Please Comment on BLM’s Plans to Destroy and Slaughter Three Herds of Wild Horses in the Wyoming Checkerboard
August 4, 2017Sable Island Wild Horses – A Ray of Hope for Wild Horses
August 22, 2017
It is very likely that this will have been the last tour of wild horses in Long Term Holding facilities, or “Off Range Pastures” as the BLM are now calling it. If the provisions in the 2018 Trump Budget which allow the killing of wild horses in holding and on the range, by this time next year there may be no horses at this or the other facilities – they may all be dead.
The last time I saw the Red Roan Stallion, with his son in 2005
I am returning to the Hughes Ranch for the second time. My first visit was in 2005, after the roundup in Adobe Town in August of that year. I went to the Rock Springs Corrals looking for an older red roan stallion who had captured my heart in my visits to Adobe Town. He was going to be released back to Adobe Town, given his age (22) but at the last minute, the BLM decided to take older horses to Long Term Holding. I could not find him at Rock Springs, and was told he had been shipped to the Hughes Ranch. I called John Hughes and asked if I could come and see the horses, and he agreed, so I flew to Tulsa and rented a car to drive to Bartlesville. Although I looked at many horses in many pens and pastures, I was not able to find him. But I have never forgotten him. I hope he did live out his life there.
Horses just arrived at Hughes Ranch in 2005
Today, I am in one of two huge buses filled with people eager to see the horses. Debbie Collins, Wild Horse and Burro Outreach Specialist for the BLM is on my bus, and she starts a promotional video on the bus that we listen to as we drive to see the horses. She tells us that we will make three stops to the see the horses, picking up Robert Hughes at the first stop, then on to a second area with horses, and to see a “Virtual Reality” tour on the new Mustang Heritage Foundation trailer, then on to a third location near the house where she says the horses are so gentle they come right up to you. There are over 1400 horses here at the ranch, almost all geldings.
One gelding in front seems brave
At our first stop, there is a group of about 16o geldings close together. Robert Hughes tells us he is rotating the pastures and that the horses will be moved to another pasture to let this one rest in another day or so.
I have to emphasize that these are all geldings. There are no families here, and what we see in no way resembles what you would see if you were visiting wild horses on the range with their families. These are stallions that have been gelded, they are all unrelated, and they stay together for company.
This group luckily does not move away very quickly, because it takes a long time for everyone to get off the buses. The horses are curious, and not afraid, and they move around.
After about 15 minutes we get back onto the buses and move to our next location. We pass a group of horses and are told we will have plenty of time to see them, we are going to the “Virtual Reality” experience in the Mustang Heritage Foundation trailer which is supposedly 90 second 4 people at a time. I am skeptical that this will move quickly, and sure enough an hour later we are still there. Apparently there was a problem with the headsets. So I get off the bus before it leaves again so I can see this group of horses at least for a couple of minutes. The whole group runs off into the trees, but I have a feeling they might be back so I lag behind and soon the whole group comes running out toward me.
Something to remember as you look at the images of these horses is that every single one of them had a family before they were rounded up. each of these horses has a story, and a life, and a personality and they are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are not just expenses to the BLM. They are living, breathing sentient animals, and they deserve to be treated with respect. They should have been allowed to live out their lives with their families in their homes. But now they are here, and I do not want to see them shot and buried, or shipped off to slaughter. They either need to be allowed to live out their lives here, or be returned to the 22 million acres that was taken away from wild horses over the last 36 years.
Every horse has a story
Soon I notice the horses are running away because Debbie Collins is behind me, yelling for me and others to go back to the bus – we have to leave.
We never did get to those horses that were so easy to approach. All the time was taken up by the propaganda on the “Virtual Reality.” It wasn’t really about the horses. Records indicate that the BLM has given 1.5 million dollars a year to the Mustang Heritage Foundation since at least 2013. This fancy trailer I am sure cost quite a lot. It is ironic that the BLM says that if it has to reduce its budget by 9 million dollars this year, it has to kill the horses in holding, reduce roundups, and eliminate the use of birth control.
