freedom again. If not, then perhaps I can make a promise to one or two to give them a good home and ride with them in their land again someday.
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Sandy,we definitely understand each others sorrow and deep heart felt pain. I commend you for your courage to want to be there during the round up and the upcoming adoption. They are not easy to endure.Please note if you will if there are suspect killer buyers.. I want whatever information you can gather on them. Please keep your ears and eyes tuned.. Okay? I am doing an investigation and it would a huge help.
I will let you all in on a little secret of mine that I have held in for 10 years. I don’t really mind if anyone thinks I am wrong for doing what I did and if they do that’s ok too.
What I am about to tell you is about something that I had to do. My heart and soul could not bare the pain that I was seeing in their eyes. The mourning that I felt in their hearts,yearning for what was ripped from them forever.
From 1999 till 2005 I adopted eight wild horses in total and set them free in an undisclosed location. Oh and don’t worry its not public land. Even though I cannot say where they are, I will tell you that they have it better than they did before. There is no one there to bother them,they stay within a 5,000 acre range unimpeded by fences and barriers. They never venture outside the perimeter of the property because they do not need to. There is fresh water stream running all of the time, and plenty to graze on..The other wildlife has adapted well with the horses as I knew it would. This place is a real paradise as one could only hope for.It is a place that we dream about,where wild horses run and play. It is a place that I call Wild Horse Utopia. I know that it sounds like some scene from a Walt Disney movie but I assure that it is as real as you are sitting there..
I knew at the time that I decided to do this that I was taking a risk. Trying to match horses from different bands was not really a grand idea but I had to try. There was no option for failure. I was determined to make this work even if I had to live there with them in the valley.
I periodically go to check in on them to see how they are doing. Believe it or not they are thriving better than I expected.Even with natural predation looming they are healthy and robust. I did it! I did what most said couldn’t be done.I saved eight horses destined to a life of misery.
I plan to adopt more and doing the same thing.This is something that I feel should be done with all wild horse adoptions. I do not believe in condemning them to a life of domestication as an alternative to their captivity.
I have pulled wild horses from pastures and paddocks that have desperately ran themselves to death. Some died from domestic insecticides that were sprayed on them as a fly deterrent. Would be adopters don’t realize that wild horses do not have the same immunities as a domestic horse.However, I will get into that another time.
May I suggest that before anyone adopts a wild horse,kid yourselves not. They do not all adapt as well as one would like to believe. Sure there are success stories and there are those people that have had success with wild horse adoption.Those people should be commended. On the other hand, I do not condone the domestication of wild horses when there is another option as I have discovered.
No I do not own the property nor do I lease it. I don’t even rent it.. The property is used by someone and that is all that I can say for now..
There are people out there that have hundreds of acres and even thousands just sitting there with meadows and foothills waiting for the return of the wild horse.
These people are more than willing to have the wild horse roam their land and replenish it at the same time..
I chose this option as an alternative as oppose to keeping a wild horses as a pet and riding companion. It is much more conducive for the horse and it’s quality of life.
I will disclose more about these types of places after this coming winter.For those interested in this type of adopt and release program or as I have dubbed it..”The Genesis Project” stay in touch with me via RT’s blog. I will be more than happy to share this most rewarding story as it unfolds in the months to come.
God Speed to the horses..
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I think you are a Saint sent to save our horses. Must stop or I will start to cry.
Love
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Mustang Jack, Would you email me: viento3@aol.com
Sandy
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What is seriously troubling about the BLM’s behaviour is that the Congressional subcommittee chair of National Parks, Forests and Public Lands has written to them regarding “deficiencies” and “fundamental and profound problems.” The committe chair further states that by rounding up this many horses, the “use of taxpayer money is irresponsible.”
BLM Director Bob Abbey was asked to “suspend” round ups until the many, many failings and problems demonstrated by BLM were addressed. The BLM’s response to the Congressional request and widely publicized outrage by American taxpayers? IGNORE Congress, IGNORE the American public. It is going to take President Obama stepping in to hold our very own taxpayer-funded government agency accountable for its very bad behaviour. Wild horses cost taxpayers nothing if the BLM would leave them where they stand and not fence them out of their water source or trap them and forget about them and leave them to die of thirst (yes,that has happened). At the turn of the century America had, roughly, 2 million wild horses. The current reported numbers by BLM are high at the very best. Due to outdated and unreliable methods used to “count” these numbers have not been reliably proven and more likely are at around 13,000. BLM lacks any kind of accurate date to determine at any level just what the range can support. What is inflicted on these wild horses is easily discovered. It has been well documented…and it is unspeakably cruel: foals who have their soft hooves fall off from being driven too fast, too far by helicopters, horses run off cliffs, broken necks and worse. The way we are allowing our wild horses to be treated by BLM cuts right into the moral fiber of what we are: the character of this nation goes into serious question if we allow this to go unabated.
And here’s a thought: even if we don’t care about the historical significance of these living, breathing wonderful pieces of American history; even if we don’t like horses; even if we don’t care about our wide open vistas and the representative iconic symbols of freedom that these wild ones exemplify, we should care mightily about a government agency that operates without following the RULE OF LAW AND that there is NO TRANSPARENCY, as though they are accountable to no one. That is a rogue agency and it is not what our founding fathers intended.
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Ashlans girl, you couldn’t be anymore on point with your commentary. There are several flaws in the way that the BLM takes consensus of wild horses. The lack of science used in determining AUM’s and AML’s is a real hindrance to wild horse growth and their future viability. The truth is.. The BLM does not want the wild horses to have future viability, so it is counter productive for the BLM to promote such stability.Hence the eradication of a species that they do not even consider as being a species. The BLM ecologists and wildlife biologists have categorized the wild horse subspecies which is a feral invasive one at that.
I personally wont use the word mustang because of its archaic and misused meaning. These are not feral horses! Even if I concede to it, and I am not, there is 500 years of adaptation and genealogical evolution which has transformed this once possible domestic stray into what I believe is one of the most resilient species on the face of the planet.
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Herman Melville:
“Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions, is that of the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, over-scorning carriage. He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies… The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more resplendent than gold-and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed.’
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Now that once bluff browed fearless steed, has fallen casually to mans altruistic undying greed.
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