Busted
Sep 06 2011
Yes, they’re all mustangs, if we go by the
definition of the word.
The English word “mustang” comes from the Mexican Spanish word mestengo, derived from Spanish mesteño, meaning “stray livestock animal.” The Spanish word in turn may possibly originate from the Latin expression animalia mixta (mixed beasts), referring to beasts of uncertain ownership, which were distributed in shepherd councils, known as mestas in medieval Spain.A mestengo was any animal distributed in those councils, and by extension any feral animal.
So the mustangs featured were:
A.Florida Cracker
B.Spanish Mustang – “Gray Eagle”
C.mustang
D.mustang
E.Nakota
F.Salt Wells Herd (Wyo.)
G.Sorraia Stud
H.Kiger yearling
I.Sulpher yearling
I can’t believe I didn’t ditch the URL, I took them to Photoshop and changed everything up…guess I’d better get out my Photoshop for Dummies before the next round.
Before we go any further with this post I want to clarify something. I LIKE MUSTANGS.
There isn’t a horse on the planet I don’t like.There have been individual horses throughout my life which I could have done without, but as a species, all horses get two thumbs up.
I do however have a huge problem with the amount of money we, as taxpayers, are shelling out to protect a bunch of grade horses. Which is what they are. Grade horses. A bunch of them are butt-ugly, fugly messes too.
There are approximately 38,000 mustangs on the open range and over 41,000 more being supported by the BLM on ranches, which are the equivalent of permanent retirement homes in Florida, or jammed into holding pens, which would be the equivalent of a state run nursing home. I can’t help but wonder which are the biggest nutjobs here,the BLM or the very intense “Save the Mustang,” groups which go to every length imaginable to vilify anyone who dares to round up one of these horses.It doesn’t seem like either side looks much past their own agenda.
I’ve done some research on mustangs over the years, I’ve owned one, trained many and ridden one I would have liked to try to turn into a cowhorse.
Each one was a very different type of horse. They were little and arab-y like, in the middle like a
QH, big and draft-y or a horrible mix of it all.
My overwhelming impression was I could easily find the domestic equivalent at an auction, or in someones backyard, or rarely, through a good breeding program.
They had good feet and good bone, or bad feet and birdy bones, they were “primitive” in their coloring or they were red.
Some had stubby appy tails, some had flowing tails, some were big, some were small, some didn’t seem like horses at all.
OK, no more Dr. Seuss, you get my drift. I didn’t hate them, or consider them a waste of space, they were just horses.
These horses were no more complicated to break than any other horse, they didn’t seem smarter or faster or better in any way.
What they were was cheap. Any gomer could have one, no experience necessary. So lots of gomers owned them.
I saw many ruined mustangs, angry mustangs and spoiled mustangs.They gave me some good income, so I owe them in a way.
After I first heard about the Kigers I started to look at Mustangs a little more thoroughly. I learned there are pockets of different horses tucked away here and there with DNA which goes back to the Spaniards horses. Some go all the way back to the first horses reintroduced to America.
This is kind of cool. I can see the value of preserving these little drops of history.I like the idea of watching a herd of ancient history running free through a national park.
It does not make me think these horses are extra special, better than others, or worth more than any decently bred horse from a good breeding program.
It seems to me small pockets of animals, holed up in a little tiny undiscovered part of the mountains for hundreds of years, will end up much like the royal families of yore which only married their kids off to others of royal blood. They ended up with weakened bloodlines, an influx of disease and mental instability.
This is not a case of survival of the fittest, it’s a case of survival of the least screwed up.
When I read about these rare pure bloodlines going back to the Arabs and Andalusians I think, Huh?
Don’t ALL breeds go back to Arabs and Andalusians? Aren’t there still some Arabs an Andalusians out there?
Then I hear the argument, “But these horses descended from the finest horses bred by the Conquistadors.”
If I were a conquistador and I was sailing off to explore an unknown world, I’m not sure I’d be bringing my finest horses. I can’t imagine bringing Shining Spark with me into outer space. I’d leave him home where he could be bringing in those massive stud fees.
I’d bring something I could live without if he ran away, or an unknown tribesman snuck up and horse-jacked me.
Which brings up another point,if my finest horse was stolen I’d sure as hell go get him back.If I recall my history lessons, those conquistadors created quite a bit of death and mayhem for the New World people they met up with. Wouldn’t you think they’d pick up their stolen horse on the way through?
Then there are the other mustangs. The ones developed by ranchers turning out their own studs and shooting the wild ones to create their own herds.
Or sprung up from the drafts and saddle horses turned loose before the World Wars or the Great Depression. These are nothing but grade horses folks. Nothing wrong with a good grade horse, but nothing to be revered either.
Shoot, we’re breeding a whole new kind of mustang right now in 2011. With horses being dumped in record numbers, natural selection should kick in any minute. We should be ready to start saving the elusive, yet kind of stupid, “Bushama Mustang” in just another couple of years.
If there is a desire to preserve the rare and ancient herds, then I say go for it. Protect the tar out of them and let them do their thing.
The rest of them? I still don’t know why the gelding bus hasn’t pulled up and fixed the whole mess.
188 comments to “Busted”
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We need, have needed… now we must look at different solutions to over breeding by the feral horses. Some people read the number of acres the BLM has to manage and thinks it could be covered with horse and see no reason for it not to be. They lack an understanding that the land doesn’t always have water. It doesn’t always have forage. It may be made up of very fragile soil, and there are other people in the U.S. that care about the vegetation and wildlife in those places. The BLM has to manage the lands for all the various species of wildlife, vegetaion, and citizens.
I’ve been to some of the feedlots where adoption rejects are kept. Very sad to me. I will go as far to say there are worse things than death, and living life in one of those qualifies. But, horses being horses, they adapt and are just pretty content to have food, water, and other horses. So, at the most basic level, I will say what a waste of resources.
If some of the groups that so often take the BLM to court would find another cash cow and stop the BLM from trying to make the available options work, the BLM could use their slim resources to better develop range (but other groups would sue to prevent that – guaranteed). Maybe even expand the spaying of mares. What about a national herd made up of the best genetics on the range?
Personally, I bought several adoption rejects from a holding area. They all made okay mounts and I sold them to families.
The gelding bus hasn’t pulled up because like many other parts of our government supervision, there is money to be made if mustangs are rounded up, and there is money to be made if they are put into holding pens at roughly the same cost to the American taxpayer that you can pay to board your show horse at an upscale farm or ranch.
Yes, it’s a rip off, but I will tell you right now that the solution is NOT to simply get rid of mustangs. There is a whole lot that can and will and has been learned by studying mustangs, and if they were actually allowed to breed the way normal species of animals breed, you would indeed see natural selection at work. The mustangs we are seeing are part of very small herds, and inbreeding is becoming a problem. Thanks government.
There is no reason for any mustang to be sitting in a holding pen. The cost of spaying (which I repeatedly hear is ‘outrageously expensive) runs somewhere around $500 if you really are spending big bucks. If you want to get ripped off, you can pay as much as $2,000 for a fancy spaying operation. Which STILL is less than each mustang costs to feed for a year in a holding pen. I’ll admit that math isn’t my strong point, but to me it’s a no brainer– if the alternative is sitting in a holding pen or being spayed and returned to the wild, I imagine spaying is more cost effective and kinder to the horses as well.
Now… how exactly are you going to prevent the government and special interest groups who ACTUALLY run the government from sterilizing every last mustang using taxpayer money? Because despite what you might personally feel, the American public spoke up 40 years ago and clarified that they wanted their mustangs protected, and I haven’t noticed that anything has changed that way.
The BLM pays ranchers about $475/year for the care of each horse.
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro/wh_b_information_center/blm_statements/madeline_pickens.print.html (Ignore the reference to Pickens. I understand she is buying excess horses from tribes.)
That sounds very inexpensive until you start adding the numbers up. Then it starts looking like real money!
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro/wh_b_information_center/blm_statements/new_factsheet.html
BLM crews are able to spay less expensively than the typical veterinarian. But, there are groups who sue to block that, and any attempt to reduce fertility, too.
Wait… you consider 500$ for an invasive surgery outrageously expensive?? Well, let you never come to Canada, then, because I paid over 300$ to get my dog his 1yr shots and neutered. My brother paid close to 500$ to get his bitch spayed, and it’s going to cost my sister even more to get her bitch done. I suppose it all depends on where you are, but I would have thought the low mark for spaying a mare would be in the thousands, from the number of complaints I’ve heard from people.
Screw the gelding bus, you need to start talking about the tube tying truck as well.
I think she meant to put quotes around “outrageously expensive”. As in, the air-finger quotes which denote sarcasm or perhaps a disagreement with the term.
O.O Where do you live?? I’m a Canadian too and spaying/neutering a dog costs half that or less then half. I did a serious double-take you are paying that much.
Dogs aren’t horses, and horses,unfortunately, love to get peritonitis. So yes, spaying is a bit more expensive in horses than in dogs. However, I know of one man who produces trail horses (gaited) and he regularly spays nonbreeding mares because they sell better– people like owning and trail riding a mare who doesn’t get ‘marish’.
And yes, the quotes are sarcasm. I missed one quote, hence the confusion. The point is that the original excuse, that spaying costs so much more than gelding, is really a non-excuse.
More importantly, how to we effectively limit the feed lot situation that mustangs are put into while still preventing the government from destroying mustangs entirely? I think sterilization HAS to happen, unless you find a public that doesn’t mind re-introducing large numbers of wolves and wild cats and bears in an effort to limit herd numbers naturally.
I just have to say, I live in Calgary and I just spent a thousand dollars to have a tooth pulled on my cat, the rest of her teeth cleaned and bloodwork done. 300 for a spay? Sounds right to me. I’d have to ask mom how much it cost for our dog but it might be more.
Ditto. I’m up in Yukon and it’s $150 or so for the annual vaccinations plus worming, about 300 for a neuter, about $500 for spay, $500 or so for tooth cleaning. It would cost me $225, plus courier fees, plus processing fees, for a urinalysis and blood work suite for my cat, and about $500 for a teeth cleaning.
Yep sounds about right. I live in Alberta too, and the cost of vet care here is insane.
A horse is not a dog. One is quite a bit bigger than the other and harder to manipulate in case you didn’t notice. Comparing a surgery which almost every dog owner does with one that hardly any horse owners do is also absurd. Of course the rarely done surgery is going to be more expensive.
Sorry to burst your bubble but to spay a mare is very very expensive. I work at a vet who charges $2000+ for a spay. It is huge invasive surgery, he charges around the same for a c-section. Its not snip snip stitch stitch and your done it’s a big deal and horses are so prone to infection and other issues that make it much different then spaying a dog or cat. Think about it this way, How much do people pay for colic surgery? And how long do these horses have to stay in the hospital? I can promise you its not $500!
I paid around $900 and change to spay my mare in Colorado. I was lucky to have a vet experienced in the least invasive form of the procedure (vaginal, versus abdominal or flank), which cut the recovery time down to a couple of weeks, with about three weeks of antibiotics. Still not a trivial procedure!
I had my mare “fixed” 18 months ago. She had an ovariectomy, meaning that only her ovaries were removed. it was done laproscopically through her vagina, she only spent two days at the vet clinic, and I had to give her penicillin injections for 4 days, and the total bill was $800. That was for everything. She was on walk-trot only for a week, then back to regular work. I live in northern Indiana, USA.
Gotta love living in the midwest, where there are lots of horses and other livestock to help keep the vet and supply costs down.
Well said, Fugly 2.0. Mustang are just marketing. A gimmick-using, horse-ruining trainer in SoCal I know of used “Mustang Makeover” to Make a Name for himself. If there was a giraffe-training contest and money/fame for grabs, he’d have done that, too.
They are horses. Every now and then a decent specimen pops up, but why go to the trouble of jumping through the BLM’s hoops and training (or paying someone to train) a mustang when there are so many other well-socialized, (somewhat) trained cheap/cute pocket ponies up for grabs? Even when the economy was rocking, I turned down cheap/free healthy registered horses that needed the same time/training as a mustang. If I had the time, I’d go with the registered horse because I could find it a home — and maybe even not loose my butt on the investment.
And it’s interesting how the helicopter herding/corralling came about. Wild Horse Annie back in the day (early 70s?) hired a cowboy to help her capture her first herd of wild horses. He went out to the range, shot the stud and brought in the herd. Annie lost her mind. So the helicopters were brought in. The cowboy killed one stud, but the copters resulted in multiple injuries and deaths. Humane, eh? Dumbasses.
