As I waited for the Adobe Town/Salt Wells Roundup to begin, I visited the horses of Adobe Town that I have gotten to know over the last 4 months. I headed out every morning before dawn, and found bands of stallions, mares, yearlings and foals, unknowingly enjoying their very last days of freedom before they wil be rounded up by helicopter, separated from their families and most of them, over 1500, will be removed from their homes forever.
Band with many greys
I was captivated by the gorgeous grey stallions, some battle scarred, some proud and snorting their defiance, some unconcerned by my presence. Grey is a dominant color in this herd, but some bands are very colorful with buckskins, blacks, sorrels, and palominos.
Battle scarred older stallion
Grey Stallion runs up to challenge
Grey stallion comes close
Grey stallion shakes his head
Grey stallion wheels away and runs to his band
This last morning before the roundup, the air is very cold, with the weather finally changing. The stud piles are almost comically coated with frost, and the horses are running for the sheer love of moving in the brisk wind.
Leaping as they run in the cold wind
The band runs
I fall in love with a colorful band which is very curious. The grey stallion keeps grazing as his mares and foals get closer and closer. The chestnut mare is clearly the lead mare, and the bucksin mare keeps looking to her for reassurance.
The colorful band
The band circles around me
The colorful band turns
The stallion watches as his band moves closer
I follow the trucks of the rangers to the trap site where the roundup will begin tommorw, and I mourn for the life that they will lose tommorow and over the next 5 weeks.
Two grey stallions
There is right now no way to stop this cruel and unnecessary roundup. So I pray for snow, and I will be there to witness the loss of their freedom.
Lone stallion on the hill at dawn
This is so sad!
In my opinion, the Wild Horses of Adobe Town, WY are The Most Colorful of All the Areas. I can’t even begin to imagine how Carol must feel – knowing the terrible fate that is about to besiege them – after spending years photographing them in their natural state.
My stomach is permanently tied into knots, and I think has been since end of Dec. 2009, beginning with Calico.
But Adobe Town is extra special!
THIS IS ALL SO WRONG!
So with you on this, Garnet. My broken heart aches for these horses … as well as Carol, Tamara and Jess. Tears prevent further words.
This is so very sad. If there is anything we can do to stop this, please post.
We are working to put together a letter and postcard and call and meeting campaign to get the BLM budget for roundups blocked – keep your eye out for alerts over the next week.
We will!! Thank you for doing this.
Carol, They are so beautiful and full of live. This is not meant to happen to them. They are meant to be free and live on that land. Our government has simply forgotten that some issues are urgent and require the saving of lives not the sacrificing of them. Stay warm. I will ask for snow, also. mar
Carol, please add my prayers for the safety of the Adobe Town mustangs. My heart breaks to think they are having to face this torture now too….I remember the small band I got to see and photograph. They were curious and wary, yet allowed my presence into their world for the time I chose to stay. They watched me leave and I felt only lucky and honored to have been given a bit of their time, when now they will only have fear for humans once this roundup begins. I can’t believe that all of the big names in Hollywood, the Senators who voiced opposition to this, and the rest of us taxpayers are not able to get this stopped…..So many against so few, yet WE are like the ant against the elephant…..What is wrong with this picture??? I pray for weather that halts the helicopter from flying and prevents this from beginning, even if only for a short time. Maybe it will be enough for ONE JUDGE to have the ability to HALT this once and for all……………..Thank you for your dedication to this heart breaking task you have set for yourself. Your photos may be all we have left to look at when describing what a wild horse looked like, Once Upon A Time…………..
Amen to that! I am in agreement with that! Lord, please intervene supernaturally that the government BLM will not be able to proceed with the roundups for a long, long time! In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Thank you for sharing these lasting memories–my heart aches for you as a witness tomorrow morning.
Fantastic gorgeous pictures!! Love the Wild Horses….
Words cannot even begin to describe my feelings.
The only word I can think of is loathing.
loathing is a fitting word …
Not sure who has more courage Carol for documenting this execution or the beautiful horses biding good bye to their lives, familes and freedom! There is nor ever will be forgiveness for what the BLM is doing !
This is all so very wrong. Why won’t the government leave them alone. They are not hurting anything. They have been there for years and we are invading their space and time. I am so sorry that you will have to witness this atrocity. Peace be with you.
