Three Strikes Ranch update
Jan 13 2010
Most of you will remember the Three Strikes Ranch case, which I ended up going out to help hands-on with:
My original blog on the topic.
I didn’t realize it, but Jason Meduna’s trial is currently taking place.
http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/witnesses-meduna-had-help-ignored-conditions/
Let’s hope they throw every book they have at him! And I hope the incident will continue to serve as a warning for what can happen when well-meaning people believe they are going to have a sanctuary where mustangs live “as nature intended.” Nature doesn’t buy hay or pay vet bills, and when you have eighty dead horses between YOUR fences, it is just as prosecutable if they are mustangs or Thoroughbreds.
Try having a sanctuary with FIVE horses first, and see if you can handle that for a year…why doesn’t anyone ever do that???
79 comments to “Three Strikes Ranch update”
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I hope he fries. Or starves. Or freezes. Or whatever else those poor horses had to endure.
I wish this would truely happen, but that would fall under ‘curel and unusual punishment’ *sigh*. I personally think anyone who abuses/neglects an animal should have to go through the same thing that they inflected on said animal. But I do hope that they make an example out of him, not just a slap on the wrist, like they usually do. I wish people would take animal curelty and seriously and human cruelty. These are helpless animals, almost like toddlers. They can’t unlock the latches and go over to a foset and turn on the water or go to the feed room and get the food themselves. We, as human beings have to do this. Because we have taken away their right to travel to get asscess to food and water, so we have to burden ourselves with these tacts. And if you can’t do this for two horses, you shouldn’t as hell have 80 of them!
Why, oh why, do we persist in taking mustangs OFF the range, then struggle to find places for them? We can spay mares for a little bit of nothing. We can geld stallions for even less. Instead we spend thousands managing mustangs who could be returned to their original places on the range, and allowed to live their lives naturally– minus the foals that would increase herd sizes and pull down herd members.
Frankly, it drives me nuts.
As for the aptly named Three Strikes Ranch, it’s about time. Now for the real question. Is the court system tough enough to actually prevent this man from ever owning so much as a goldfish again? If not, then it’s not a win– just another set of posturing by our government.
I am curious– if these were mustangs, how many of them had not been inspected and formally turned over to private ownership? Abusing government owned property aught to have some sort of fantastic consequences, shouldn’t it? I mean, we jail tax evaders….
My husband and I wonder why we can’t sell tags to shoot the horses…with birth control. PZP:
PZP is an immunocontraceptive derived from pig ovum, developed in 1987 and produced at the Science & Conservation Center in Billings, Montana. Mares treated with PZP produce antibodies against the vaccine. These antibodies block fertilization of their own ovum, preventing conception. PZP is injected into the muscle of mares receiving treatment, via hand injection, jab stick, or remote delivery with darts.
So, it gives the gun nuts something to do, and helps the horses.
They use PZP on Assateague Island (the Maryland side) to control the herd numbers. The problem is, it’s costly, and some mares are resistant to it. Assateague Island National Seashore has a handful of mares that do not respond to PZP and pop out a foal year after year.
I agree with Charm. Why aren’t we gelding the stallions at the very least? It’s much less expensive to geld a stallion once in his life that shoot a mare with PZP every year of hers. Isn’t it just as easy to round up the stallions, determine which are “nice enough” to be allowed to stay intact (and I’m sure there are very few), geld them, and then release them back into the wild? It’s enough to drive any sensible horseman/woman crazy.
If you gelded most of the colts, and sterilised a few so that the herd ethos was maintained, there would be little or no problem. Each band would still have it’s “stallion” and all the people that think they should roam wild and free would be happy, there would just be a great deal fewer foals (you would never get ALL the stallions!!) A concerted gelding programme, as we do with feral cats, neuter and return, would not leave the vacuum in the range that removing them does.
There is definitely room for some of them, and the ranchers should just have to put up with it, but the constant over breeding is doing the “breed” no good at all.
Even if the contraceptive is costly, it would still be infinitely cheaper than the cost of keeping the mare and her every years foal, for the rest of their lives. Getting people to contribute to a yearly contraception and gelding programme would be great.
Another problem with PZP is that it messes the horses cycles up. When the mares do become fertile again, the foals will often be born in the dead of winter, or with major deformities. Hippies like me don’t care for that too much.
There’s also been reported cases of stallions who become abusive to mares that are sterile.
From that perspective, gelding would be a more humane method. The geldings could roam around in bachelor groups together and everyone would be happy. But it’s not a logical fix either.
Gelding would be much more dangerous for the workers than shooting them with PZP. Gelding would also have to be done every year, which costs more money than the PZP every 4 years would. And roundups are very dangerous for the horses – if I recall correctly, 7 horses die from a roundup on average, so the fewer roundups, the better.
There’s just no easy fix. The government was given control, and like everything the government touches, Mustang management has turned into a big mess.
It’s all about greed pure and simple. They don’t want to spend any more money than necessary. I actually wrote a paper about the mustangs plight awhile ago for an english class. And if I remember right, cattle ranchers lease land that belong to the mustangs from the BLM, so the BLM have to keep the mustang population down/low. But they don’t want to geld or spay mares, no do they want to use birth control, that costs money. Like they don’t have any! Instead they want to round them up, put them in holding pens, auction them off, and if that doesn’t work, off to the kill pens they go. I admit that horses can tear up land like nothing. But that is only when you fence off areas and keep them in one area. Generally mother nature takes care of buisness. The BLM have no right (unless the numbers are exploding and are encroching into human inhabitated areas) to take them off their lands. In most cases the mustangs have been around even before people came around. I mean if their so desprite to get rid of them, why not give them away free to screened homes? Or get people willing to foster them and work with them, than try and sell them? It’s really sad how the BLM try and make it sound like their trying to save the land from erosion. That may be part of it, but it’s more the long the lines of being able to lease land to cattle ranchers.