I have to ask, which trainer was it? I can think of a few trainers who “became famous” with Mustang Makeover, but I can’t pinpoint the one you’re talking about. I understand if you don’t want to divulge his name, though.
We got an adoption reject from the BLM, he was a 3yo crypt, but the gov’t had taken the visible ball. We got him for $50 and my husband was head over heels in love with him. Was he pretty..sort of, a beautiful strawberry roan, thick curly mane and tail. Feet like a kitchen skillet, big boned, a crazy nest neck and maybe 14 hands if he was all puffed up. He really looked a little like a welsh pony. Gentled within days and was leading fairly well within a week. He wasn’t difficult to do things with, his only freak out was when the barn cat was up in the arena rafters making noise, I don’t doubt that it was a cougar type reaction to something he couldn’t see way up high. That little horse bucked like a madman when we first saddled him up, even after lots of groundwork. We turned him out on a friends acreage behind their house and he remained easy to catch even though we had only had him a couple of months. We lost him about 9 months after getting him to colic. The necropsy showed massive intestinal adhesions that were attributed to the original vet who gelded him trying to find the retained testicle by fishing for it up through the inguinal ring. He was a sweet little horse.
Do I think we need to keep and feed all these horses, no. Maybe the ones with very specific DNA. Certain herds have very easygoing temperaments and others are very difficult. A couple of the stallions at one adoption were actually leaning into the panels to be scratched by people. I wish they would allow volunteers to spend time gentling the holding pen horses and I also wish they would get with it on the contraceptives to reduce the huge quantity of foals born every year.
Good post Mugly!
I went to a BLM adoption in April. Some of the horses available were drop dead gorgeous (and friendly!) while others were super fugly and had nasty temperaments to boot. Do you really think someone is going to adopt that? There is so much potential within the breed, I would love to see the best of the best continue to reproduce to develop a breed worth being proud of.
I live on the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. We have two small, unpopulated islands right off our coast. The larger of the two islands is Shackelford banks and it is home to around 100 feral ponies. These ponies are pretty much just horses that were left on the islands when residents realized that the island itself was a little too prone to being destroyed by hurricanes to rationalize staying there. While some people argue that these horses are descendants of Spanish horses, la la la, same story you always hear, the simple truth is that they are a bunch of grade work horses gone feral. They got left behind and managed to survive.
What they are nowadays is a nice little tourist attraction. Plenty of the locals enjoy them as well. There is a foundation that watches out for the ponies and I applaud the work they do. To make sure the ponies don’t overbreed, a certain number of mares are carefully selected each year to receive birth control shots. They have an ideal number of horses that the Island can support and remove weanlings if the total number is above the ideal. Because of the regular use of birth control they only have to remove foals once every few years and only have to take a small number (we’re talking 5 or fewer). Because the number of horses to adopt out is so small, the foundation is able to carefully screen potential adopters and the ponies only go to knowledgeable homes. By using the birth control method, they are also able to ensure that only the best genetics get passed on.
When we have a particularly harsh winter, the foundation spreads out supplemental hay–starving ponies do not make tourists happy. When a large number of the ponies tested positive for EIA a few years ago and the ignorant public screamed to let the horses continue to live happily on their little island where they wouldn’t hurt anyone (HELLO!! People own horses on the mainland less than a mile away!) and EIA wasn’t really fatal anyway (What?!), the foundation did the right thing, despite the protests, and destroyed the afflicted individuals, thereby saving the rest of the herd.
I say all that to say this, I would be sad is my Banker ponies disappeared. They may not be particularly useful, but they add to the rich local history. I feel the same way about the mustangs. It is possible to maintain feral horse herds. Yes, it’s going to take a lot of work to get there because the mustangs have a much larger range than my little Banker ponies and are much greater in number. Some, maybe a lot of horses might have to be destroyed in the process. As sad as it is, sometimes animals have to be sacrificed so that others can live. There simply isn’t enough room to absorb 90,000+ horses when Americans are barely making ends meet and horses are starving to death out on the wild range. If we really care about keeping the history of the American Mustang alive then something needs to be done to protect them, and by protecting them I don’t mean keeping every last horse alive and ensuring that every fertile mare gets pregnant every year. I mean destroying animals that don’t meet a certain quality. The BLM needs to be selective to make the Mustang a desirable animal once again. That’s gonna make a lot of people unhappy. It’s always a tragedy to see an otherwise healthy and sound animal destroyed, but you know what would be an even bigger tragedy? Loosing the American Mustang as a whole because a group of folks were too sappy to do what needed to be done.
I am also from NC, and was wondering if anyone was going to mention the Banker ponies. I think in general the Banker and Chincoteague herds are well managed, and the numbers stay quite low. Most of the east coast mustangs (i.e. island ponies) that I have seen have decent conformation and are in pretty good shape. Maybe the BLM can take some lessons from NC/VA/MD islands!
The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/wtchlist.html#horses) does not agree with you that the Shackleford horses are a bunch of grade work horses gone wild. You will find them listed under “Colonial Spanish horse”. Neither does the Horse of the Americas (http://www.horseoftheamericas.com/), which registers them. At one time they had an account of their trip to inspect the Shackleford and Corolla horses, along with representatives of the ALBC, on their website, but I can’t find it now.
The people who adopted the removed horses find them to be quite useful. See Mill Swamp Indian Horses (http://msindianhorses.com/offsite/corolla/) and Karma Farms (http://www.karmafarms.com/Corolla.html). The Corolla horses are on Currituck Bank and are probably very closely related to the Shackleford horses.
I forgot to add:
From the start, the BLM was supposed to return the best horses from a gather to the HMA and remove the more ordinary ones. Unfortunately, both they and their contracted horsecatchers have too often ignored this.
Yeah, but Horse of the Americas registers some pretty fugly beasts. I registered my Navajo reservation mare (semi-feral, initially bought as a yearling, with a lot of old Spanish characteristics) as an American Indian Horse, and HOA was keen to get my registration $$ as well. I briefly considered it, but then I saw they’ll register pretty much anything to make a buck (the registry is run by the Twisty Kat breeder, if any is familiar with that atrocity of intentional breeding).
I actually had to look up the term Twisty Kat because I had never heard of such a thing. HOLY SHIT!! Are those people insane? They are BREEDING for those poor critters to look like that?
*headdesk*
Life’s A Beach
http://36andsingle.blogspot.com/
I had to look it up too, and it’s just plain mean to breed that. Course, I’ve seen some horse breeders do some mean things too, producing horses that should have been put down at birth, selling them to first time (ignorant) horse owners, knowing that the horse wouldn’t make it to 4 or 5 yrs of age, and would never be rideable.
Mini breeders deliberately producing dwarves comes to mind (Yes, I know MOST mini breeders do their best to avoid it, but there are definitely some who are either doing it intentionally or just don’t care).
I won’t argue that they may have their origins with the Spanish horses, same as the Assateague ponies, but it wasn’t unusual at all for locals to take a pony from the island when they needed one and when the islanders inhabited Shackleford Banks there weren’t too many fences. The horses just roamed the island breeding willy-nilly with the horses that were already there and when the islanders abandoned Shackleford banks some of their horses were left behind. They may have started off as lost Spanish horses but they certainly didn’t stay pure.
Now, due to their isolation on the island, outside bloodlines have not been a major player for many years. This has allowed what remains in the gene pool to not become further contaminated, but like the Mustangs of the western states, people can claim the horses are super special all they want but when it comes down to it most of them are just horses. Plain and simple. Most of them are chestnuts and bays with a few duns thrown in for good measure. You would be hard pressed to find a Banker pony with stellar conformation and rarely do they get taller than 13hh, though that later bit is believed to be the result of difficult living conditions on the island.
I love the Banker ponies and I do think they are special but in my mind they’re just about as Spanish as I am Cherokee Indian. At 5’2″, blond hair, blue eyed, and frighteningly pale skinned, you would never know my great, great grandfather was 100% Native American. Sure, it’s in my heritage and you could probably find some genetic marker in my DNA for Cherokee, but it doesn’t really affect who I am today or what I look like. We are what we are and that’s North Carolinian which is special enough for me. Just my 2 cents, take it or leave it.
In other news, I can’t believe I misspelled Shackleford in my first post! I must have been more tired than I thought I was. Also, I know just about nothing when it comes to the Corolla, Ocrocoke, etc, ponies. I grew up playing on the beach at Shackleford on the weekends, hence my interest in them.
sourmilknightmares (want to know the reason for that name…): You say that some of the BLM horses were “drop dead gorgeous and friendly”? Wanna take a bet that those were recent additions to the band, halter and shoes removed, slapped on the butt and turned loose in the middle of the night? And the friendly attitude was “get me the hell out of here!!”
I just finished watching Chris Pollitt’s dvd on the Australian brumby (with focus on their hooves). Not sure if brumbys are considered a “breed” or are just a collection of feral animals as they are in the US? In any case, about 98% of the brumbys were fugly-looking things, although obviously with good bone and feet to make it in that environment. But then there were in particular 2 horses that were “drop dead gorgeous”. Tall, in good flesh, shiny coats, floating trots, looks like you could have saddled them and gone right into a HUS class. Were those “brumbys”? I think not. Just because they were running with the herd, they aren’t mustangs. They were obviously recently releases horses…
Actually many mustangs in the west are gorgeous, and these are animals that were almost certainly (or in a few cases I have seen, definitely…they were tracked since they were born) born wild. Don’t get me wrong, there are probably more fugly ones than good ones, but there are some absolutely stunning wild horses, especially from certain herds. We jokingly call them Spanish warmbloods around here, because they retain many Spanish characteristics (such as you would see in an Andalusion) but have also benefited from draft and ranch horses being turned loose. For example, I know of one mustang who was definitely born wild who is competing at Prix St. Georg currently, and doing very well. He came from a pretty isolate HRM as well, so it’s highly unlikely that he even had recent infusions of domestic blood in his pedigree. In addition I have worked with quite a few mustangs and most are friendlier than you would expect. Remember, they’re not truly wild but rather technically feral, and most are really happy to befriend people once they realize they’re not going to be hurt. Shoot, I once pet a wild horse on the range. They’re smart and curious and they will approach you if you’re careful. Just like deer, coyotes and many other truly wild animals, they are also becoming more and more accustomed to people as we move into their habitats. It’s normal for some of them to lose their fear.
I don’t know about brumbies, but I definitely wouldn’t look at a nice-looking or friendly mustang and assume he is someone’s pet or ranch horse that was turned loose unless there were some other indicators. I do think we need to let the BLM do some more careful herd management to improve those bloodlines and keep the wild horses from damaging the ecosystem, though. I mean, I would hate for mustangs to disappear from the American west, but at the same time they are an invasive species and they need to be managed. It’s good to have civilian oversight but at the same time most “wild horse advocates” I have encountered are happy with nothing less than the BLM just stepping off entirely. Sorry, even as a mustang lover that just isn’t acceptable.
If you are not a threat, then you are a potential grooming buddy. Horses are social animals, as long as you aren’t viewed as a predator.
I was actually able to speak with one of the BLM volunteers at the auction who was very helpful. The particular horse I was speaking of was a yearling filly who was a dark sooty dun thingy. Sorry, there is a gap in my education when it comes to colors. She was large, proportionate, with clean legs and a lovely head. This filly was curious and friendly and would allow people to scratch her nose and neck. She was quite content with herself despite being in what must have been a stressful situation for the horses. The volunteer believed that she had been born in a holding facility. I wish I could remember what part of the country she was from. The auction was held on a first come, first served basis, not really an auction at all. This filly was adopted by the second person in line and there were some disappointed people after that. She was on pretty much everybody’s want list.
I’m going to admit to being ignorant – but I didn’t know Florida Crackers were considered to be mustangs. I knew they had spanish ancestry – but don’t most feral horses have spanish blood in them? So wouldn’t even the marsh tacky or ponies like chincoteague’s be mustangs in essence?
Also, are there any feral herds of FC’s or are they just bred by people?
About the mustang issue – I’ll state right upfront that I’m not for the mustangs or against them, but the people and organizations involved are just all kinds of f**ked.
I believe they need to get rid of the BLM. They get paid to do ‘research’ into how many horses a range can handle at any one time – and then are paid to round up the excess horses. So basically, if they weren’t rounding up horses all the time, or maintaining horses in holding pens – they wouldn’t be getting paid, and seriously, who alive do you know would be okay with driving themselves out of their own jobs?
THEN you have cattle companies (yes companies, they’re are not too many family owned cattle ranches as there used to be, because they can’t compete with the big money) who graze for free on these lands and who are getting subsidies by the govt. to boot.
