Tag Archives: Mustangs

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

PZP in the Pryors

Leave a comment

Bolder & Texas, a ten-year-old mare who has foaled only once, PZP'd again last fall in the roundup

Comments on BLM’s Plan to Extend Infertility Drug Use through 2015 Due by September 16th

Dear Cloud Supporters;

Mark your calendars. Comments regarding a five-year plan to continue the use of Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) infertility drugs on Pryor wild horse mares are due on September 16. The initial scoping letter from the Billings BLM was mailed on August 18.

As a result of aggressive infertility applications delivered via shots last fall and dart guns this spring, 52 mares on the mountain are cycling monthly (coming into estrous or heat), being bred, and defended by their band stallions.

Makendra and I were in the Pryors last week for 5 days and I witnessed more societal disruption than I have seen in over 16 years of documenting these horses. Currently, it is a herd in chaos. 60% of the 18 bands we observed have had some kind of disruption. Three band stallions have lost their families all together. Some band stallions have benefitted from the intense competition — like Cloud, who won a new mare. This high degree of disruption has taken place just since our last visit in July.

Continue reading PZP in the Pryors →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Upcoming Interview Schedule with Madeleine Pickens and Pony Express Update

Leave a comment

Dear Humanitarians,

Here’s an update on the Pony Express Campaign:

We have been sent 17,351 letters! You all have been fabulous in sending the letters and promoting the campaign! Keep them coming. We’re in the home stretch now. We need 20,000 by September 1st. It takes less than a minute to click here and send your letter to us. Please do this for our wild mustangs and for future generations so that they can see these majestic creatures thriving in their natural environment.

A huge thanks to all the organizations that have added the Pony Express to your websites, blogs, and E-blasts, we truly appreciate every single one of our supporters!

I will also be a guest on Mr. Wayne’s Radio Show on Restless Republic Radio at 11:15am PST on Thursday, August 26th. He is the Host for The Green Revolution Show.

Continue reading Upcoming Interview Schedule with Madeleine Pickens and Pony Express Update →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Don’t Fence Cloud’s Herd In, by Ginger Kathrens

2 Comments

Photos by The Cloud Foundation

The Fight to Save a Legendary Wild Horse Herd

The Custer National Forest awarded a contract on August 6, 2010. It calls for the building of new, bigger, stronger, longer fence to prevent the Pryor Wild Horse Herd from grazing on their mid-summer through fall pastures atop their mountain home. The first question I am always asked is “Why?” To answer honestly, I am not sure what is pushing this kind of expensive and unwanted project. But, to even try to answer the question requires a bit of a history lesson.

The wild horses of the Pryor Mountains, known as the Arrowhead Mountains to the Crow Indians, have been documented as living in this area since the early 1800s. But, they probably have lived here for far longer. The Arrowheads were the sacred heart of Crow Indian country, and the Crow tribe possessed the largest horse herd in the West. The wild horses are likely descended of their treasured war ponies.

It is also likely that they are the descendants of the horses of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The famous explorers had traded for Shoshone and Nez Perce stock and on their return trip from the West Coast in 1806 they put Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor in charge of bringing the horses back to the Missouri River. While camped in the Arrowheads, the Crow Indians stole all the horses. The mountains were subsequently named for the hapless Sergeant.

Continue reading Don’t Fence Cloud’s Herd In, by Ginger Kathrens →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

California’s Wild Horses & Burros Need Your Help

1 Comment

Photos by Craig Downer

BLM conducting a bloody 2000+ mustang and burro roundup

California doesn’t have many wild horses and very few wild burros left but that, along with a public outcry, has not stopped the Bureau of Land Management from rounding up thousands more of California’s wild equids. The BLM, responsible for managing most of the remaining wild horses and burros in ten Western States, are now running horses ten miles or more over rough volcanic terrain with helicopters. Horses bleeding from their noses in the thick dust, very young foals separated from their mothers, a mare with a broken leg and a colicking mare have been observed by a dedicated team of advocates observing the Twin Peaks roundup.

California has lost 16 of the original 38 wild horse herds designated for protection in 1971 and over 2/3 of the public land tagged for wild horses and burros has been taken away from these celebrated icons of the West. Now BLM is working fast to remove 1855 mustangs and 210 wild burros from the Twin Peaks area, just north of Susanville, California. The roundup is scheduled to last 45-60 days and BLM aims to leave only 450 mustangs and 72 burros on this 1250-square mile range, larger than the state of Rhode Island.  Almost all the mares returned would be given infertility drugs and a mere 72 burros is not a genetically viable population in this beautiful area designated principally for their use.  Over 32,000 privately-owned cattle and sheep are permitted to graze annually on the Twin Peaks area. Revenues generated yearly from livestock grazing fees are estimated at $120,000 while the cost of rounding up/processing of 1,980 wild horses and burros would be 35 times the annual grazing revenues – over $4 million. Over 38,000 wild horses are in government holding while less than half that remain on the range and BLM plans to complete the removal of 12,000 wild horses and burros this fiscal year alone.

Continue reading California’s Wild Horses & Burros Need Your Help →

*Featured/Spotlights, Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Oppose Massive Roundup of Nearly 1,600 Wild Horses in Wyoming’s Red Desert

1 Comment

Last week, at least 54 members of Congress wrote to the Interior Department demanding a halt to the wild horse roundups. This important action would not have happened without your voice opposing each of these unnecessary roundups. While the BLM is moving forward with its wild horse roundup schedule, despite overwhelming public and Congressional opposition, we must keep up the pressure.