I agree, in part, with what you are saying. Numbers need to be kept to an acceptable level, by acceptable means.
I would love to know what the people in the BLM are paid. Not the ones at “ground level” the hard working, often voluntary, people, but the ones at the top, the ones that never come out of their offices and have NO idea of their problems involved.
What one EARTH is the point of getting to the point where you have to pay people like Pioneer Girl to take the flaming animals and just keep them? They do NOTHING they are not trained or even taught the basics, they are merely kept.
They might as well be quality and humanely euthanised, it would be one hell of a lot cheaper and they could still be dog food.!!
“His overall plan was to train mustangs, to change the stereotypes of mustangs as not being good horses and educate people about the mustangs,†she said. “(His plan) was to find suitable homes for them once they were trained.â€
It’s gotten to the point that when I hear someone involved in animals say the words “stereotype” or “educate,” I assume they’re con artists. Idiots and cunning bastards seem to make a bee-line for the exact places marked Giant Swamp Of Trouble, and instantly get sucked in while screaming that being wary of swamps is DISCRIMINATION!! BIAS!! HATE!!! and, you know, a bummer. Please send cash now or we’re going to drain that swamp tomorrow. I’m sorry, I’m being sour, but I’m so tired of stories where strident people shriek for justice at the top of their lungs – “Gosh, it’s so wrong to DISCRIMINATE against pit bulls/mustangs/whatever. Let’s put on a show! And highlight how GREEEEEAT!!!! these critters can be!!!!” – and then totally, and utterly drop the ball themselves. Oops, did the rescue pitty we sprang from the pound kill the neighbor’s dog? Oops, did the mustangs we ‘preserved’ at our rescue end up starved to death? Oops, oops, oops… Hey, at least we tried!!!!! Sometimes, doing nothing actually is preferable to doing something badly.
And if you want to show how well you train them and rehome them, again, WHY can’t you start with FIVE?
I mean, how many can you ride in a day anyway?
START WITH A REASONABLE NUMBER. If you’re a new rescue/sanctuary, decide you’re going to stay at five or less animals for one full year to see how it goes.
Wouldn’t that be, you know, sensible?
I currently have ONE horse because all I have time for is ONE horse. She was a save, not really a rescue, because that is also what I have money to take care of right now, and what I had money to get out of a bad situation at the time.
BTW, everybody go back and read the Frying Pan thread from last week…lots of new pics!
Is there any way to make the pics smaller? Its so hard to really see the pics.
Can you put a link in, I can’t find it!
I don’t understand it either. If the BLM is so intent on exterminating the mustangs they could have been GONE if they had just gelded all the stallions and spayed the mares and turned them all out again! And it would have cost a fraction of the money it has eaten up over the years “managing” them. I know that is illegal but hey, what they are doing and have been doing is illegal and nobody (in power) seems to give a damn!
I hope Jason gets a visit from the Karma fairy.
I was just talking to a friend and I want to know why Trap-Neuter-Release wouldn’t solve the whole mustang problem?
Trap all the males and geld them.
Cost of feeding horses: very low
Cost of housing horses: only very temporarily
Issues with finding decent homes for horses: nonexistant
Follow up visits and associated costs: nonexistant
This would reduce the population and solve the problem, wouldn’t it? Along with saving like a GAZILLION of our tax dollars?
Yeah, that would be ideal. I don’t know why they must be federally protected when there are so many horses going to slaughter.
This woman and her husband have a contract with BLM to take care of a herd of mustang mares:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2008/01/a_breed_apart/
The mustangs are semi-wild and don’t seem to get hoof care/teeth floating, etc.
However they sure stay fat in the winter:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2007/12/winter_feeding/
It does appear as though they are taking reasonably good care of the horses and doing their best to make sure the mares and colts/stallions stay seperated. Maybe not a perfect situation but they are being cared for.
@ smartchic
Yeah, I agree. These horses aren’t getting the same standard of care as the average equine pet, but I think this does illustrate that it’s possible to humanely steward a large wild mustang herd. It takes a lot of cowboy-type skill, land, the right kind of equipment and daily commitment. They’re not trying to train the mustangs, like Meduna, but seem to see the government contract as part of their larger business.
A scenario like this operation seems to fit in with fugly’s T/N/R; like managing a feral cat colony. The feral kitties don’t get brushed, cuddled, or have their nails trimmed, but they do get counted, checked and fed. Kittens are removed and rehomed, etc.
The Pioneer Woman, aka Ree Drummond is a Very Cool Chick. Her blog is awesome (my favorite besides this one) and from what I’ve read, and from what I know about her, she and her husband and their ranch hands genuinely care about “their” mustang mares. Yes, the cattle ranch is their livelihood, and the mustang mare herd is in reality a sideline business, but the welfare of the girls is definitely important to them. Here’s a blog entry that Ree made explaining why the mustangs are with them: http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2009/02/why_all_the_horses/. They actually had to jump through a lot of hoops with the BLM before they were even ALLOWED to have them!