You can’t tell me that there isn’t money going from these cattle companies to either politicians (who maybe related to big cc’s) who are in charge of BLM or to BLM itself in lieu of getting those mustang mutts off the free grazing lands so that they can put more cattle on them.
It would be nice if someone had the information by the blm of how many mustangs could be sustained by a certain range per year – like on a graph, since the BLM has been around AND then compare it to the number of approved cattle grazing permits on the same range.
Okay, I admit, I’m pessimistic when it comes to govt. agencies these days – but if they do ultimately want the mustangs, why would it go them any good to actual practice cost effective management practices? I mean look – let’s jack up the price of how much it takes to upkeep these horses per year! Why? Because it’s not coming out of BLM’s pocket – it’s coming from the tax payer’s. And if they say it costs so many million a year to upkeep these horses, the non-horse loving taxpayers are going to say “F**K THAT! JUST SHOOT THE BEASTS!” So then you’ve got the permission of those politicians to okay the getting rid of mustangs at any cost to the mustangs. Why do you think the conrad burn’s law got passed? (the three strikes) If the horse can’t sell three times, which sounds reasonable until you realize how they sell these horses – then let them be put on a double decker and get the best price for the meat.
*meant to say “if they do ultimately want the mustangs GONE”
BLM handles more than just mustangs and grazing permits. They are also concerned with noxious weeds, river patrols, land surveying, recreation, and many other things. They are the Bureau of Land Management, not the Bureau of Mustang Management.
Thank you. This is just what I was going to point out.
I like in a state that is 90% federally-owned land. The BLM serves a mighty purpose beyond the “management” of mustangs.
From thr Florida Cracker Horse Association – “The Florida Cracker Horse, like the cattle breed of the same name, traces its ancestry to Spanish stock brought to Florida in the 1500′s when discovered by Spain. Preparing to return to Spain, the Spanish left some of their cattle, horses and hogs to make room for their collected treasures. The genetic heritage of the Cracker Horse is derived from the Iberian Horse of early sixteenth century Spain and includes blood of the North African Barb, Spanish Sorraia and Spanish Jennet (gaited). Its genetic base is generally the same as that of the Spanish Mustan
The free roaming Cracker Horses evolved over a long period of time by natural selection. They were molded and tempered by nature and a challenging environment into horses that ultimately were to have a large part in the emergence of Florida as a ranching and general agriculture state. The horses also played an important role in the life of the Seminole Indians.”
Most feral horses have very little, if any, Spanish blood. The Marsh Tacky is (mostly) Spanish. The Chincoteague was probably Spanish originally, but have had a variety of breeds mixed into them. I think any feral horse can also be called a mustang. While ‘mustang’ is derived from a Spanish word, I do not think it refers to only Spanish animals.
There are currently very few feral herds of Florida Crackers, I think maybe two, and one of them is slated to be removed. Most Florida Crackers are currently domestic bred.
Sort of off topic, but I have to disagree that there are few family run cattle operations left -there are a lot more than you might think. They are hard working people who are out in all the nastiest weather taking care of their cattle, aka, their livelihood. They graze their animals on BLM ground, but they pay for it. They also have to follow and abide by a ton of rules and regulations in order to keep their leases from year to year. The wild animals, horses included, do more damage to the range than the cattle do. Ranchers have a huge stake in protecting their grazing resources and are careful to move their animals before an area becomes over grazed. These folks are constantly under fire from the BLM, EPA, PETA, HSUS and several other groups who claim to want to “protect animals”. Meanwhile, wild animals including deer, elk, and horses, damage the range and are unchecked.
As for the wild horses, I don’t think it matters if a wild horse has DNA that without a doubt makes him a direct descendant of the Greatest Horse Known to Man, if it has a shitty temperament and/or exemplifies FUGLY, then it shouldn’t reproduce. If that ultimately means knocking him on the head and making room on the range for a “quality mustang” (whatever that is), well that makes more sense than keeping him in a BLM holding facility for the rest of his life, at a cost to the American Taxpayer that is much greater than the average cost of a privately owned horse.
HELLS YEAH. excellent post!
My mountain horse is a Mustang. He is not a BLM mustang since I am Canadian and so is he so I’ll admit it, I don’t actually know that much about the BLM or Amercian mustangs. I know here in Canada we don’t have as many, nor or they really protected. But they aren’t rounded up either. I also know that nothing perfects a trip to the mountains like seeing the wild horses. I’ve seen some that look like they have spanish in them and I’ve also experienced being able to walk up to two “wild” horses and pet them. Personally I’d like to see them getting some more protection as our mustangs have very limited. They’re used for target practice by some people. I love seeing them out in the wild, but that’s not always possible and I don’t have anything wrong with rounding them up. I think a better solution needs to be found to deal with them but I’ll try not to judge since I can’t think of a better solution that would make everyone happy and keep the horses safe.
I do agree that certain herds need to be protected. As I said, mustangs in Canada aren’t protected, except for our Sable Island Ponies. You need special permission to be able to go and visit the island, which is off the coast of Nova Scotia. There’s a lot of arguement about the origin of the ponies, the romantic idea is that they came from shipwrecked Thoroughbreds who, along with cows, chickens and pigs, washed up on the island and were the only animals to survive. More likely, they were farm horses and cart horses that were abandoned. Either way, they’ve developed into their own breed now. They a part of Canadian heritage and I truly believe that they should protected. They don’t have any natural predators on Sable Island but the harsh conditions of the island (which is more like a big sandbar) kill many of them and so it isn’t very often that the island becomes overpopulated.
As for my mustang gelding, he is the best mountain horse I have ever been on. He’s more sensitive than our other horses so I always know when there’s an animal around. He does not hesitate at going through anything. He wouldn’t win any halter classes but he’s built to last.
So it’s only a good idea to protect the things that have some sort of value to human beings? Throw the rest on a double decker and have done with it? What a depressing logic!
Look, I get that the way the thing is managed could certainly be better but this whole rant reminds me of the same sort of logic people used for killing off Indians – they don’t properly use the land, they aren’t of any value, they don’t contribute to society, why don’t we get rid of them? Then we could actually use the land for something important.
Hell, wild bison don’t really serve a purpose – why not round up the ones that are considered valuable to you folks who are comfortable making judgment calls about entire bodies of animals and kill off the rest of them? Farm the damn things – then they wouldn’t be taking up all that space on the prairie and using up valuable resources dedicated to protecting them.
We keep and protect the wild horses because they are a part of the history of the country, because a West without wild horses would lose a little bit of its grandeur and poetry. Doesn’t that have some value? It does to me. I don’t have a dog in this fight – I’m not on either of the sides you mentioned. But I do think it’s important to preserve that piece of history and I disagree wholeheartedly in the idea that the only way a thing can have value is if it can be used in some way by a human.
Frankly, I find more value in a wild horse than I do in most humans I know.
My goodness. Slaughter, throw on a truck, have value to a human? You got all of that from suggesting over populated herds of unadoptable horses need some strategic gelding?
Woah, wait, hold on. If anyone knows even the tiniest bit of information about the natural ecosystems in America you would understand just how very important bison are. They most certainly have a purpose, unfortunately the welfare ranchers running their invasive species all over and preventing bison from naturally migrating and mitigating their once large impact. Bison actually heal the land and restore native forms and grasses, whereas cattle shit in rivers, cause erosions on river banks (their marshland animals and need LOTS of water to survive), browse away the natural foliage and generally cause more destruction than a chainsaw.
That being said, I agree the BLM does a terrible job of managing land. They really really suck. They suck when it comes to horse management, they suck when it comes to grazing management, they suck when it comes to listening to the American people.
Mustang refers to feral horses, the horses of Spanish descent that are domestic and have been bred captivity for well over 50 years now are still called mustangs, but by rights are not. Not the same thing at all. The horses called Spanish Mustangs should conform to a breed standard, not vary widely in type and not display Arab or draft characteristics. There were never Arabs in the West, get that crazy notion out of your head, all of you. Spanish horses don’t have Arab blood, and if they do now it’s because of recent (19th century) additions and would not be found in Old Spanish type horses like the Sulphurs or Spanish Mustangs. Spanish descended breeds include Marsh Tackies, Florida Crackers, the horses registered into varies Spanish ‘mustang’ registries, so-called Spanish ‘barbs,’ etc. Kigers are not spanish, maybe they were once, they sure as hell aren’t now. There are a few Spanish Sulphurs left, maybe. Otherwise Spanish gene are pretty much dead on the range. The Banker horses are in fact Spanish descended, genetic testing was done, but their population is so small that inbreeding threatens to wipe them out. Do not lump Colonial Spanish horses in with mustangs, two very different types of horses. It’s like calling Thoroughbreds Arabs, sure they were related at one time, but now they are very different.
It’s really incredible how much you DON’T know about cattle. Welfare ranchers? Not where I live. And your land healing bison shit in rivers, erode river banks and graze the same grass cattle do. I have no idea where you get your info, but it’s not from facts. I live with both cattle and bison in my “back yard” and your idea of the spiritually superior bison vs. low down earth killing cattle is bizarre.
Lauren, you are slightly mistaken. Kigers have VERY high genetic markers of Spanish descent in their dna. There was a man, whose name escapes me at the moment, who at the time, worked for the University of Kentucky and did a huge study on Kiger DNA and he now works at Texas A&M. His information showed that Kiger’s have the purest Spanish blood of any groups of Mustangs. Originally, I wasn’t planning on getting in this conversation, but I felt compelled with your statement. I have a filly believed to be Kiger (by people who own Kigers) and although there is no testing to confirm this, I will some day get her tested, just to see what her DNA holds. When I obtained her, it was not because I was looking to own a mustang ( she would have been captive bred, btw. No freeze brand ) and no one knew what she was. She came from an auction to where I boarded and the long story short is, I took her over from the BO who had bought her for his rental string, but upon realizing how young she was and that too much work would have to go into her, threw her in a stall and pretty much forgot about her. I stepped in when her health started being compromised. It was my farrier that upon seeing her for the first time, laid bets she was a captive bred Kiger. What research I did, showed a spanish connection.
His name is Gus Cothran and his research did NOT show that the Kigers have the purest Spanish blood of any groups of Mustangs. That is simply not possible to determine by blood testing.
The Kigers are a high Spanish herd, but so are the Cerbats, Sulphurs, and Pryors. History and phenotype suggest the Cerbats as the most purely Spanish.
Only going by what I have read. If you have information that bears out your position, would love to know where to find it so that I can further educate myself, however, the fact remains, Kigers do have Spanish blood.
Can someone PLEASE explain to me whats so great about “Spanish BLood”? because from my point of veiw it looks like the pro Mustang folks are using that to place some sort of intrinsic value on these horses. If “Spanish Blood” means so much, why not buy an actual Spanish breed?
I can only speak for myself, but the idea that they might be related to some of the original equines that were re-introduced to North America is kinda cool, but beyond that, I agree with you, if a Spanish breed is what you’re after, why not just get one. For my part, it was not my intent to have a mustang. My girl dropped in to my life and I am not about to let her go. It does not matter if she is Kiger or not and technically, since there is no paper trail or proof of lineage I can only truly claim, “Grade” for her classification anyway.
What is so special about the Spanish blood in a few of the BLM herds is that it is essentially 500 year old Spanish blood. Most Spanish breeds such as Pasos, Criollos, Andalusians, and, to a lesser extent, Lusitanos, have had other breeds mixed in over the ensuing centuries. The North American Spanish horses are a unique gene reservoir. They are important in the same way that Guernsey cattle and Arkansas Pink Lady tomatoes are important. We don’t know when we might need the genes that they carry.
Domestic North American Spanish horses (called Colonial Spanish horses) are a threatened breed with some of the strains being critical according to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy – http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/wtchlist.html#horses . You will see Cerbat, Pryor, and Sulphur on the critical list. Those who value genetic diversity do not want to see any further loss. Those who just what to own an old Spanish horse could buy one. That is another way of maintaining the gene pool.
This fairly old information and I cannot say where I found it. At one time, I think the report on the BLM herds may have been on line, but I am not sure of that or where to find it if it is. If you are really interested, do some basic reading on blood testing. Just be sure that what you are reading is a dependable source, preferably in print, not on the internet.
One quick way to educate yourself might be to read what is on the internet about Sulphurs and Pryors. I think their advocates claim that both are the ‘most Spanish’, as well. They can’t all three be.
It is not possible to show that a horse is pure Spanish, or pure anything else, and it is not possible to show that it a certain percent Spanish, or anything else. Dr. Cothran fights these misconceptions regularly. You could show that widely differing herds are different, say that Kigers are more Spanish than Quarter Horses. You cannot distinguish between similar herds, such as Kigers and Sulphurs. It is virtually useless for individual horses since a few rare Quarter Horses will have a lot of Spanish markers while a few rare Kigers will not have very many.