In October, the BLM plans to remove nearly 1,600 wild horses – 80 percent of the estimated mustang population living in the Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek Herd Management Areas in the pristine Red Desert region of Wyoming. This is another unnecessary roundup to cater to the private livestock industry, which uses the same lands for cheap grazing. Click here to take action to oppose this roundup.

In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031
idainfo@idausa.org

*Featured/Spotlights, Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

Do Something Wild This Summer — Save the Wild Horses!

Leave a comment

Dear Humanitarian:

One of the most successful components of any grassroots campaign is the involvement of our youth and that couldn’t be truer than with our current efforts to protect America’s wild horses.  Kids, with their passion and honesty, are welcome and critical additions to spreading the word.  Anyone working on this issue has probably heard how massive letter writing campaigns by children all over the U.S. helped Wild Horse Annie get Congress to pass the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971.  Many adults fighting for wild horses today got their start at that time.  We need to reignite that passion because if we don’t act soon, the children of today might not be able to enjoy wild horses for much longer.

To help get more young people involved, AWI has turned its recent “Home on the Range?” ad into a coloring page for kids.  Our goal is to get this to as many children as possible so they can color it in and mail it to the Senators and Representative of the Congressional district where they live and to President Obama.  If kids are particularly enthusiastic they can also send copies to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and to us at the Animal Welfare Institute.

Continue reading Do Something Wild This Summer — Save the Wild Horses! →

Breeds, Contributors/Press, Events, Wild Horse Sources

It’s Official! The Mustangs Are Going to Be in the Rose Bowl Parade on New Years Day!

1 Comment

Saving America’s Mustangs is thrilled to officially announce that the mustangs will be in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day! Please watch on Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 8 a.m. (PST), along with 53 million spectators from around the world, as we celebrate the New Year at the 122nd Rose Parade. The parade is well-known for amazing floral floats, high-stepping equestrians, and spirited bands. We will get double the exposure as our national icons are featured in the equestrian side as well as the float side of the parade!

Accompanying our mustangs in the parade will be: our retired military service dogs, members of several Native American tribes, dancers, Active Military Personnel, Wounded Soldiers, and Veterans! A very patriotic tribute to our American heritage!

Please share this with your friends and family. We would love to wave to you in the stands as we trot by, but if you can’t make the parade in person, please watch it live on television!

Continue reading It’s Official! The Mustangs Are Going to Be in the Rose Bowl Parade on New Years Day! →

Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

A Slick in the Night, by Valerie James-Patton

Leave a comment

July 29, 2010 – We keep hearing the upsetting stories from our wild horse advocates living in Nevada near the BLM wild horse holding facilities about wild horses being hauled in the middle of the night and disappearing. We hear it often.

We’ve been told by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), that’s to prevent the horses from getting overheated during the high temperatures in the hot summer months, but that doesn’t fly when we hear of it happening during the cold winter months.

When numbers from BLM reports don’t add up, and large numbers of horses are missing from the charts, all those stories of night-time hauls come to mind.

Continue reading A Slick in the Night, by Valerie James-Patton →

*Featured/Spotlights, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

We’ve Heard You – Get on Board the Pony Express by September 1st!

Leave a comment

Dear Friends, Supporters, and Future Supporters,

We have heard you voice your complaints about the roundups.

We have listened to you share so many of your personal stories about your own adopted mustangs.

We have all sent thousands of letters via fax, email, and USPS to our Government officials, even to the point of their phone lines being unplugged and emails shut down due to the high volume of wild horse supporters on this issue.

We are doing all of these things daily, but there still has been NO change.

It’s time for the PONY EXPRESS!

I will personally hand deliver each and every letter that you write, via the Pony Express (one of our beautiful mustangs), to Washington DC. I am setting a goal of 20,000 individual letters to take with me. Americans, international supporters, animal activists, anyone who would like to tell President Obama, Secretary Salazar, and Bob Abbey that we aren’t going to sit by waiting until these roundups are over is encouraged to write. This is a very important issue to hundreds of thousands of people that have pleaded with our government to stop gathering our wild horses.  This way they cannot unplug their phones, make their website impossible to send a comment to, or delete emails. These are GOING to get to Washington. I promise you that!

Continue reading We’ve Heard You – Get on Board the Pony Express by September 1st! →

Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

How Do You Make 2000 Horses Disappear? Let BLM Manage Them.

2 Comments

July 27, 2010 – CHICAGO, (EWA) – As controversy swirls over the aggressive removal of horses from the range by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a more fundamental question has arisen over what is happening to the horses it already has in holding. Over the past several years, equine advocates have been scrutinizing the BLM’s horse population counts. Once again, the numbers don’t add up to their claims.

The BLM doesn’t make it easy to track horses being removed from the range or residing in short and long term holding. The taxpayers who pay for the removals and the subsequent care are not allowed to view the horses under the well worn excuse that they are being held on “private property”. Consequently, there are no checks and balances to verify information being reported.

It also raises a salient question. With 262 million mostly vacant acres under its control, why on earth is a federal agency such as the BLM wasting taxpayer’s money to lease private property?

Continue reading How Do You Make 2000 Horses Disappear? Let BLM Manage Them. →