No, the horses don’t receive anything other than food, water and shelter. But that’s certainly more than they’re guaranteed to have living completely in the wild. Their population is controlled, they’re fat and happy, and their beauty is admired in Ree’s breathtaking photos of them which frequently appear in her blog. This is a very popular and successful blog – she has a book out, too – and I think publicizing a well-kept herd of mustangs does all of them good!
Isn’t the mustang problem less that we don’t have the space/predation to control the herds than whether we can shove more cheap public lands under more cheap beef to sell for 99 cents at McDonalds? I’ve heard somewhere that it’s more the cattlemen than mustangs…
Yes, exactly!
Not that cattle ranchers are the bad guys, they deserve to make a living too. The fucked-up thing is the whole system that somehow it became the right of the government to use OUR hard-earned tax dollars to benefit narrow “economic interests” (defined by lobbyists and paid for by large business who are invested in keeping up the status quo) to the detriment of what most citizens value (small businesses, wild horses, publicly-owned natural resources being managed effectively, a reasonable amount of personal freedom and privacy, etc. etc.)
I like Christymae’s idea of turning wild horse contraception into a kind of eco-tourism thing. I mean, tourism is America’s most profitable industry now (ever since our government started selling at a loss our natural resources to other countries, and gave away our manufacturing industry to countries that don’t care about about human rights or the environment.) I could see a tourism niche that is not only profitable but benefits the wild horses a lot more–give tax credits to ranchers who maintain wild horse habitat, and those who do the best job get contracts to build resorts, where tourists get to be “cowboys” shoot the mares with PZP, and participate in “roundups” to catch-geld-care for-release the colts and stallions. I could see cowboy wannabes from all over the world paying big bucks for this kind of vacation.
How many of those ranchers are actually ranchers and how many are now no more than people working for large conglomerates?
I have sympathy for someone who is defending his/her way of life and family ranch, as “Pioneer Woman ” is (and you really should follow her blog, she is smart and funny!) I have NO sympathy with these large tracts of land bought by companies, or leased to them. None whatsoever.
The “problem” with the Mustang population and management can all pretty much be traced back to the BLM. They lease public lands to cattle and sheep ranchers for a song, let the cattle wreck all the land, and then tell people that Mustangs are at fault because “they paw the ground when they eat” (I was told this by a BLM official at an adoption event.). To make matters worse, the “stereotypes” people have about Mustangs are either inflamed or dangerously subverted by the same BLM officials, who claim that (a) mares are impossible to train – compared to unhandled stallions and stud colts – and therefore are unadoptable (b) you can completely train a Mustang in 20 minutes and (c) you don’t need to have any horse experience whatsoever to own, train, and ride a Mustang. They say you don’t even need a trainer. I’m not exaggerating: I was told all of this by a BLM official (who also told me that a malnourished two year-old filly was “supposed to look that way” and refused to consider moving her to a pen where the other horses would not prevent her from eating).
I apologize, I ranted, but the BLM is corrupt and incompetent and it’s costing horses their lives.
Not saying you’re lying as you may have found the asshat of the BLM to say that crap but every BLM representative I have ever talked to was straight up about the challenge of gentling and training a mustang. I have been to several adoptions and mares are what they had the most of at each one, and that is somewhat a result of them trying to get more mares off the range so they don’t keep making babies out there. I have seen no stallions at any of the BLM adoptions (several) that I have attended – all males were geldings as they should be.
(to Akeems mom) Yeah I did probably luck out and find the worst of the worst BLM asshats out there, I’m not trying to say that ALL of the BLM officials are like that, but even having a few of them really complicates things.
At the adoption I attended, there was about a 1:1 ratio of mares to stallions (about 40 horses altogether). Only a few of the males were gelded, the rest were stallions and stud colts. By the end of the event they had adopted out every single stallion but one, but they’d only adopted out three mares out of about 20 – and there were some nice, calm, well conformed mares there. It may have had something to do with the fact that all of the stallions were palomino/dun/grulla/sorrel/gray and the mares were all bay/brown/chestnut.
Off topic, but it appears that yesterday several agencies got together and raided those backwater slaughter operations outside of Miami:
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI140909/
A good example of effective use of the media, for sure.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but here’s a more detailed article:
http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2010/01/067.shtml
I guess I don’t understand why darting the mares with birth control doesn’t work. Seems like it might even be less expensive than gelding, the horses lead nearly completely natural lives. I’ve visited Assateague Island many times, and on the Maryland side of the island that is what they use to control the pony population. It seems to working fine there – I’ve only ever seen one foal and I used to go yearly.
Just seems like an easier solution to me than rounding them up.
It does work on most of the horses (we go yearly, too, and my cousin volunteers with the rangers). And even though you only see one foal, that doesn’t mean that’s all there are. At least 5 foals were born on Assateague last year (some were later in the summer), and while I know that doesn’t sound like very many, the horses on the Maryland end are restricted to a (roughly) 15-mile-long strip of land that is only part marsh (I’m not sure of the width, but it’s not a wide island at all). The rest of it is beach. And depending on what the numbers look like at the end of the winter, there are over 100 horses on that small patch of land (biologists estimate that the land can support a little over 80 horses without damamging the fragile marshes and keeping the horses at their healthiest). That’s a lot of horses when you consider the environment.