The Kigers do have Spanish blood and to a high degree, but so do a number of other herds to the same or lesser degree.
P.S. You are going to see this reply again near the end of the thread because the ‘Log in to Reply’ function did not work correctly. Maybe our new Fugly can delete it, but I can’t. It doesn’t make a lot of sense out of context, so I am repeating it here.
Painted Pony, thank you so much for your response. I appreciate the information and will try to find further information outside the internet as you suggest.
Thank you Velvet Kitten for writing what I was thinking when reading Fugly’s comments. I think there should be some controls of mustangs, but I don’t think it matters what they look like. With that logic maybe we should kill all the mutts in the world and just have pretty show dogs. )c:
I liked that you mentioned “I LIKE MUSTANGS”, and didn’t get on the “stupid, ugly horse” bandwagon.
Although a bunch of them are not great looking horses, they’re all horses and therefore “GOOD”. Most could be useful in some form, a couple have good conformation, and none of them need to be used for breeding.
I’d rather spend time working with any one of them (even “E”, who would take my head off without blinking!) than most people I know.
I don’t know nearly enough about the BLM or the mustang situation to make a halfway intelligent comment, but I do want to state that I love the “Bushama” Mustang term you’ve just coined!
Wow did u read my mind?? I work with wild horses, although they are not called mustangs in my country alot of the same things apply. i have a blod that talks about my personal experiance with them http://www.wildhorseproject.blogspot.com
I personally love them, i wish more people would think about maybe adopting one instead of breeding more horses that dont end up any nicer than those pictures in your last blog! But in saying that they are not for idiots to begin with and i have heard many a horror story.
Unfortuantly ther are alot of fruitloops with no real soultion or experiance, these are the ones that scream the loudest and drown out all the people who are actually doing amazing work and coming up with sensible solutions.
They do come in many differant forms, i got a stallion and an infoal mare from last muster,both nice horses, the mare had a foal that currentl looks more mule than horse. They came from the wild skin & bones, malnourished and unhealthy, clearly not thriving. Surley this justifies mustering to ensure population control and health of the horses. They have been all very trainable, sensible and athletic and gone on to be lovely horses.
Once halter broken i have never found them any differant to handle than any other horse.
But….like any horse it comes down to the trainer. I have heard stories of people being chased up trees by stallions, leaving horse in stockywards for months, losing interest and dumping them, somepeople wanted the ‘walt disney’ effect and thought the horse would love them, but infact just completly ignored thm and kept on being wild in a domestic enviroment. Some people think they should never be broken in because the were born wild… blah blah blah
i could go on & on about how good mine are and how much they love there new captivity, first ones to the barn each morning.
I do not have a problem with mustering when done well, i think we have a good system where we are. you have to be pre-approved before your allowed a horse, then you recieve a check up after the horses have been there for a month. The society invovled offers support and advice when needed and has a rescure program for any horses that end up in a bad way. The muster as far as i understan is done as humanely aas possible, the ones with deformities, or to old, or mature stallions are culled, and the rest are transported to their new homes, usally within 48 hours. All sounds like a pretty good system to me.
The annoying aspect of the mustang debate is that we don’t really know what’s going on out there in terms of the impact on the resources. Some herd management areas no longer have herds. BLM scientists say that the lands are overgrazed, while other scientists say that it isn’t. Emotional mustang activists say that the herds are being thinned below viable levels, while BLM says otherwise.
Mugs, your ideas sound practical for long-term viability of the population. It would result in a better-quality animal, which would have a better chance at adoption. If only the process of arriving at that point wasn’t complicated by fanatical mustang activists and bureaucratic red tape.
You know, I wondered that very same thing about gelding. Of course I could swear I remember reading something about a birth control plan for mares too (or did I make that up?) While I appreciate the romantic bent of watching a herd of wild horses thundering across the plain; somebody has got to consider the ramifications of an exploding equine population on an ever decreasing habitat.
You have been keeping up on this issue, and I’m glad. But some of the information you have gotten is incorrect.
The BLM does not “get paid” to do research on the horses. Rather, they have to have data to support any proposal they are going to make regarding the horses. The same is true when they make recommendations on the mountain plover (a bird). So, yes, they do research, but only to guide their decisions about the land, vegetation, and wildlife. This is especially necessary since they end up in court defending their suggestions against various groups.
Cattle companies are still mostly family owned. They have to form as a “company” for tax reasons, or else they wouldn’t be able to support themselves (which usually includes multiple generations.
Ranchers do not graze public lands at no cost. That would be tresspassing and the U.S. government (BLM) would prosecute and fine them out of business. Ranchers pay a monthly fee to graze cattle on very specific areas, for very limited amounts of time. There are lists of regulations and responsibilities that the rancher MUST follow while having a lease. When this relationship works well, ranchers act as good stewards of the ground, keeping water developed for all wildlife, monitoring and eliminating noxious weeds, watching for illegal activity on range.
I don’t work for the BLM, I, like most of us in the West, work with them.
But, seriously, keep thinking. We all need to keep coming up with options to this.
BranDcalf- I’m pretty much up on my BLM. I’m just posting opinions and thoughts, it doesn’t mean they’re mine. I have too many friends who are cattle ranchers to be in the dark on many of these issues.
Nooo. My comments were not to you, Mugly. Probably operator error on my part. They were meant for someone waaaay upthread. lol
Thanks, I appreciate that!
“Ranchers do not graze public lands at no cost. That would be tresspassing and the U.S. government (BLM) would prosecute and fine them out of business. Ranchers pay a monthly fee to graze cattle on very specific areas, for very limited amounts of time. There are lists of regulations and responsibilities that the rancher MUST follow while having a lease. When this relationship works well, ranchers act as good stewards of the ground, keeping water developed for all wildlife, monitoring and eliminating noxious weeds, watching for illegal activity on range.”
This goes completely against what I have read about what is going on. For example, fences are put up to keep mustangs away from water holes. Even if what you say is true in your area, why should the BLM lease our public lands to private entities? Where are the proceeds going? I can’t say for sure what is happening in your particular area, but there is more than enough evidence to support discoveries of quite the opposite. Why should the mustangs be driven to the point of exhaustion and injury?
re: the “fencing off” of water holes, etc… I think much has been made of this by some activists. However, it’s really important to consider that public and private land is not easily distinguishable if you aren’t a surveyor out there. It’s not like there’s one big swath of public land, and private properties are clearly marked next door – it’s more of a patchwork. Several of the “fenced off waterholes” that activists have described in recent years are actually on private property located adjacent to, or in a “pocket” surrounded by public lands. There’s not always fencing as these properties can be quite expansive, to boot. On public lands, some closures of water holes *has* happened, but it’s not just to be mean to critters/horses, it’s to preserve the water, or plants, or other smaller animals that depend on it that are being adversely impacted by the larger, non-native species.
I don’t know, I don’t envy the BLM at all. As a federal employee I know what it’s like to be demonized when you can’t make all the people happy. The BLM has to balance land issues, water conservation, plant conservation, the management of other animals (who may have a better claim to the land than the horses ever did, and/or may be endangered species), mineral/resource management, etc, etc. Then they get demonized pretty much no matter what they do with the mustangs. If they geld/spay and release, they are messing with herd dynamics. If they round up and store the horses, it’s all about the poor imprisoned horses whose family structures are ruined. If they leave the horses alone, the land, other animals, plants, etc can actually be ruined (and then the horses suffer anyway), the cattlemen and locals start screaming, etc… There’s really no way to win no matter what they do. Trying to manage the western mustangs the way they manage herds like the ones on Assateague is just not going to happen – it’s too labor intensive, the land is much, much bigger, the horses are less marketable (chincoteague ponies have the benefit of books like “Misty” and a certain appeal for their rarity on the east coast). Not to mention the Assateague management involves releasing purchased stallions (morgans, arabs, paints, etc) into the herd to improve the stock – the BLM can’t exactly go out and buy, say, some Thoroughbreds to improve stock size, they’re a government agency and that would be considered pretty frivolous…
I don’t know what the answer is, but I think a problem with the anti-BLM activists is they tend to forget the million other things at stake with range management. They like to whittle it down to one issue, the horses, and they like to come up with convenient answers/theories that ignore ALL the other issues with land management. To read their arguments, it’s ONLY about horses vs. cattle, and money. You rarely hear them talking about ground-nesting birds, rare plants, water sources that have been permanently damaged by large animals, or endangered frogs. At least, I’ve rarely seen that side of the discussion from them (in the rare instances they’ve brought it up, it’s usually to brush aside any concern that horses could affect those things).
I think this is where proper management comes into play by reducing the numbers of future mustangs. There is no easy answer, and there are valid concerns on both sides. My beef is with the mistreatment of them.
Never mind the fact that the government, in the past, did exactly that…turned Thoroughbred stallions out to improve the range stock. Not that I’d use *modern* Thoroughbreds for that purpose, they’re too fragile, but…
Talking about introducing domestic Stallions to improve the Mustang herds. In the early 1900s, the US Government placed Morgan stallions out west at their remount stations to cross with the Indian horse herds to try to develop a source for good, tough cavalry remounts and to also upgrade the native stock, which were indeed “ponies”. Reports from the time indicate some success.
I think if the native mustang herds could be heavily culled and a standard for a “good mustang” established, then an American Mustang type could be developed, a horse born on the open range, toughened and tested by a harsh life, growing into an animal which could be very desirable as a using horse. You would still get to see “wild and free” horses on the range, (and they would be good-looking as well). Cull out the fuglies.
Why hasn’t anyone come up with an IUD for mares?
The federal government shipped out TB’s, QH’s (cowponies), Drafts, Morgans, arabians and other good stallions to areas in OR, NV, UT and AZ for the Army Remount program.
You can find the types in different areas of the west and if you look at specific types, such as the draft type, they tend to come out of certain areas, such as the Black Rock area of Nevada.
I grew up in Nevada so saw a LOT of mustangs both in the wild (as it were) OR in holding pens at Palomino Valley.
Even in the 70′s as a kid, we saw duns and buckskins. And some good looking horses, and they were friendly too.
When I was in the Navy in the late 80′s I got to ride a domestic mustang, who had been born in captivity and was still part of a federal program that at least until that time provided mustangs to military bases for riding stables and military police. When Mt. Pinatubo blew up in the early 90′s, most of the air force base perimeter fence was patrolled by the SP/MP’s riding horses. When the base was closed, enterprising people created a riding stable using horses that were uprooted from the base. I know, I got to ride one.
I am glad that some small groups of the feral horses we call mustangs have some value to some people.
But as part of the narrative of “Spirit- Stallion of the Cimarron” said- ‘The story that I want to tell you cannot be found in a book. They say that the history of the west was written from the saddle of a horse,’…
“They say the mustang is the spirit of the West.”
The west was populated with people walking and riding, the continent was explored by foot and by riding. Preachers, teachers, judges, sheriff’s, trade goods, supplies were all brought to homes, stores, schools by animals, whether they were horses or cattle.
Horses have played a critical role in defining this country, those horses wouldn’t be here if there weren’t feral horses. Entire cultures wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for feral horses.
Lewis and Clark wouldn’t have found the land route to the west coast if it weren’t for horses bought or borrowed by native americans on their route.
The mustang deserves some place in America, but something has to change, from spotted yaklet to the mustang that is doing Grand Prix and dressage.
The Morgan horse of the early 1900s was a very different horse than the Morgan horse of today. Part of the value of the feral herds is that they are a reservoir of functional horse genetics. Mixing in modern horses would destroy that facet and only ‘deprove’ the horses IMO.
Driving a feral horse, or an antelope, or deer, or elk to the point of anything is illegal and offially called “molesting wildlife.” I don’t know anyone who does that with the exception of tourist on four wheelers. Even that is rare. You can get in trouble for chasing a bird out here.
Fences are not allowed to be built or moved without direction. There are times that the BLM will order fences moved because watering areas are becoming trampled. They can actualy be made to disappear by the way horse hooves and herds use them. If it is the only water for 53000 acres, horses can move, smaller wildlife can’t. You may not care about mice, toads and voles, but the BLM has to. The only time I saw people keep horses and wildlife away from water was a freaking motor home on public grasslands, parked by a tank so they could have water. The occupants, when I rode up, said, “Look! All the animals come up to see us, but they aren’t bothering us or anything. Don’t worry.” Oh, brother. As leaseholder, I made them move. They thought I was a jerk.
