Update from Cloud’s Mountaintop

A letter from Director Ginger Kathrens

Dear Friends of Cloud and all wild horses:

We just returned from a wonderful week with the wild horses of the Pryor Mountains.

Abundant rain has turned the range emerald green. All the horses are fat, and most are sleek, except for a few yearlings who still have remnants of their scraggly winter coats. There were twenty-some babies atop the mountain, including a charming trio of foals sired by Cloud’s son, Bolder. I can’t help but remember another trio of foals 15 years ago, sired by the magnificent black stallion, Raven. His son, Cloud, was a leggy white foal who loved to pester his two sisters, Smokey and Mahogany, and make wild runs around the clusters of fir trees after sunset.

Now, another athletic, white colt races across wide, sub-alpine meadows, and he too loves to tease his siblings. His little sister is a flashy dun filly, “Kicks A Lot”, and his little brother is a dark grullo with a blaze, “Absaroka” (what the Crow Indians call themselves — meaning Children of the Raven).

Last week, the three spent the better part of an hour playing in the early morning light near Penn’s Cabin. Absaroka likes to throw his leg over the white colt’s back and ride around in circles. The dun filly’s idea of a good time is pushing her butt into her brothers and kicking them — hence her name. The precocious white colt decided to visit Cloud’s band and was quickly reprimanded by his Grandpa, who screamed and lifted his front leg. The colt darted away to the safety of his band.  Bolder made no attempt to warn Cloud and the incident was quickly over, but probably not forgotten by the white colt.

Cloud was macho filthy for most of the time, taking numerous mud baths in one of the shallow rainwater depressions atop the mountain, then rolling in the dirt. He and his band were usually centrally located. If you imagine the spokes of a wheel, Cloud’s band was usually in the hub with the less dominant bands radiating outward to the periphery where there is less activity. This tells me that Cloud is still clearly the dominant stallion but Bolder too occupied a central position, often less than 100 feet from his famous father.

Further on the outside were Flint and his beautiful family. We named his daughter and step-daughter “Agate” and “Amber”, in keeping with the ‘Flintstones’ family theme.

Agate is Flint’s daughter with Feldspar and the sister of Jasper, her striped-up yearling brother.

Although not as dominant as Bolder, Flint seems secure with his family and is a wonderful father. He and Jasper are still buddies and can often be seen grazing together. Agate and Amber love to play as well.

It’s so much fun to watch the bands with more then one foal, not just for entertainment but to try to predict what kind of adults these youngsters might become based on their foal personalities. The coyote dun band stallion, Jackson, also has two foals, as does Lakota whose tiny grullo son, “Koda Wakan” (Lakota Sioux for special friend), was born last week when we were on the mountain.

I have taken pictures of seven foals on the day of their birth this spring and feel blessed to be present during their first moments of life. I’ll admit there is a sense of urgency to my picture taking this spring as I realize there will be so few babies next year. BLM gave infertility drugs to all the mares they caught (except Firestorm) in last fall’s massive roundup, which was also the largest removal in the history of this unique Spanish herd.

Our Foundation focus remains the same: to protect Cloud’s herd. We believe there is only one way this small, isolated herd can survive into the future and that is by expanding the boundaries of the range to reflect the historic use area of the herd. This is absolutely essential in order to prevent another roundup like the one we were unable to stop last September. Only through legal expansion will the horses be truly safe because BLM will have little reason to limit their population to the current, genetically unsafe size of only 125 adult horses.

You can earmark your gift to the Foundation by adding Range Expansion to your PayPal donation, in the note line, or send a check with a note in the subject line. These monies will go into a legal defense fund for the herd. Continuing donations are also essential to support our Freedom Fund horses. The Foundation pays a monthly fee for Conquistador and his herd mates to live together on a ranch just north of their Pryor home.

Your donations are also critical right now as we have expanded our efforts to include our fight to preserve all wild horse herds in the west, many of whom are coming under a barrage of attacks from BLM beginning next month. We are working hard, constantly commenting on roundup proposals detailed in BLM’s Environmental Assessments, attending all essential meetings including the recent Denver Workshop, writing and distributing press releases, creating newspaper and magazine articles — all in an attempt to educate the public about these serious and immediate threats to the wild ones.

In just the past six months I have spoken to audiences from California to Florida, urging them to take up the cause of wild horse and burro freedom. There has never been an assault on our wild herds like the one we are currently seeing from BLM, but the push back by the public is building. I have been told that there is a bigger public outcry now than the one in 1971 which led to the passage of the Wild Horse and Burro Act by a unanimous Congress.

Now, more than ever, we need your help. More wild horses live in confinement than in freedom and we are committed to flipping this equation around. Taxpayers are unnecessarily paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the rounding up and incarceration of these symbols of freedom. Millions of acres stolen from the horses and burros need to be returned, and the horses in holding freed to reoccupy their legally designated homes on the range. If we all work together, this is possible. Keep on fighting. Never give up.

Happy Trails!

Ginger

TAKE ACTION

We also need your immediate help as roundups are scheduled to start again on July 1. The time is now for an immediate moratorium on roundups before helicopters lift off again to remove thousands more mustangs from our public lands.
1.   Sign the new “Stop the Summer Roundups” petition. The roundups must stop in order to allow time for independent analysis on the true numbers of horses remaining and investigations into the true reasons for the massive removals.
2.   Support The Cloud Foundation’s work with a donation today and join us on Facebook & Twitter & check our Blog for frequent updates too).
3.   Contact media — the story of the mismanagement of our mustangs and burros needs to be revealed & shared. Write letters to the editor and ask National print and electronic outlets for better coverage. We are on the verge of losing wild horses and burros just as the public is being made aware of their existence. Don’t look back on this time and say ‘I should have done something to make a difference’. Make a difference today. Thank you.

The Cloud Foundation

107 South 7th St

Colorado Springs, CO 80905

719-633-3842

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