Also, the PZP shots are $25 per shot. Again, it looks like a low number, but consider how many mares are on the range, how long they live, and the costs of rounding them up and paying people who are educated and skilled enough to shoot the dart gun. That adds up, and after it’s all said and done, you could probably have paid for 3 or 4 gelding procedures, maybe even more.
Why not start with five?
I believe the answer to your question is something along the lines of:
Because FIVE doesn’t LOOK nearly as GENEROUS!! Why ask donors to help pay for FIVE measly horses when you can show off how super-de-duper generous you are “taking care of” FIFTY!! “WOW! What a kind person!”, the donors will all say right before they sign their checks… These asshats (btw, love that word) are greedy bastards to begin with, it’s not about rehabbing horses, changing opinions of stereotypes or giving a few good ol’ boys a well-deserved retirement…it’s about the notoriety…and they damn sure don’t see that comin’ with five horses.
Here’s today’s update: http://www.nptelegraph.com/articles/2010/01/14/news/state/70000507.txt
The trial is set to end tomorrow.
And this really has nothing to do with the wild horses being removed and everything to do with an attention-whore hoarder that was smart enough to know better. He could have taken in $10 grades as easily as Mustangs. That said, the “Mustang problem” will be inevitably getting worse with Salazar and Abbey planning to remove 13,000 this year off the range. They were talking about euthanizing the 30,000 they have but it’s okay to take off 13,000 more? Where the hell are they planning on putting them?
Birth control certainly can’t be as expensive as long term holding.
There are also problems with the birth control as it has the mares cycle inappropriately during the seasonal year exposing very young foals to dangerous (nonoptimal) seasons.
Maybe Cathy can answer answer my next questions: Why did BLM show up and remove an equine (or equines)? Was it ever discovered what the business relationship was between Meduna and DOI? How many of the carcasses were found to be BLM or former BLM horses? Didn’t Meduna have a training agreement with DOI?
5 of the horses at 3 Strikes Ranch were adopted through the BLM in the “normal way”. Adopters are not given the title to the horse until 1 year after the initial adoption. Of those 5 horses, 1 filly survived. I believe she was actually adopted under Anissa Meduna’s name. In any event, since it still belonged to the BLM, they went to the ranch and removed it before the investigation and full-scale removal happened.
Since the others were all titled under the Burns Rider, the BLM legally had no claim to them and couldn’t do anything to help them. Though a BLM worker did help with the processing at the fairgrounds once the other horses were moved.
And another UPDATE:
They caught the sociopath who shot up that mare with arrows:
http://www.thecitizen.com/~citizen0/node/41414
I hope he gets charged as an adult. JEREMY RYAN RICHARDSON…watch out for this complete psycho…not even 18 yet!
In my state 17 y/o’s, for jurisdictional purposes in ANY criminal case, misdemeanor or felony, are adults. Don’t know how it is elsewhere.
This little shit should be gelded sans anesthetic using rusty can lid. grrrr
The reason they aren’t putting too much effort into gelding the males is that it only takes 1 stallion to breed hundreds of mares. Many wild stallions live their lives in bachelor bands breeding VERY few if any mares and if they were all gelded but one then the one left as a stallion would do it for them. Gelding all but a few stallions would hardly affect the population level. It would simply make the gene pool smaller. All being simply a giant waste of money and now the BLM would be making all the breeding decisions instead of the “survival of the fittest” theory/natural selection.
The only way to really regulate the amount of foals hitting the ground each year would be to spay the mares.
Now it is my opinion that spending that kind of money to get the mares spayed would be WELL WORTH IT once you consider how much money is spent on feed and upkeep of Mustangs in holding pens across the states… but well, BLM is full of a bunch of kill-happy fuck heads in my opinion.
If they spayed 100 mares it could potentially decrease the number of new mustangs in 5 years by 500. That would empty out an entire holding facility.
ARGH! the whole thing just pisses me off.
In the meantime- if you have the ability- adopt one and give it a good home. They make truly excellent horses.
Then do not geld them, sterilise them. Even simpler!!!
They remain stallions in everything except fertility and the status quo is maintained.
You could actually geld the majority of young males, that would aid their adoption prospects, but sterilising everything over five would mean that the “Top Dog” stallion, fertile or not, would remain top dog, and yet would produce no foals.
That is the whole point. Sterilizing or gelding the males will do hardly anything to affect the population. It needs to be taken care of on the female side.
rearding your suggestion of peeps trying to have a sanctuary with 5 horses to see if they can do it before they take more — I want to see a lot of these people be able to keep just ONE horse happy, healthy, sound, alive, and with a job for FIVE YEARS.
I agree with FHOTD If you are going to start a rescue start with five horses/animal or less. I would also make sure that you or your group personally have the funds and the labor to take care of the animals.
My biggest pet peeve about rescues. If you want me to adopt, contribute money to your place and you have a web site update your info. What I really would like to see is pictures of the animal when it first arrives, full body, side, front, back, wounds, feet,ect ,then a description of animal, age, sex, ect. Then twice a month, have a update on said animal with good pictures on how animal is doing. I know that this might be a pain in the rear, but if you are looking for money ,or a home for said animal ,what better way then to show people ,that you are doing what you say you are doing. Like I said its my pet peeve.
I’ve seen a lot of misconceptions here. So:
Mustangs were *not* here first. Humans have been here for 8000 years; horses for around 400. They are the feral descendants of the horses that were brought here by the first settlers, conquerers, etc.