The BLM and other agencies (Forest Service, for example) lease grazing rights both as a revenue source (back into their budgets), for the benefits of grazing, the care/labor provided by the lease holders. The agencies control everything. The where, how many, how long. We work together out here. We all want all the animals to thrive.
I can see where you are coming from, you obviously work for the governement and like I said, I don’t know what happens in your specific area but there are incidents of mistreatment going on and just because it isn’t happening where you are doesn’t mean it isn’t happening elsewhere.
I love all horses too. Not saying I own own a lot of the breeds out there but to me they all have beauty and I can admire them and appreciate all. That said, we do have a horse over population issue in this country as it relates to the people who want and can afford horses. Responsible breeding does need to be preached. I don’t see the merit in allowing grade horses to continue to produce offspring but if you are doing it and you have a sound plan for yours, more power to you.
I have a problem with the way the mustangs are being treated; round ups that leave many injured with no vet care, fencing off public lands for private owner’s cattle to graze and water and leaving the mustangs with little to no food and water, etc. I have a big problem with the mistreatment of animals in this regard. There is no good reason for it. The wild heerds should be managed at a resonable level with the colts gelded in their first year. Folks, our tax dollars have been apportioned to provide for these horses and there should be no private entity reaping those benefits.
I also agree with the fact that what we think is a mustang most likely has domestic breeding infused in it and I do agree that the Kigers and other “pure” bands should be preserved and managed. Just my not so humble opinion.
Technically, all mustangs are of completely domestic breeding. The only surviving wild horse lives in Mongolia. The horses that the Spanish brought over were just as domesticated as the horses the French, English, and later emigrants brought.
What I meant is that the mustangs we have here now in the US, and in a bunch in the pics posted above, have been infused with domestic horses that were set free and allowed to intermingle with the original Spanish herds.
I doubt that you could find the domestic equivalent of most of the BLM mustangs at an auction, in someone’s backyard, or through a breeding program unless the horse was a BLM adoptee or the offspring of same. Most BLM horses are the descendants of horses who worked for their living. They needed to have sound bodies and minds. Now that most horses are recreational or vanity items, pretty heads, flowing manes, and extreme gaits are more popular. Soundness it too often an after thought or not thought about at all. The feral horses whose ancestors go back to the
Dust Bowl, the World Wars, the Depression, and the advent of the gasoline engine are a reservoir of functional genes. I have seen some BLM horses that I liked a lot, as well as some that could charitably be described as ordinary.
If I were sailing off the explore an unknown world, I would take my best, most sturdy, most level-headed horse with me. My life might depend on it. I have read that at one time so many high quality horses were being taken from Spain to the New World that the Spanish Crown outlawed all exportation of horses to the New World. By that time there were sizable breeding herds on Hispaniola (Dominica?) and in New Spain (Mexico).
While the Conquistadors created quite a bit of death and mayhem for the New World people, it went both ways. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-009b/summary/index.asp) is on well-known example. The people who were killed certainly didn’t take their horses with them. I doubt that those who escaped took all of their horses either. This event is know to have brought a lot of horses into Indian hands.
Romantic myth notwithstanding, the Indians would have rather acquired a trained horse than captured a feral one. One Northern Plains tribe (I forget which one) traded (and raided) south along the Camino Royale all the way into present day Mexico.
Horse thievery was a recurring problem for the Spanish California ranches – the thieves being both native and immigrant. A Ute Chief named Wakara and his long-time accomplice, mountainman Pegleg Smith made a particularly large raid. I cannot find an account of that raid right now, but this article (http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/w/WAKARA.html) mentions horse-raiding at both ends of the Old Spanish Trail. I hate to stoop to using Wikipedia, but this article does mention the 1840 raid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkara
Feral herds were not generally too small to be genetically viable. In the years prior to the passage of the Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act, the ranchers had been aggressively removing feral horses from the better areas of rangeland. Some the remnant herds may have been too small at the time of the passage of the Act. If they are still too small, it is the fault of the BLM. They have been told, by equine geneticists, at what size to keep the herds, but have largely ignored that advice. If you want horses seriously messed-up due to excessive inbreeding, get Friesians. (I once read a very good on-line article about this, but do you think I could find it now?)
The birthrate of BLM horses does need to be brought into balance with the death rate + adoption rate, but the horses left on the range need to be in herds large enough to be genetically viable long term. The Act needs to be amended to allow the horses to placed on the lands most suitable to supporting them, even if that is public allotments from which the ranchers have previously removed them. Mixing the ‘best’ horses into a nation herd would not be a good solution. For one thing, who gets to determine which are the ‘best’. English riders, western riders, endurance riders, and pleasure riders would all have different idea on that. For another, some of the grade herds have been breeding as a (mostly) closed herd for long enough to take on a unique character. Different herds appeal to different types of riders. Mixing them all would truly produce an equine muddle. In deciding which herds will remain (I don’t think it is realistic to think that they can all be kept at a genetically viable herd size), care should be taken to select a broad spectrum of types of BLM horses.
In principle, spaying unadopted sounds good. In practice, I wonder how doing that kind of major surgery and the necessary follow-up care would go with wild mares.
While searching for the Friesian article I did come across an interesting example of breeding for function vs. breeding for form in Akhal Tekes. While he says that Akhal Tekes were not bred for type prior to 1900, he then goes on to describe the various types of horses that the different tribes bred. What he really meant was they were not bred for form or looks.
I think a similar thing could be said about most U.S. horse breeds pre- vs. post-gasoline engine.
http://www.akhalteke.info/pre-1900-type-1-63-en.html
http://www.akhalteke.info/post-1900-type-1-64-en.html
Sure you could. Just look for the nasty, fugly, grade critter that someone dropped off in the middle of the night… that would be the domestic equivalent of a mustang!!
Was it this one? I just got passed this link myself (Friesians and the genetic bottleneck of a closed-book breed started from thirty-seven horses).
http://www.sauconycreeksporthorses.com/The%20Present.html
Yes, that is the one. I will bookmark it so that I can find it again. Thank-you.
Hi. I’m the owner/breeder for Saucony Creek Sporthorses — the Friesian/Friesian Sporthorse one in the link above. I just wanted to post a new link for you here, because I updated my website in August, but didn’t take down the old pages. That link took you to the old website entirely. Here’s a link to the newer page with the info you were talking about:
http://sauconycreeksporthorses.com/upd_8_22_11/The_Present.html
Feel free to read the rest of the website to learn about my strategy for “feeding” a beautiful, but genetically starved breed!
Personally, I think we need to manage these herds. Properly. What is going on is not proper herd management. It’s a disorganized political mess in which the BLM is trying to please everyone and the herds suffer.
Ultimately, the problem is that these horses don’t belong to anyone. This means the herds are victims of the ‘tragedy of the commons’. They’re being treated in a manner that oscillates between ‘national symbol’ and ‘pest’, instead of as a *resource*.
Proper studies need to be done to establish genetic viability. If necessary, horses should be relocated from overpopulated herd management areas to underpopulated ones. If genetic diversity is too low, then horses should be released to provide solid outcrosses. Yes. Released. There are plenty of unwanted mares out there that could be used.
Then, correctly performed annual roundups should take place. Not by helicopter, but by horse and ATV. A certain number of foals can be removed for training and adoption. If a herd is too small, it can be spared culling. If it is much too big, more foals can be taken and lower quality mares given birth control shots. Animals of excessively low quality should be gelded or spayed and then released. It should also be routine to occasionally relocate a couple of mares or a colt from one management area to another to improve genetic diversity.
In other words, we should manage the mustangs the same way the ‘wild’ ponies in parts of the UK are managed. They should be managed with an eye towards producing quality trail and ranch horses that people will actually *want*.
Why aren’t they? Because those ponies belong to local farmers. Nobody wants to ‘own’ the Mustangs…in fact, the wild horse romantics would get hot under the collar at the idea of allowing people to legally own them. Even though it might be the best thing for the horses and the community.
The last thing we would want to do is release modern domestic mares or stallions into the BLM herds. This would introduce all of the problems of modern horse breeding into the herds. If any outcrossing is done, it should be to other BLM herds and those herds should be carefully selected to be of similar type. A study of the genetic make-up and variability of the BLM herds was done some years ago by (an) outside equine geneticist(s) and a report given to the BLM with recommendations on maintaining genetic variability. They just haven’t paid much attention to it.
Not if you made the choices carefully, and genetic diversity is paramount. I suspect some of these Mustang herds are homozygous in places you really don’t want to be homozygous. I’m not saying take any old scruffy fugly thing, of course. But not all domestic horses are crap.
Not all mustang herds would be homozygous at the same loci. If a herd is highly inbred, horses from one of the other HMAs could be brought in to provide genetic diversity, which is what was recommended by the geneticist(s) who tested the herds some years back.
I am not saying all domestic horses are crap. I have owned some and ridden others that I liked a lot. I just don’t think they would be a good outcross for feral horses.
I agree that the BLM needs a total overhaul on how they are currently managing the wild horse herds.
I think the BLM should take note of how the two wild herds on Assateague have been managed for years and years and years. The herds are CONSIDERABLY smaller (they are not allowed exceed 150) and an auction is held once per year, put on by the Fire Department, to sell off the excess. Hundreds upon hundreds of people come to this auction. People want a Chincoteague “wild” pony. In 2010 they made over $70,000 on the sale of 59 ponies. Despite the relatively small herd size, the ponies are healthy and happy and do not overgraze. They have been on the island for hundreds of years and aren’t going anywhere anything soon.
The problem with the wild mustangs, at least IMO, is the sheer number of them. They haven’t been managed correctly and no one seems to know how to do it. They can’t be left alone – there are too many of them. They can’t be completely eradicated – to me, that would be the same as shooting off every last wolf in the United States. I think there has to be a go between; get the numbers down to two or three, maybe four manageable herds and either auction off or euthanize the rest. Horses, no matter their breed, do not belong standing around in feed lots for the rest of their lives. Keep track of the herds and have one or two auctions per year that gets rid of the excess.
Just my $.02
There are very few BLM herds a large as 150 horses. That is why inbreeding is a concern. I think they do need fewer, larger herds, but more than two or three or four. The Western Plains are MUCH bigger than the Outer Banks.
You do know that after a series of decimating storms and hurricanes, the Assateague ponies had mustangs introduced to the herds. “Welsh and Shetland pony blood was added to upgrade the stock, and horses with pinto coloring were introduced to give the herd its common distinctive patterns and contribute to the more horse-like phenotype of the breed. Twenty Mustangs owned by the Bureau of Land Management were introduced in 1939. Arabian blood was added in the hopes of adding refinement and height to the breed, as well as increasing the length of their legs. Arabian stallions were used at two different points within the breed history: one was released with the herd, but did not survive, while another was bred to mares that had been removed from the island for breeding and then returned once in foal.” (from wikipedia.
They asked for prior adopted horses to be loaned for breeding or given back and they would be given a future foal, or bought back for breeding.
They are using contraceptive on the Maryland side of the herd on Assateague, apparently to great advantage.
One thing that I don’t see brought up much in the whole herd-management issue is vasectomy. Certainly stallions rounded up and held or adopted out should be castrated, but castration of anything that’s released back into the wild is extremely unlikely to affect herd populations. There is just no way that ANYBODY is going to be able to capture and castrate everything with nuts that’s running out there. And a gelded band stallion is going to stay in charge for maybe a day before somebody from a bachelor band that was hiding in a gully during the round-up takes the mares over, and breeds them. A vasectomized stallion is going to have the same behavior as an intact stallion, and has a decent chance of maintaining (or rising to) a herd-stallion status. Vasectomy is widely used in zoos to allow animals to maintain more normal behavior patterns and social groupings without over-reproducing (applied to males from over-represented genetic lines of rare/endangered animals, and males of very populous, hyper-reproductive animals like Thompson’s Gazelles). It’s a lot safer and cheaper than “spaying” mares.
Unfortunately though, while cheaper to sterilize males rather than females, sterilizing females is a much more effective way of reducing reproduction rates, exponentially so. It only takes a single male to impregnate dozens of females…neutering stallions (vasectomy or no) for the purpose of population control is like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a soup spoon.
That being said, a more aggressive neutering policy might be a good idea in general, as we don’t need more yahoos out there thinking it would be a romantic notion to adopt a “mustang stallion”…or breed MORE of them in captivity. I’m sorry, but a large part of why people perceive that a mustang is special is because it’s learned to live in the wild and has brains and experience that domestic life can’t easily recreate (I use the “street rat vs. lab rat” comparison). Deliberately breed random mustangs, though, and you’re just making a grade foal, inherently no better or worse than any other grade foal out there by being the offspring of “mustangs”…and I don’t know that the average BLM adopter honestly has the eye/training to evaluate what would make good breeding stock.