I was able to see the wild horses at Adobe thru carols work, she has captured that essence of wildness freedom and the joy it brings to the horses, this is the gutwrenching part that stings, the hardest part is to know they will never have that light in their eyes again, they will be sterile wooden images, moved from place to place around the country, they will never smell the desert and sagebrush again.they will be pushed prodded and manhandled until the day they die.
Can you guys just sit in the middle of the road and not move or something? Create HEADLINES!!! I don’t know anything else that would work. THIS IS MORALLY WRONG AND IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY AS WELL! tHE blm AND THE gOV’T WILLPAY FOR THIS MASSACRE!!
Is there anything or any rescue group helping???? What can we do to help?
Dear Susan,
the first 1000 horses rounded up will go to Canon City for processing – shots, castration, branding, then the younger ones will be eligable for adoption, some sent to Steve Mantle for training, some to be trained in the Canon City prison program, some to the Honor Farm prison program in Riverton. The rest will go the BLM Rock Springs facility. Most likely any horse over 5 will be sent to long term holding facilities. The horses will be available for adoption in December, but I would contact the BLM at Canon City any time now if you are interested in adopting any horses from this roundup.
beautiful free wild horses, your last night out in the darkness.
The shame of it all with the sunrise comes the helicoptors to run you further and harder than they have ever run before. The steel pipes of the corrals breaking their bones. The cramming right into trailers causing injury and death.
There is only evil with the blm and their contractors. A trail of death and killing and broken spirits.
BLM and your “thug horse killer taxpayer funded contractors”, may you rot in hell for your past and future horse abuse.
[...] of these magnificent animals for years, and she has captured their final moments of freedom on her blog. Carol is also there at Adobe Town to document the roundup, but the BLM is preventing her from [...]
This is the webpage for the Committee of Natural Resources. I believe they have to approve what Department of Interior and BLM do.
There is a button at the bottom left that says, ‘Contact Us’. Please do on the subject of Stopping the Wild Horse Round ups and releasing those horses unsold back into their respective territories. Ban sale of the Wild Horses and Burros for slaughter.
If you have the time, please contact as many of the members and PARTICULARLY the WILDLIFE COMMITTEE/SUBCOMMITTEE to state your feelings on the Wild Horse Roundups!!!
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=27
Please share this information with EVERYONE you know – U.S. and Abroad.
Carol, could you tell if the bay? stallion missing part of his ear was one of the horses collected? Or was it just too mishmashed with herds shoved together? Any horses you thought you recognized from you book?
Sorry – it was too hard to tell ears in the huge volume of horses in the pens together. There were some gorgeous bay stallions though!
No horses I recognized from the book, but many I recognized from the last 2 months. They are going to go to the area the horses in the book were in later.
What will happen to them?
Dear Tracy,
Look down at my reply to Susan for details – they will most of them end up in long term holding corrals in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and other places.
Also about 374 will be returned to the range, with 100 mares, all injected with a 2 year drug for birth control, and 274 stallions. They are skewing the sex ration of the herd which can be very destructive to the social structure of wild horses.
They are all at the BLM holding facility at Canon City, CO right now. The first adoption will be Friday December 3.
You can make a stand! They are the criminals not us. BLOCK THOSE TRAP PENS DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES TO KEEP THE HORSES FREE. The BLM is in violation of the Free Roaming Wild Horse/Burro Act, NEPA regulations, The Constitution of the United States of America, Lacey Wildlife Act, and probably state cruelty laws also. Public lands and wild horses belong to us not the BLM or DOI. As Americans we have the right to protect what is ours.
Words can not say what I feel at this moment. I think BLM needs to be rounded up and put in pens. These hores were here before they/us were and they should stay free. They are apart of our history.
This saddens me so deeply. How can we keep doing these awful injustices to our cousins in nature? when will it stop, when there are no wild aninmals left? My heart grieves and wishes i could do something from here in LOndon to help these majestic creatures…..xxx Jane (one time horse whisperer)
Not knowing how to express my sadness and so I wrote this poem. If only words could heal the broken and open the eyes of the confused and wrong.
Thunder strikes and hearts are breaking
As dawn aproaches they are waking
Beautiful, colorful, defiant
They took to this land with ease and grace
And should not be take from this place
Thunder strikes and hearts are breaking
Time will tell if the healing takes place