I know of no “big conglomerate” beef growers. They don’t buy cattle until slaughter time. That way, the ranchers get all the risks involved in raising cattle.
Mustangs are on the range because voters want them there, and for no other reason.
It is necessary to keep the range from being destroyed, otherwise the animals will starve. (That’s what happened with Meduna. He needed to do supplemental feeding, because he had too many horses for the range. Clod.)
Horses *are* more destructive to pasture than cows.
The BLM’s money doesn’t grow on trees. They have an inflexible budget. They cannot afford $25 per shot, or gelding surgery.
If we manage to neuter all the mustangs, they will die out in one generation. No more of the iconic wild horses of the West. People would make a huge clamor about it.
I’ll go for the tourism idea – but only if the *tourists* pay for the shot/surgery, and the training needed to use a dart gun.
Not all BLM agents are idiots.
The problem with the mares who are resistant to birth control is that they may pass that resistance along to their foals.
As for me, I want to keep them on the range, both for emotional reasons, and because I want them to continue natural reproduction, instead of having humans decide who is allowed to breed. So I’m for continuing the roundups.
I also wouldn’t mind them being shot by hunters on foot. The meat would be fine with the USDA; no drugs. The horses would be living wild until they died, not sent to slaughter in trucks. But that bothers the non-hunters, and the folks who think that death is the worst fate any animal could suffer. I also do not want the cost of beef to rise because of more restrictions or arbitrary rate hikes on beef growers.
And I wouldn’t mind owning a mustang, either. (Where is that winning Lotto ticket? Sigh.)
Ruthie
To clarify, there use to be horses native to North America, but that species went extinct about 10,000 years ago. It was a different species of horse then the domestic horse. N. America looked very different back then, more like Africa today. There were lions and cheetahs (that’s why the N. American antelope can run so fast, they evolved to outrun cheetahs!) and even ‘elephants’ ie Mastodons and Mammoths, and camels and giant sloths etc. The North American horse was a different species just like the North American lion was a different species from the African lion. Given that they went extinct rather than being domesticated I believe they may have behaved more like zebras due to the large predators they evolved with. I’m getting rambly here, but my point is that the ancient native horse is nothing at all like the modern mustang other then being an equine.
“As for me, I want to keep them on the range, both for emotional reasons, and because I want them to continue natural reproduction, instead of having humans decide who is allowed to breed. So I’m for continuing the roundups.”
What about the concerns raised by geneticists who state that this year’s incoming planned roundups are going to decimate the genetic diversity of the remaining herds in several areas? That’s still ‘humans decide who is allowed to breed,’ and it seems damaging to a wild population to do so…inbreeding and lack of genetic adaptability are big concerns with wild animals. Scientists have cited the inadaptability of cheetahs for that same reason (they’re much less genetically diverse than other big cats). Their genetic bottleneck probably wasn’t due to human intervention in that case, but it’s still problematic for their species…so why encourage another animal to go through one?
This blog is always filled with doom and gloom about horse rescues. I wish you would give a minute or two to tell about the novel thing we have going in FL. We have a Horse Assistance Council with a neighbor helping neighbor policy. We do not seize, rescue, investigate horses. We leave that to Animal Control, but we do the fostering for them. We have fed at least 20 horses this winter for different people. Our policy is two bales of hay and two bags of feed per horse – no questions asked, just call us. After that someone will assess the situation to see if it is permanent or just a little more help is needed. If it is a permanent situation, we will help rehome some or all of the horses involved. We have paid for castration clincis. Charged the owners $25, $50 and $75 depending on age and cryptorchid status, we paid the rest. We have paid vet bills for people, we have paid farrier bills for others and we have donated many, many round bales of hay. We have a web site where any free horses can be posted. We have assisted in rehoming at least 10 horses this past couple of months (two of them were owned by the same old lady who had them since 1986, but could no longer care for them – we had to pay for castration for the pony stallion, shots, coggins, worming, etc for them.) We will do whatever we can to help the owners step up and take responsibility for their horses. We currently are fostering about 14 animals within our organization. From the rescues I have talked to in different states, we are pretty much a one-of-a-kind organization.
Sounds good…can you put up a link to the site, I know a lot of people would want to visit…..
We are a very small 501c3 organization who has been in operation 2.5 years. We started out as a group to help Santa Rosa County Animal Services and found that we could do more with our “Neighbor Helping Neighbor” policy than just foster horses for animal services. Our web site is srchorseassistance.org. We would love to have you visit. We are just a small group of 5 board of directors, no paid person, no overhead at all, every cent we raise goes to help the horses in our county. We have had lots of people from other counties want to know why their county doesn’t have something like this even from as far away as Arizona and Georgia. We are proud of how far we have come in a very short time. We even filed our own 501c3 so as not to have lawyer or accountant expenses. This past year we have done a lot of rehoming of horses for people who want to give their horses away, low cost castration clinics, castration of horses who are to be rehomed and euthanasia of a horse who had been on a dirt lot for 2 years with a broken neck. If you have ideas for our web site, we welcome them as we do not have a professional do that either. Thanks for wanting to learn more.
You “gave us a minute or two” to tell about your organization. What a great idea! People helping each other. Makes a lot of sense and there isn’t the embarrassment attached to being in need of assistance, I bet. If Animal Control were showing up at my doorstep on a regular basis and my neighbors were reporting ME for the skinnies on my land, I would be a lot more traumatized than if someone came to me privately and offered to help.