Almost all male BLM horses put up for adoption are gelded.
Excellant post! I agree, the multitude of $$$ being spent maintaining these horses in holding facilities is insane. If the $ was rerouted to a sterilization program the problem would have long been solved. All the folks who want to preserve these critters should each take one home. Bet their tune changes real quick.
While I find some of these ideas to help the Mustang population to be intriguing, (love the vasectomy angle! Sounds like a potential win/win with that one) there seems to me to be one rather major stumbling block.
The US Government is involved.
I’m just saying.
The tax payer money isn’t really being spent to protect mustangs, its being spent to protect the interests of cattle ranchers and mining interests. Privately owned cattle and sheep on public lands out number the mustangs 100 to 1. Here’s how the game works. The BLM pays a contractor $300 to $400 per head to round up the mustangs, the cattle rancher gets to graze his cattle on the public land for well below market rates (last time I checked it was $1.25 for a cow/calf pair per month) and another rancher gets 425 dollars per head per year to house the mustangs in long term holding on his ranch. All the good old boys get paid off and nobody looses except of course the tax payers who mostly have no idea all this is going on.
(This money is chump change compared to the waste going on in Iraq, Afghanistan and defense contracting in general.) Recently though the push to clear the mustangs from the public lands seems to be driven not so much by cattlemen but by natural gas interests. There are plans to fast track the building of a natural gas pipeline called the Ruby pipeline which goes from Wyoming all the way across to the south east corner of Oregon.
Help me here. “The BLM pays a contractor $300 to $400 (of my tax dollars) per head to round up the mustangs,” followed by, “another rancher $425 per head (of my tax dollars) to house the mustags…”. How does this equate to “the taxpayer money isn’t spent to protect the mustangs?”
Comparing defense contracting and mustang management is pretty much like comparing elephants to dishwashers. the only thing they have in common is they both take a lot of water. This type of arguement is a smokescreen at best.
I think Jana’s trying to say that lots of money is being spent to supposedly protect the mustangs, but it’s really just going into the pockets of local ranchers, both the people holding the mustangs and the ones who now get to rent the land for their cattle. They’re making a lot of money off of the current situation, as Jana said ‘all the good old boys are getting paid off’. She’s claiming that if the BLM were really working for the mustang’s best interests, they’d be doing things very differently.
(I believe the comparison to defense contracting was just to point out that the government tends to be massively inefficient and often ends up working against itself. The current clusterfuck surrounding mustangs is about par for the course when large government agencies are involved.)
On the topic of mustangs. Here is my 02 mare I got her in 06 when I was 16. The people that owned her tried to “break” her by beating her till she gave in. I got a free horse that tried to kill people I went in the stall with her the day she came home and never looked back. It really doesn’t take much to train a mustang you just can’t be stupid.
I have been bring home year end high point awards for 3 years with her now.
http://i720.photobucket.com/albums/ww210/Barrel_Racer02/IMG_2512.jpg
10 yr showing her
http://i720.photobucket.com/albums/ww210/Barrel_Racer02/223266_2052179509826_1404663500_32403389_1592521_n.jpg
I don’t know a whole lot about Mustangs, living way, way out East, but good post, Mugly! Especially the lapse into Dr. Seuss XD
I’m so glad this wasn’t a blind rant about how Mustangs are so special and should be protected because they’re the embodiment of the American spirit and yadda yadda yadda. Thank you SO MUCH.
I feel like we need to choose if we want them to be domesticated horses or wild horses. If we want them to be domesticated, round them up, sell what you can, and geld/cull the rest. If you want them to be wild, stop helping them. Don’t provide food, don’t provide shelter, don’t provide care. Let nature run its course- It’ll control the population too, although the methods might not appeal to those enthralled by the wild horses. First there will just be a ton of them, but eventually starvation and disease will thin the herds. Let the ranchers do what they must to protect their land.
I can see doing this protection routine for those that are worthy of it. Species that are endangered, species that are native and were nearly wiped to extinction (Like the Bison). But it’s not like there aren’t millions of horses in the world, and they certainly are an invasive species in the US. Like wild boars, or rabbits in Australia. If certain herds prove to be significantly genetically different than current domesticated breeds, I’m all for maintaining small populations of them on reserves. But I think we need to choose for the others- The BLM sites estimate that there are currently 33,000 wild horses roaming, with an additional 41,000 in temporary corrals and pastures, and they spend literally millions managing them. Do we want pets or wild animals?
I don’t think the BLM provides food or shelter to the feral horses. They may sometimes provide a water source which is available to all species in the area. Letting nature run is coarse with over-populated HMAs would have terrible consequences for the environment and every species, animal and plant, that shared it. It would be in direct violation of the BLMs mandate to manage land.
I must say, I agree! I hate to be completely unpopular, but I always have been on thus site, love the new angle btw. But, don’t we control the populations of several other species by means of hunting, harvesting, whatever the term, some of them on the protected list like gators, moose, white tailed deer. I’m not saying we should hunt the mustang but since they dint seem to have a natural predator that is successful in controlling the population, shouldn’t we find a way to do so? I don’t support slaughter or cruel ways of control but I’m not a hunter either and can still see the reason for hunting licenses for different animals, limited as many are in order to control the species in areas where natural predators are dying off based on our own invasion into their natural habitats. Why should the mustang be different? These are not “American” horses, no such thing, really and if they are “wild” shouldn’t they be treated as any other wild animal is? Are we humanizing them because we own some extremely distant cousin of their breed simply because we are too obtuse to look at them objectively as we would any other overpopulating animal? If these were coyotes or even a type of rat that was over breeding would we have such an issue with their treatment? Bet we wouldn’t! How is it different, though? Look deep inside yourself, then look your faithful dog in the eye and ask yourself again, how is it different? All you vegans and vegetarians and your animal rights, I don’t see anyone fighting as hard for the many other species as you are for the horse, why not? Don’t mean to be the devils advocate but love one, love all.
I’d much rather they spend my tax money on the mustangs than in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world that our stupid government thinks we need to stick our noses in for that matter, unless people are actually starving and we need to send them temporary aid. Knowing the yahoos who run these programs have the interest of the horses at the bottom of their list, I wouldn’t trust them to manage a box of kittens. They will never convince me that there are too many wild horses, when each rounded up mustang is replaced by 100 cows! I could care less the purity of the bloodlines or if they are fugly or not. Who are we to say? I wish man did not think the world revolves around his wants and needs.
Love this post, start to finish.
Okey dokey. First off, the BLM is charged to manage the mustang on the range. As with most governmental agencies, BLM responds to those who scream the loudest. In this case, it’s the ranchers who have a vested interest in the range as they beleive they are “paying” for the use of the land. Folks who “love the wild ponies” complain in a big noisy group, usually all at one time and usually in response to a stimulus (slaughter, round-up, starvation, etc.) and get results from politicians.
Even though there are advisory committees made up of all interested parties, the ranchers are the biggest and most persistent presence. Because the BLM actually gets revenue from the ranchers and the fact that ranchers seem to have real vested interest in the condition of the range, their opinions are weighted more heavily, than animal lover Susie from Boston.
This results in a policy dichotomy where the politicians are trying to satisfy a reasonably uneducated public (who ultimately pay the bill) and BLM who are ultimately must implement the program and satisfy the ranchers who have a vested interest in the ultimate carrying capacity and the quality of the range. (Obviously this is simplified because hunters also hate the feral horses also have an interest, however this is more in line with the ranchers).
So, as with any governmental agency, they take the easiest route that fits the law: Determine “optimal carrying capacities” rank the value of the grazer and harvest store horses as needed. In my mind anything else would cost a lot in either bad will (slaughter) or cash. As the law stands right now, mustangs cannot be sold for slaughter, so without a significant change in the law, any change to the management program would be more expensive.
Also, if harvesting and slaughter were allowed, I am sure, no, absolutely and positively certain, that there would be abuses the likes of which would be nightmarish. And adding legistlation to prevent the abuse would be both expensive and relatively difficult (or impossible) to enforce.
Without a large group of participants actively working for a real solution that have the horses interest in mind (and I mean folks who are in the west and in the BLM’s face all the time), nothing is going to change.
Also mugs, I accidentally got involved with mustangs (because I too feel that a horse is a horse) and the only thing they seem to be universally good at is sure-footedness. AND, most horses are not really good at what they were bred to do and since mustangs aren’t bred to “do” anything, it’s hit or miss as to what they’d be good at.
I have been a mostly silent follower of Fugly from the beginning, but reading this post by Fugly 2.0 has overwhelmingly upset me.
You have missed the point completely about why the Mustangs should not be rounded up.
The BLM was supposed to protect them, but now the BLM is the PROBLEM. The BLM would rather lease the lands to ranchers, who do not want the Mustangs to be on the land, and then pay (with OUR tax $$$) to house the captured Mustangs.
There is absolutely no reason to remove them at all. Let nature take its course. The land can support them.
If you are going to blog about a subject I really think you should know the subject completely before sharing your one sided opinion.
I am a total advocate, driver, and preacher for the gelding bus. In my opinion this is where your efforts to inform and educate would be the best spent. The breeding of grade anything needs to stop! The over breeding of thousands of quarter horses needs to stop. I can find hundreds more photographic evidences of “registered” AQHA horses flooding the market still today and each an every one of them is as horribly conformed as the Mustangs you pictured. Yet, the AQHA registered these horses. Why?, money.
If you have two potential uses for the land:
1) Allow ranchers to run cattle on the land and PAY the BLM for the use of the land. They produce a useable product that is in demand by consumers: beef
2) Allow mustangs to run “wild and free” on the land with no compensation. In fact they produce a social nuisance: foals. These foals must then be rounded up and removed from the range with no potential use for them either. They spend the rest of their lives in a holding pen.
Why would the best thing for all concerned not be to limit the mustangs?
Anyone know what the actual ratios are for mustangs, burros, etc vs. native ungulates vs. livestock on public lands? In the late 70′s it was (in terms of biomass):
14.5% mustangs, etc.
14.5% natives
71% take a guess.
I am generally against allowing exotics to run rampant. I have a degree in terrestrial ecology. I know what can happen. But I also can’t find much evidence supporting zeroing out herds due to damage. I can scare up lots of evidence of riparian damage by cattle. I can also find studies showing that mustangs and burros help control non-native grasses. And isn’t it funny how there seems to be a correlation between zeroing out herds and energy contracts brought about by that secret energy task force convened about 10 years ago.
Maybe they shouldn’t be there. If so, it’s hypocritical and nonsensical to allow livestock to remain. Maybe they should remain because they will take up the niche left vacant by the Holocene extinctions. If so, then we need the same sort of scary top-level predators that were around then, and I doubt anyone would want dire wolves or saber-toothed cats running around. As usual, a simple answer to a complex problem is usually wrong.
I think the Abaco Barbs are losing ‘survival of the least screwed up”. They are decedent of Spanish horses on Abaco island in the Bahamas. Estimated 5 horses left, 2 studs (1 not seen since Feb. the other not seen in years) 3 mares (2 are mother and daughter all are infertile due to pesticides) And to top it off all the mares are in a reserve and all the studs are wild on the island. Even if they were together there is still the whole infertile issue, and even if they were fertile there’s the whole extreme inbreeding issue.
I am about to stop reading if uniformed post keep popping up. Why on earth would someone pay to buy this blog, then not write with research? I am not for or against “the breed”. However, I have done plenty of research. Why do we need to kill them all off? We don’t, they are part of American’s history, through and through, and many horses can have their lines traces back to a point of history? Why do we have them in holding pens? I don’t know… I talked to some BLM volunteers myself, who told me they thought it was idiotic of the BLM to keep rounding up horses, when there were no room in the holding pens themselves.
I have heard of, and came across plausible evidence that shows it is a profit earning business. I am not for or against the Mustangs. I am FOR right and AGAINST wrong. On any side for that matter. Do you need me to start posting link after link after link that proves all my points and shows some conspiracies within the BLM, therefore I do not trust them. Just as I do not trust my government, but love my country.
Believe it or not, there is this thing, called adaptation. Heard of Darwin’s Theories? Nature draws out the weak. Only the strong survive. In my opinion nature builds the best horse. I would never take a Mustang stallion and breed him no, but all the Mustang’s I have seen? Live longer, need trimmed less, have a health hoof, good bone, better endurance, more sturdy and sure footed. ALL the mustangs I have seen learn more quickly than the average horse I’ve seen (not all but on average). Why? Because if you aren’t smart enough, or don’t have common sense enough to survive in the wild, you will die. Throw your horse out in the wild and see how it does, see if instinct takes in…for some it doens’t. Those horses released well over a century ago… obviously the ones who knew how to survive bred, the smart ones.