Right now Congress is on August Recess. This is a really crucial time for our wild horses. Please call your Representatives and Senators and tell them that you do not support the mass killing of our wild horses and that you do not support horse slaughterhouses in the United States. You can find their phone numbers here: http://www.house.gov/represent
Related Posts:
Wild Horses: BLM Wild Horse Long Term Holding Tour in Kansas
To find out more about the Red Roan Stallion’s story, you can find it in Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses, available here: https://www.wildhoofbeats.com/products/whb-book
9 Comments
I cannot fathom with all the land between sea to shining sea, why these horses and burros can not live free as they have for hundreds of years in this nation. They are the fabric of how the western states developed and thrived. They are an intricate part of our history, they are living legends, they are not expendable without we the people losing what keeps us free and determined to survive. Right now a “57” Chevy gets more care and respect and is worth more than these living animals with structured lives and families, all designed by nature to coexist with their surroundings. We don’t need them as food, we don’t need them for their hides, we NEED THEM because they are important to OUR SURVIVAL AND HUMILITY. Distroy them and our future as a nation and people is forever doomed to dust. No substance, no foundation and no hope. For what we do to the animal kingdom will be what we eventually do to ourselves. Let the horses and burros of this land go free. Human intervention has already taken its toll to the point that recovery is nearly impossible. Stop just STOP THIS INSANE MANAGEMENT AND DISTRUCTION OF A LIVING AMERICAN HERITAGE NOW.
This is very saddening and to hear they all might dead come next year breaks my heart.
What the Government, the BLM and the rest of the others have done to the American Wild Horse and burro’s is a disgrace.
Thank you for this heartbreaking but important information. I’ll direct our supporters to read this
[…] Source: wildhoofbeats.com […]
I am vehemently opposed to slaughtering wild horses and burros. Who wouldn’t be opposed to something so brutal and horrific and uncivilized? I can’t believe that the government would even consider slaughter of an entire species as an option of “management”. And before they are slaughtered they are terrorized by helicopters rounding them up..Some mares and their precious babies die from accidents caused by that terror alone. If this bill is passed to kill the wild horses and burros, I will never believe again in our government doing the right thing–the humane thing to protect animals. I’m sick to my stomach..
The BLM could set up great expanses of santuaries for the herds of our national heritage, but it’s quicker and cheaper to KILL them, rather than be totally influenced by cattle ranchers and sheep farmer lobbyists. It’s all about money and keeping the cattle ranchers happy. There is room for ALL. DO NOT KILL our wild horses!!!
Dorothy Ainsworth
Ashland Oregon
Hello,
I was right there with you on the bus last Saturday. This was my first tour with the wild horses and I share the same complaints. Not enough time to photograph these majestic beings. I drove up from Dallas on Friday and was so excited to be on the tour. I was also one of the ones who got off the bus after the virtual experience. I knew the horses would scatter as soon as the buses pulled up and that is exactly what happened. I was able to get a few pictures and was able to take a nice video of the herd. Just a bit disappointed that I didn’t have more time. Excited that the lady I was sitting next to was from the American Wild Horse Campaign and she used a number of my photos for their facebook page. I am just a amateur when it comes to capturing the beauty of these horses. I have a lot to learn. Im on instagram @ wildmustangspirit. Nice to meet you and love your work!
I was talking to my dad yesterday and he told me that the company my nephew works for had built a huge incinerator that had to be shipped by 3 trucks to be assembled when it got to its destination. My dad said that it was being shipped to Montana or the Dakotas from what he was told to burn the horses bodies once they were killed. I am no animal activist but this news made me feel sick. I don’t think that is the right thing to do. So my question is How long until the govt. decides to use them for people? One has to wonder.
BLM are animal killers. Fact!. A day of Reckoning will come to them all from God, from the Highest who who was charge of the round ups, transporting, euthanizing, and secretly selling these noble family animals to slaughter into Canada, Mexico, Japan, Europe and other miscellaneous countries. Those who hunted them down without mercy, the pregnant mares, the foals, the new born. Those who shot wild horses deliberately, and yes, the hellish demons who drove these animals for miles in extreme temperatures, the Sky demons aka as Contractor Pilots! We do not own anything on this planet. One Person owns it all and all the inhabitants on earth, that Person is the Creator and giver of Life, the Lord God. Psalm 89: verse 11. and there are many more scriptures that testify to this. So as the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate washed his hands in water to be” guiltless ” of the condemning and crucifixion and shedding Christ’s Blood, yet he had to answer to God still, so the BLM and ranchers and Kill buyers and those who took pleasure in torturing these animals in the slaughtering horror houses who have shed the blood of millions of these noble horses, they will give an account of their lack of love, mercy, respect, and and if found guilty by God will see their own destruction as they destroyed so many wonderful lives of God’s magnificent horses and burros, and other wild life in our public lands.
I hate the BLM , the kill buyers and those in the slaughtering business. They are people with no compassion, no mercy , no respect for God, or the lives of others. Proverbs 12:10.
Why can’t we vote out the horse killers? Expose the truth. B L M lies to make gain for the the ranchers.