Keep up the great work!
Thank you for your response. We are justifiably proud of how much we have accomplished in 2.5 years. Web site is srchorseassistance.org. Visit us if you would like to – we would appreciate comments. The picture is kind of a mottled one of one of our board members and his wife riding on our lovely Blackwater Forest State Horse Facility at Coldwater River. We have just recently put our policies and procedures into a book so that we can pass on what we stand for and how we operate. It has been a real learning curve this past year as we struggled to find out where we fit. I had wondered if we should try to get certified with FUGLY’s report on the rescue certification, but we do not rescue, we do not keep any horses, just try to hellp the owners step up to the plate and take care of their own horses. We educate and we help with a food/hay bank and vet and farrier assistance.
I went and looked at your site and it seems like you people have really got the right idea, and I would like to thank you on behalf of all the horses you are helping!
I have 2 mustangs and they are wonderful. Even if I had the land, I could not do 50 horses justice. Here is an example of a ranch that does good things with larger numbers of mustangs http://www.mantleswildhorses.com/
I understand that you have to have at least a masters degree to hold a job (any job) in the BLMs wild horse program. So they can’t be stupid. I do think that privatized ranchers would do a better job. The government program like any government program grows if for no other reason than to secure it’s own survival. I think it muddies the whole situation. As far as letting people shoot mares with hormone contained darts: Bad idea. Half the time, non horse people can’t ID a horse as male or female from a distance and I could easily see poor animals both male and female getting overdosed with hormones. My one experience with Depo made me want to commit murder on a daily basis for a whole year. I thought that they were successfully using norplant in the wild?? But they need more funds?? I’ll bet there are ranchers who could get it done on the budget alloted for the program already. I certainly don’t see a simple solution but I feel it could be done with no horses in long term holding and less round ups (which would involve humane euthanizing). I really hope Meduna pays- I’d like to see him suffer some measure of what he doled out.
Horses out value cattle, IMO. In fact, they out value most people I know. Given the fact that man ruins all he touches, esp. when he is trying to “help or manage” something, nearly everything man would do is not going to help the mustangs’ wild future. I don’t see how removing hundreds of horses will help when they are replaced my thousands of cattle. The horses seemed to do just fine when their were thousands more of them than there are now. I remember stories of how the white man turned TB stallions out with the Indian herds of horses to try to “improve” their horses. The Indians gelded them all.
When were there thousands more than there are now???
I think that is another myth!
Very few tribes actually knew about, let alone practiced, castration, it is one of the reasons some of their ponies were so poor…..
I can’t navigate the newer format of the fugly blog as well as I used to be able to.(stop cheering) Totally took me forever to just figure out how to post a comment, but in case nobody else posted this
New update on Jason Meduna from that same website
http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/%e2%80%98my-horse-was-near-death-as-were-a-lot-of-the-horses-%e2%80%99/
I just had to note that I just approved blog comments at 28,000 feet.
Fly Virgin America – they have in flight wi-fi now!!! No more wasted time or boredom after you finish reading whatever you brought!
And then disappear into a big black hole….where’d you go?????
Thanks for your information.
I guess I’m still confused as to why the BLM let Meduna et al continue to adopt or take Burns Rider equines. Of course, I have no knowledge of the precise timeline.
From a legal perspective, it would seem BLM did have a business relationship with Meduna.
Do you know where (BLM holding lot) Meduna was getting the Burns Rider equines?…or the straight up adoption equines?
I can’t guarantee I’m right on my answers to these, but I have a fairly good idea. There’s so many things I want to know about this case but I couldn’t get off work for the trial!
The BLM probably let Meduna continue to take horses because they didn’t have a good reason not to. When I adopted my first Mustang I was told that the BLM was legally required to allow anyone and everyone to adopt so as not to show discrimination. Even if the person seems fishy or is a total novice, if they have the facilities, they get a horse. It’s part of why Mustangs get a bad rep – most of them are adopted by morons.
They never came to do the compliance check for my horse – so I could have been starving him and beating him with a 2 by 4 every day and the BLM would have given me his title after a year and never known. (Not that I am making light of such terrible thoughts, but it’s true) Meduna fit regular adoption requirements, and at the time of him taking all the horses, he seemed to be able to take care of them. He purchased my horse in 2005, for example.
From what I can figure, I think Meduna took quite a few at once, and then a steady flow from there. And part of the trouble was the large number of stallions (70?) that were roaming around breeding all the mares. There was a yearling filly adopted out who was pregant, the poor baby.
>> From a legal perspective, it would seem BLM did have a business relationship with Meduna.
Meduna definitely would’ve had a business deal with the BLM simply because you have to in order to be able to keep 5 untitled animals on one property. How far that went towards the sale authority horses, I don’t know. But thinking on how he even got that many horses to the ranch at $10 a horse, makes me think they definitely had something going on with the 3 Strikes horses too.
Once the horses fall under the Burns Rider, the BLM quits giving even half a damn about them. At that point they’re deemed “unadoptable” and are just taking up space. So if a man comes along wanting hundreds of them, it stands to reason that they probably did a fair amount to aid him in taking the horses off their hands.
>>Do you know where (BLM holding lot) Meduna was getting the Burns Rider equines?…or the straight up adoption equines?