Saying they aren’t harder to train than another horse? You must have got Mustangs raised domestically, must have trained Mustang born to human hands, or trained Mustangs rounded up before their 2 year old year. Some naturally love humans, but the ones they adopt out that are over the age of 3, which they do, have a spirit to them that I don’t often see in ranch or family horses.
Aren’t all horses from Arabs and Andalusians? No…Andalusian are no where near the oldest breed. There are breed dating back BEFORE Arabs, they just happen to be in every bloodline. Horses were wild way before they were domestic,and basically what you are saying here is that every horse is grade, with some title of a breed’s name slapped upon it. My own gelding is grade and great. He is not worth more than these horses, nor are the worth more than him. Just as Secretariat’s great great great grandson is nothing special because he had over 900 foals by him.
Fact is this WOULD be survival of the fittest, if we would stop culling random horses. Now the horses bloodlines are being sickeningly drenched with filth and drowned out because they have only a small amount of horses nearby to breed with. The gene pool is failing. I am not saying we don’t have enough,what I am saying is we need to be more selective with what we are taking out of there, and what we are putting back in. No wonder you are seeing shitty horses, typically the BLM sells the good ones, uglier and uglier horses are being released. WE are ruining the gene pool. Gelding and birth control isn’t helping the gene pool at all, we do need to contain numbers, even euthanize if needed. I’m for preserving quality. Take down the fugly ones, put some of the nice ones back out from the holding pens. Keep only a few quality, genetically diverse wild so we not only have something too look at but they need to be healthy as well.
I believe the Conquistadors did bring their finest horses. They did not plan on coming back anytime soon.The trip itself took months. You are relating outer space, which they were unaware of, to America, and relating Shining Spark (many of his sons I work with) who is a cow/reining horse, to battle horses, horses that were fit for combat generally and used for exploring new grounds. Kings horses. Horses back then were treasure for doing their job, not for being in a show pen. (not to sound snooty,cow work has its place just as obedience training does for a police dog,but in the show ring its just a show) I would bring my finest horse. In a new land, why would I not want my fastest, smartest, brightest horse. Those able to handle the job. These remarks did not come from no where. Often times they DID get the natives back for horse theft, sometimes unfairly. Killings and hangings have happened for years in history, because of horse theft. The horse generally wasn’t there when they got there. A native will not hold onto something that could appoint them to the crime. They are often sold, traded, used for meat, or dead before they arrive. They did not have google to track down their horses, it was often hopeless. Especially when pioneers and conquerors are worried about their own health.
However you are correct in your remark about ranchers setting their horses free. Not just studs, but horses in general, as well as drafts, so on and so forth, all which (if you look at it in the scheme of things) are grade horses and probably only made the gene pool stronger. As far as I know almost all pure bred breeds have some type of issue that have to go with their breed alone.
Am I saying we should aim to do this? No. I am not defending the breed either, I’m just saying most of what was said wasn’t relativity when it comes to evidence. Hell I wouldn’t even be hurt if they died altogether. I am just saying, the damage is done by us, not them. Wild things seem to work themselves out when we don’t touch them at all. Cows aren’t native either, yet they are taking over the land. Like I said, I don’t care one way or another if they are gone, they aren’t doing me good. But do they do harm? Only because of mismanagement and stupid people. My point is though, everyone I know who has owned a Mustang, says they are smarter, more surefooted, and better suited over all to any adaption in weather or climate. Often they are hardier and take a lot less money to own and care for. Oh and BTW, that line you wrote about not having any experience to own a mustang, is BS. Have you went and looked at their application form? There are rules. Just as most adoption places. There rules are actually so exact, myself with years of experience can not have one right now even though I’d like to, because I do not have the accommodations, or the facilities for one.
What sons of shining spark have you worked with?
This is what you take away out of my whole rant? I’m not obligate to tell where I work or who for for any reason. I work with many studs who’s direct sires are Shining Spark at a cow horse farm. That is besides the point and they are not mine to name.
That’s about the only interesting thing you said in your whole rant. Although your freak out reply post was pretty good too.
Glad that so many can show ignorance =]
And if we can avoid being nasty, maybe some of us (myself included) can learn more and be better horse people because of it…I’m just saying…
True Mugs. Sorry. I try to stay calm and jut debate. I’m only human lol
The Arab is long accepted as, and known to be the oldest domesticated breed of horse .
As to the rest of your outburst…..
Well, if you keep it shorter people may read it!
Paint Rider….THANK YOU!!!! for pointing out certain things that I personally find are somewhat “faulty” in logic or perhaps a “misconception”.
As the adopter and owner of more than one BLM mustang and having experienced the adoption process from start (filling out my application including a drawing of my facility) through having the vet check required at the end of the year holding period to the joy of receiving the title (NOT REGISTRATION) in the mail…..I am well, well versed in how this process works and the overall challenges (as well as pride, success, and enjoyment) owing a BLM mustang brings.
There are so many issues with the mustangs right now, a blog post (not the comment) like this does little to educate and quite frankly muddies already cloudy waters. Perhaps a better way of posting it would have been to present the pics and then discuss the fact that many, many mustang herds now carry the genetic markers of domestically bred horses—NOT the lineage going back to the conquistadors. Having said that, if you have ever looked at some of the herds, the distinctive Spanish heritage is a dominant trait. Interestingly enough, you can actually have your mustang genetically tested to get the markers that are in him…..like one of mine that has Belgian markers…..because we ALL know that the Spaniards were big into loading their ships with these giant beasts to conquer the new world (for those of you who do not recognize this type of speech–it’s sarcasm). If you look at the zero populated herd from which the afore mentioned mustang was part of, they were in an area very close to the trail taken by loggers when moving from Wisconsin and Michigan into the Pacific Northwest….it’s quite feasible actually that during the trek westward along all the routes….many, many, many domestic horses may have become lost, broke free, were stolen by Native tribes and later discarded, or even turned loose when families were dying along the trail and could not sustain themselves much less a horse (if you read some of the journals of the pioneers you can actually find entries about turning all manner of livestock loose as well as killing their horses and oxen as food)………a great Hollywood example of the idea of a horse breaking loose and joining a feral bunch is the main plot of The Man From Snowy River….not a mustang but the Aussie answer: the brumby (bromby–depending on which source you look at)………sit down and watch it…….
The idea that mustangs are purebred is really not something those of us who live the mustang life style even entertain. None of us refer to them as “registered” or “purebred” or any other ridiculous term that people think add value to the horse………..we value them for what they are: unique individuals…….be them “fugly” or be them “gorgeous”……
I am sure there are people who will cringe with my next statement but who the hell cares:
the value of the horse lies in one of two areas in my personal opinion (again, it’s an opinion–and I’m entitled to mine just as anyone is free to theirs):
1. the training level of a horse is a determining factor for value……….the best bred horse with great conformation but little to no training at the age of 13 yrs is really not that valuable…….however, take a mouthed to age mustang who is estimated to be 13 yrs with good conformation and trained for versatility (several disciplines for those who think versatility means riding in a show class with some silly task to do like an orange under your chin or a ride a buck class) and suddenly this mongrel is much more valuable than the well bred horse with nothing to show for him but a set of papers.
2. Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I would not sell a one of my mustangs for any amount of money. They are more valuable to me than the registered appy mare I own or the neighbor’s QH who bucks him off daily.
Love the post Naughty. Wholeheartedly agree with just about everything you said. I am not an advocate for mustangs. Like I said, I am for what is right, and against the stupidity of humans. I am a horse lover, not a tree hugger. Destroy the animals that are sick or useless. I truly do not care.
The problem is our problem, and our fault not natures and not the animals.
Sure they are part of America’s HISTORY but if they don’t have a place in the FUTURE then why continue to maintain large numbers? Place one small carefully managed band in a national park and eliminate the problem!
Out in areas of the mountains in BC there’s a few wild herds. I know in Kamloops there’s a herd with some spectacular looking mares I would LOVE to have. It’s unfortunate the stud breeding them all is the ugliest meanest little prick I’ve ever seen in my life. Ive heard numerous people threaten to shoot the prick to make room for a nicer stud to get in there, but no one has made good of it. I kind of hope someone does though (or at least make his testicles have a “tragic accident” . Those are some awfully nice mares and it seems a big waste to have that thing breeding them.
Gotta say, if I was about to take a long hard journey across the Atlantic in the 14-15 hundreds I sure as fuck wouldn’t be taking my best horses! You could lose them on the journey itself rather easily, never mind what’s on the other side! I’ve had horses get shipping fever on a week long ship from Kentucky in a cooshy trailer with every possible precaution; Never mind a few years trying to cross an ocean by boat in an age when veterinary medicine was barely existent! Im not American so I don’t really get a say in the matter, but I think the repeatedly inbred offspring of the spaniards’ junk horses could do with some number reductions….
LOL Fugly – you are a brave lady ! We have feral horses here in the central North Island (NZ). New Zealand has no native mammals (oops sorry, we have a bat !) and these horses were escapees from the settlers. They lived in an area that the army also used to play war, but unfortunately the herd numbers were getting out of control. So a management programme was introduced about 10 years ago. You should have heard the howls of protest and I will be the first to admit that the first few roundups were pretty horrific.
However, things have improved considerably and more importantly the horses have improved considerably from there being fewer of them. Better nutrition and selective culling are producing a pony that is actually very useful. They are not so common in my neck of the woods, but I have known two that have been brilliant kids pony’s, the type that parents would sell body parts for – they are sane, safe and do anything.
It was a very hard road getting to the point were the Kaimanawa horses could fit into the environment they were living in, but in the end it has been the best solution for all concerned. Including the horses.
Ranchers do not want all the feral horses off the land. We share our personally owned land with feral horses, deer antelope, elk, lost tousists, turkeys, what ever. We share any grazing leases (whether from private individuals or public agencies) with all those, too. Wildlife doesn’t know property lines.
The rate stated for a cow/calf pair or “animal unit” is old. Much higher now, but what isn’t? Leases are given for 4 to 10 weeks. That’s all. Not year round.
Not all the horses gathered get taken to holding pens. The best are sorted in the field and turned back out there.
Actually, based on what groups have the BLM in court the most, it’s special interest groups who want to save horses, certain mice, favorite vegetation, certain birds and rabbits or snakes and toads, and keep all humans away that scream the loudest. And take the most from the BLM budget that could be better used to actually do something good for all the animals and people who share the range. Even lost tourists with ill-mannered dogs.
Oh, yeah, there have even been lawsuits to stop the BLM from giving birth control shots, or to stop them from spaying and gelding some of the horses.
There are VERY few people posting here that are informed at all.
There are not enough predators for the wild horses on the range to “self regulate” their populations.
Preserves need to be dedicated to the purest “mustang” herds and the herds need to be rounded up, the best mares and stallions released in a sustainable number, and the rest adopted (auctioned to approved homes) and those no one wants, euthanized. Period.
let them live out for two years, then start bringing them in again yearly. Sort the two year olds, only release a few of the best to maintain the herd, and the rest are adopted or destroyed.
People are not realizing the delicate balance that nature keeps with itself. Wildlife keep itself in check because it is natural to the environment, and has been shifting and adjusting and adapting as the environment changes for longer than most of us can even appreciate. There are predators and prey, hard years, easy years, droughts, landslides, forest fires. Native Americans use to be part of the system. Too many people or deer or mice or bats in one location? They starve, or they get diseases. Only the strong survive. The balance between the land and all that lives on it has been changing and evolving and adapting for so long that “a long time” does not do it justice. Change was slow. How long do you think it took people to migrate from Asia over the land bridge that use to exist between what is now Alaska and Siberia all the way down the Pacific Coast, into the Pacific Northwest and then all over North America? Did you know that the arrival of those people in the Pacific Northwest coincides with the mass extinction of the mega fauna (mastadons, giant buffalo, mammoths, sloths. dire wolves…not, however the small horse-like mammal, that was several million years prior) that use to populate the PNW? How long did it take for North America to “adapt” to its new arrivals? We do not really know.
When Europeans… cattle, feral horses, some domesticated herds, sheep, homesteaders and transient people started moving in and “sharing” the range with the wild life and Native Americans we all but lost wild buffalo. The range was huge, though, and for everyone other than the buffalo, and the Native Americans, things worked. More people came, more fences, and problems.
Cattle are kept somewhat in check because we eat them. Other large mammals are hunted by humans as well as predators. Wild horses use to be caught, hunted, eaten, slaughtered, etc, too. Now they are protected. They are not the natural prey of the predators. Deer and small mammals are easier. Cows are easier, too. Feral horses have no natural predators (not that they are never prey, just not the first choice).