Palamino Valley, Nevada was where a majority of them came from. And possibly Burns, Oregon? I see a lot of 3 Strikes horses coming out of Oregon. I can all but guarantee that not one of them came out of Colorado. The Colorado BLM seem good about getting around the Burns Rider every way they can.
It’s such wonderful news that he was convicted!!! Time to break out the Snoopy Dance!! I’m going crazy wondering how he’ll be sentenced.
Thanks for the time to reply…I will be passing on this info.
You said: “…..They never came to do the compliance check for my horse – so I could have been starving him and beating him with a 2 by 4 every day and the BLM would have given me his title after a year and never known. (Not that I am making light of such terrible thoughts, but it’s true) Meduna fit regular adoption requirements, and at the time of him taking all the horses, he seemed to be able to take care of them. He purchased my horse in 2005, for example…..”
There just seem to be a few problems with your summation (not you, of course…but the BLMs logic or lack there of).
Even county pounds aren’t allowed to just give animals to anyone (they frequently euthanize). Granted there is no follow up, but with taking BLM horses and considering the adoption process, to keep giving ($10 bucks or less) doesn’t seem to be in line with the (or any standards process) requirements. IOW, crap, if that’s BLM standard a car dealership or KB could pick up 3 strikes (not the ranch) horses….but I guess that’s exactly what is going on.
Anyone know of the wife and hired hands status?
Thanks again.
Fugly, Do you have any stories about the Mustangs that were adopted after being rescued from the 3 Strikes debacle? I was just wondering, there were adorable foals, just wondering if they made it. Some were in rough shape, as I recall…
The Unwanted Horse Coalition has a free downloadable brochure on rescueing horses, feeding them, etc. According to the brochure, it costs betwen $1,800-$2,400 a year to keep a horse. I am assuming — though the brochure isn’t clear on this — that a rescued horse, one of the “unwanted,” is going to be on the high side to care for — at least from the start. The length of time it takes for a horse with a BCS of 3 or higher to gain adequate weight, and (again, I am assuming) reach the desirable BCS score of between 5 and 6.5 which, according to Purina’s Nutrition and Management link on their Web site, is where you want your horses to be, is about two months, feeding the horse four or five times a day with good hay and grain (or senior/complete feed) at the rate of approximately 1.5 percent of the horse’s body weight per day.
And obviously if there are dental and farriery issues, the expense will be greater.
What this tells me is, if you want to do the rescue thing, you should have AT LEAST $2,400 in your horse fund PER HORSE YOU WANT TO SAVE so that you don’t find yourself so strapped that you can’t pay your other bills. This horse fund is there for when the donations and volunteers are not.
Now, I don’t know for a fact what it costs to care for a horse with a low BCS score. I fostered a 17hh former jumper that will ALWAYS be slab-sided. He was more Abe Lincoln than Santa Claus. But he got lots of food and ate every speck. I didn’t keep records of what he weighed (approximately) or how much I fed, but if the UHC brochure is accurate, that would give someone with an eye on saving horses a good idea what it will cost (and what the financial reserves should be) before heading to the auction or the feedlot.
We have just recently (October 29, 2009, gotten a thoroughbred – raced at Calder in FL – into our foster system who was a .5 BCS. He is now doing very well, gallopping around, shaking his tail and head and stamping for food. When he came into our care, he didn’t even associate a bucket with food. We put him in a pasture – nice grass, but not much nutrition as it was October even in FL – with lots of grass hay and started feeding him Seminole Senior Feed in 1/4 lb increments after a week on pasture/hay and water he had gained 40 lbs. He was 804 lbs. He is still the property of animal services, but will probably be up for adoption soon. Our SRCHAC, Inc. group provides most of the feed after the first month. We don’t have a lot of money in our county, so our assistance is critical.
One of the things we have done is put together a “New Horse Owner Packet” with lots of information about horse needs and costs. We also have put together a listing of services for horse owners in our county. We never had any way to locate a hay supplier, farrier, vet, trainer or barn builder before.
Fugly – I intend to if I’m ever flying a route where they’re the best option. Virgin Atlantic has great service and safety, so…
As for the Mustangs.
I’m entirely in favor of rounding up young, healthy, excess Mustangs, training them and selling them. In the right hands, they can make great trail horses. I wouldn’t be against gelding noticeably inferior colts and releasing them, either.
The problem here, really, is that in some cases the BLM has an odd idea of the sustainable population. And the *big* problem is unadoptable Mustangs sitting in pens for years.
I’d be in favor of the BLM employing shotgun euthanasia and selling the meat to zoos or hunt/greyhound kennels…I know, I know, ‘slaughter the Mustangs is bad’. But I don’t mean putting them on a double decker, I mean killing them quickly and cleanly. If they are NOT going to be adopted (Because, say, they have an old injury that makes them unsound, or they’re too old, or whatever) and they can’t be released, they should be culled. If they’re going to be culled, it should be done in a way to make the meat usable.
Totally OT but I was wondering if anyone knows what Ringling does with thier horses that they cant use anymore? I can find info on thier elephants, tigers, and exotic animals, but nothing on the equine dept. They say they breed alot of thier performing animals so Im sure they have some where they keep them for breeding??
You know after reading the update and further reflection I think it’s sheer stupidity to put fences up and expect horses to thrive living in large herds with no human intervention in the form of stewardship. The warm fuzzy folks who want their horses to live as close to wild as possible are IMO pretty much asshats. I think it’s a cop out instead of doing the right thing by the horse and gentling and training it- making it useful to someone. “The right thing” is the route that requires someone’s blood, sweat, and tears and a serious financial commitment.
And people who think horses are more important than food for people are also living by warm fuzzy emotion. Emotion isn’t going to fix the problems we have and in fact causes more problems. Removing emotion and replacing it with rational thought and finding and maintaining balance – even if that means making some hard decisions is the only way.
Our needs for warm fuzzy fixes need to stay in fantasy land (hollywood/books/stories) because they are otherwise useless with the exception to use them as HSUS ads to raise funds.
I very strongly wish you romantic idealists would study nature, instead of just worshiping it.
Rangeland management (and hunting management) prevents starvation. Nature works in a cycle. Here’s an over-simplified example, dealing with only 3 things out of several.
When deer forage is over-eaten, there is less and less of it, and deer begin to starve. Disease & parasites have an easier time.
Weaker deer means more food for predators, so their numbers rise, contributing further to the drop in deer population.
When deer become scarce, two things happen: the forage begins to rebound, and predator numbers fall, due to disease, parasites, and starvation.
With forage becoming abundant, and predator numbers down, deer population increases – leading to loss of forage, and it all starts over again.
The only way to keep this in balance – with enough food for all – is to control the population of deer. The large herbivores are the pivot point of this balance.
Disease, parasites, and starvation. We all want to kill people like Meduna who allow this to happen to horses. Yet, leaving our iconic mustangs out on the range, with no management, would just start nature’s 3-way seesaw into movement again.
Think about it.
Ruthie
I’m one of your supposedly clueless “romantic idealists” but I still agree with everything you say, up to a point. I would rather see some appropriate areas set aside, free from human-created economic influences, where preyed-upon animals (horses, deer, antelope or whatever ) live in generous areas where the 123 of disease, starvation and predation have a chance to play themelves out according to nature.
So true, that in nature, horses die–that’s fine–the cougars, bears, wolves, raccoons, slugs, insects and bacteria gotta eat too. Nothing wrong with that. As long as they feed on the weakest prey animals who die a natural death according to survival of the fittest. Not animals who were contained by Jason Meduna’s fences away from any water or healthy grazing, who died a tortuous, undeserved death due to one person’s conception of survival of the fittest that had more to do with his own ego than natural biology.
I wish we did not need rescues
Verdict just came in:
Guilty on all 145 counts.
There really is a God!
Just read on ABR forum that he was found GUILTY on 145 of 149 felony counts!! Yippee!!!
Sorry for being AWOL – I had a day off with the horses yesterday and my phone battery died!
FANTASTIC news about Jason Meduna. I am thrilled!
I am very happy for the guilty verdict but can’t keep from thinking, “Why didn’t they charge his wife Anissa as well?”
Excellent question. I’d like to know, too. Clearly she was an accomplice to it.
One more comment on starting with a few horses in a sanctuary or rescue and then seeing if you can get along well for a year: The amount of work increases geometrically to the number of horses. Twice the horses doesn’t mean twice the work. It is FOUR times the work. That means if you’ve got nothing but time on your hands, you can probably manage, but if you’re working outside the home or have a family or other obligations, you’d better get help.
I fostered a horse for 18 months and the ONLY thing that didn’t take a really long time was feeding hay. I can toss flakes like nobody’s business. But the grooming, cleaning, clipping, and turning out took MUCH longer.
Granted I had them in stalls with paddocks, which required daily cleaning — but I wasn’t spending twice the time.
As for expense, yes, it was twice as costly. At least THAT part did not increase geometrically. ;o)
This is one of the reasons I just do not buy all the usual excuses that these “whingers” give for not having fed the horses (up to and including not being able to afford it….show me someone who has obviously not fed themselves properly for a long time, and I might listen but all these people, without exception, have fed their own faces while their animals starve) Tossing hay out and making sure there is drinkable water takes minutes even with large numbers of animals….see Pioneer Woman’s blog for video of the mustangs being fed…they drive in, “pick up” the horses by driving round, so they are all together, pull a lever to start the cow cake dropping out the back (but a kid with a sack of feed and a knife works well too, I used to be that kid!) then drive round a bit so everyone gets some. Then they do the same tossing out hay (yep, me again!!) and that is EIGHTY head of horses adequately fed. In under ten minutes, taking the work of ONE person (and a truck….two people and a trolley could do it in twenty minutes)
So all this rubbish about not be able to and not having time etc etc is just that, rubbish.
Good news about JM….but what penalty will he get???
I should like to believe that they will throw the book at him, but I am afraid I don’t…….
Now we’ll wait for the sentence…
I pray that it doesn’t contain the word “concurrently.”
Next, all donors should sue for their money back, or get active in providing evidence that they were defrauded.
Hoping that the right thing will be done,
Ruthie
This guy reminds me of a guy whose hay I tried out last year– all looks and no brains. My mare kept a very neat stall- manure in one corner, pee beside it, and feed in another corner. She kept moving chunks (about half of each flake) of his hay to the manure pile. Now this is a mare who usually eats every last little sliver of hay, picking the little tiny pieces out of the sawdust. I would move the hay back to her feeding corner and feed with new hay and I would not only find the hay that had been moved to the maure pile the previous day back in the maure pile, but also a good bit of the new hay in the pile. I told him she thought it was crap. He told me “Oh, she’s just getting fuller faster”. My quarter horse does not have “full” in her vocabulary. Nice try, though.