Who has more rights to the “range”? Well, first, the native wildlife, obviously. Then we can debate the cattle/sheep versus the feral horse. Right or wrong, American’s eat beef. A lot of it. Take away the grazing leases, or increase the cost, and the cost of our beef goes up. It goes up to high, and its cheaper (it already is, in some cases, just ask Micky D’s) to import it. There goes an industry, jobs, and GASP! part of our heritage. Yup. The American Cowboy, already an endangered species. Were feral horses or range cattle here first? I would venture a guess that they were here at about the same time.
There are other options, sure, we could ignore the wild horses. Let them do their thing. Who cares what species they drive out, the land will eventually adapt. We could stop protecting them, open up a “mustang” hunting season. Sound good??? NO???
Then the only option is for everyone to stop crying and being drama queens, and EUTHANIZE THE UNWANTED FERAL HORSES!!! Why is it ok for someone to euthanize a feral cat or dog that is destroying their property, or harming wildlife, or basically somewhere it isn’t wanted but not ok to euthanize a feral horse?
Hell, I am realist enough to suggest humanely slaughtering the excess feral horses, but I think that might be taking it too far for the public to swallow.
The ONLY answer is dedicated preserves, where there are horses and wildlife, no cowsies, no sheep, and smaller, managed herds. The good news is that if the herds are kept small enough, eventually, the culled horses will be in higher demand, there will be less needing to be euthanized (maybe, eventually, no sound healthy ones at all), and the herd sizes and preserves could be even be expanded.
That is the ONLY answer I see being feasible, and it sounds a hell of a lot more humane to me than what is going on right now with the holding pens.
The birth control, gelding, vasectomy, spaying idea is all fine and dandy, but you all are forgetting that the American Government cannot pay its bills. Cattle on government land at least brings in a little cash and supports an industry. All the wild horses do is give us a warm fuzzy. They would give us more of a warm fuzzy if they weren’t starving on overgrazed land or crowded in holding pens.
IF that is too heartbreaking, get in line to adopt a feral horse!
But what about Cloud? What about Spirit? They’re so purrrty….
I agree with most if not all of what you said to a degree. However I happen to be fairly educated in the matter. I’ve kept up in discussions with hippie “save all the pretty things” stupid advocated, and I have also taken part in BLM discussions and the people who work for the BLM. I see some heavy issues on both sides. No one seems to have a clear idea of what to do, though many have it down better than others. I am all for gelding , birth control, and so forth. I want fewer, larger herds. I don’t care where they are, put them where you see fit. I don’t even care if they go away altogether, we don’t [i]need[/i] them p. However I don’t condone putting genetically weak horses in a herd together, doing inhumane culling and then blaming it on the mustangs for what is going on. I am just saying if we [i]are[/i] to keep them, someone needs to do some serious work, sorting out the bad from the good, and keeping manageable numbers because I agree (no matter how many times it is denied) that we do have too large a number.
Really your whole speech about the “range” is correct. Their happened to be wild, truly wild horses in America far far before the land was settled. They however were not mustangs. I agree, nature keeps itself in balance, which is why even though I appreciate being on this earth, often time’s I’d wish that I could pull humans out of the picture to see how life would be. You are also right about needing approved homes for the mustangs, which is why I was snotty when this blog said no one needs experience to get one. A lot of what you said was correct ,true, to the point and told without a lot of bias. I don’t agree that cattle have more right to the range, maybe it would kill jobs, maybe people would have to pay more for meat, in the long run it balances itself out when cattle aren’t natural to the environment anyway and seem to do more damage than good. Erosion of the soil and the dire effects of over grazing, was discussed in my environmental class, which described much more harm to the ecosystem than animals merely competing for a food source. As for cowboys being a dying breed. That just won’t happen. Their is no “cowboy” that we have seen in old western, and has not been for quite some time. Their are very few family owned dude or cattle ranches left in the US compared to what was. Things will change, typically something extreme and that has happened ever since humans entered the picture.
Paint rider, I do agree with a lot you have to say but I will disagree and say there are “cowboys” who work their herds, I happen to know about 6 different individual ranches in the mid to central west that do just that. Also, no, horses were NOT here long before us, not in north America anyway. There is not a single breed of horse that arrived in this country before the explorers, they were introduced. There is no such thing as a native american horse. I do see their value but don’t value them anymore than any other species of life that is wild on the plains of our country.
Pippa you are wrong. I was agree upon on this issue, many adults and people who have been in science and history know for a fact that there used to be a land bridge between Asian and North America (that is where Alaska is sweety, it used to be attached to Asia). This was FAR before they were named. FAR before we arrived, and FAR before Arabians were established. They were the ORIGINAL primitive horse, before we had breeds. Therefore that is the one thing you got correct, no BREED was around before us, because humans invented breeds. This was one species. Yes,big shock, horses originally came from America, therefore native. They crossed the land bridge over to Asia, our climate changed,they died out and North America, the bridge began to separate (I think it was during the large meltdown I’m rusty on history). When all life died in America for awhile things began to develop over in Asia and Africa,soon after the first ‘horse-looking’ horses popped up, only then was your precious ‘first horse’ Arabian created. I don’t mind opinions, but don’t ever tell me I am wrong before doing research and reading my words. I did not say breed, but yes, the horse was here before us. It does not matter, because there is a big difference between mustangs and them,and America has changed.
I agree there are cowboys, but not like there was quite a few years ago. Plain and simple there just isn’t. I work cattle too, it’s jut not the same as it used to be. They would die out if they weren’t updated on technology and the market. You don’t see the boys from Bonanza out on the range defending their homestead anymore lol. So to say. Sorry for getting snooty, it is early AM and I am not a morning person =[ Anyhow I don’t value them more either, which is why I am on the fence. If we need to kill a few okay. I’m open to that view point. However I also don’t rate human life, or cattle lives over another beings. I don’t like to think of myself as a bleeding heart, I don’t like to be called a hippie, I just really look for equality, in races, in age, and species, all life is important to me, but hell yeah I eat beef,chicken,and deer and won’t hesitate to shoot a gun. I just don’t find myself more important than any other species. We may have gotten lucky in the genetic draw of life, but we are still part of the food chain,and nature and I think too often we think we have power over nature,and forget that we are actually part of it
However, we should keep in mind that horses did evolve in North America and migrate to the rest of the world through Siberia. Most likely humans played a part in their extinction by over hunting. So horses did evolve in our ecosystems and I my opinion should have a place here.
I think Paint was referring to the tarpan-like horses that went extinct in the Pleistocene-Holocene extinction that happened after the last ice age. We had horses, camel- like critters, mammoths, giant sloths, wolves the size of ponies and beavers the size of bears.
I should have known. Our closet feral horses are Sable Island Ponies. The rest of our climate and geography is too foggy or too rocky for anything other than moose and squirrel.
Totally off-topic, and I apologize.
After over a year of reading the blog, and being horse-free my whole life, I would like to get off my tush and take some riding lesson. Can anyone recommend a good place for english lessons in the SF east bay? I am in my early 40′s, not so in-shape at this point, and I haven’t really been on a horse since my best friend and I used to mess around on her green broke very tall mare when we were nine. (I can ride a camel though.)
I KNEW IT! I KNEW the first one was gaited! Sorry–I’m always extremely proud of myself when I recognize a gaited horse as that’s the breed genre I work in. Although I’m switching to drafts and draft crosses when our current gaited horses pass on. Oh, and I do agree that the Florida Cracker is just a mutt that can gait–there is no refined breeding there.
“I do however have a huge problem with the amount of money we, as taxpayers, are shelling out to protect a bunch of grade horses. Which is what they are. Grade horses. A bunch of them are butt-ugly, fugly messes too.”
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for saying this. I am in Arizona and I’ve gotten to where I ride near the Salt River a lot. There are three wild horse herds out, and there is only one horse of all three herds that I’ve seen that I would even begin to consider taking home. Here in the desert, our wild horses are scraggly, short, and skinny things with weird hoof shapes to deal with the harsh desert floor–they are not the beautiful Wyoming bred horses like in Cloud’s herd. In fact, horses like the ones in Cloud’s herd are extremely rare. All of the mustang’s I’ve ever been around were not well suited for riding, no matter what their temperament was. One was beginner safe, but oh my God her trot… And some were just never going to be trainable, period. They were still wild horses, and for those owners it was like having a tiger in their backyard–80% of the time all was well, but there was still that 20% of raw wild that could strike at any time.
I also agree that I doubt the Spanish Conquistadors were bringing over their good horses. Besides, we know that the mustangs in America descend from the horses that the Spanish dumped out here, and I’m sure they’re not going to be dumping their good stock. Then when people were catching and training mustangs when the West was getting established, they would keep the good ones and dump the rest back into the wild. So what we have now is a very, very watered down version of what once existed.
Yes, I do like mustangs–I think they can make great mounts when you spend time with them. But I’m tired of seeing people try to make money off of them by half-training them and then selling them. And I’m also really tired of the bleeding hearts who want to save every single mustang yet would never adopt one for themselves and after a protest go home and eat a steak from a cow that lived on the range that mustangs also lived on. While I certainly don’t have the answers to the problem, I think that people need to start being more reasonable in their expectations of the government and the ranchers. Stop thinking with your hearts and start thinking with your heads!
You may have noticed that the British Isles is fairly small?
It may also interest you to know that we have large numbers of feral horses, and that ALL those horses are owned by someone who is directly responsible for their welfare.
All the ponies on Dartmoor are owned, as are New Forest, Welsh , Highland and Shetlands.
If you required that all Mustangs turned out on common land were owned by someone the problem would more or less solve itself.
Allow each user of common range land to hand pick up to 50 mustangs and require that they breed no more than and no less than a certain number of foals (quotas are controlled on the moorlands here by striclty controlling the stallions. Each stallion is inspected for quality.) each year. If something is owned it acquires value- now, ponies here have very little value at the moment BUT and it is a huge but, the foals bred are the responsibility of someone, and that person has to either sell them or have them put down , they cannot be put back on the moors. In the US the farmer could just humanely shoot unwanted foals, that is not an option here, so you are much better placed to deal with the unwanted animals. The number of foals bred can easily be adjusted by removing a stallion from the range (and yes, hard as it may seem, if this means he is shot, well, a pen to these animals is worse than death so stop messing around and shoot the flipping thing!) It would not need to be policed as no-one wants a load of unwanted horses eating their grass, so they would cull themselves, in order to keep the numbers steady. Allow the ranchers to self police, that is nearer the American way, and in truth, what people everywhere want to be able to do, anyway.
Why do governments, everywhere, worldwide, always have to make a drama out of everything, when the solution is SO simple?
Putting these animals in holding pens is disgusting and I am sick to the back teeth of seeing people appealing for money to “rescue” them, when that money could be spent elsewhere to better use. They should not be there in the first place and I totally fail to see why “slaughter” should automatically equal and long hard trek on a truck in inhumane conditions to a horrible, often botched, end. Set up a slaughter house on site, make sure it is as calm and well run as is humanly possible, get the horrid job over and done with and start again form scratch. Admit defeat, admit that it was got very badly wrong, start again and get it right.
Simples.
“You may have noticed that the British Isles is fairly small?”
Have you noticed that America is very big?
How many people do you really think are qualified to look after (let alone somehow capture the babies of!) even one wild living Mustang? How many of those people live anywhere near a wild herd? How on earth is an animal activist living in NY going to care for 50 head of wild horses who are themselves living in Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming? Who’s job is it going to be to police this sort of thing?
Your British management system sounds nifty but I don’t think it’s applicable to this particular situation.
Simple? You have got to be kidding.
Oh, oh, I know how to achieve world peace: Everyone should quit fighting and live in peace and harmony. There. Done. Peace acheived.
OBVIOUSLY it is not simple or it would be done. The issue is not that there isn’t a simple solution, but that there are conflicting opinions.
Other complications are that slaughter of horses is against the law, some feel horses (or any animal for that matter) are special and shouldn’t be killed (or any animal for that matter) and this horse abbattior doesn’t exist.
So we’d have to change minds, change the law, set up standards and rules and then build the abbattior.
Ah yes, so simple… NOT.
Interesting idea, however, the wild horses are not owned by anyone, which is part of the problem. There is no way you are going to convince a farmer that he is required to adopt any number of wild animals and be responsible for them. It really doesn’t even make any sense to ask that of him. If you do make the farmers or ranchers using the land responsible, they will shoot all of the horses so they don’t have to mess with them, and I feel that is a valid way to handle it.
You can’t just decrease the number of foals born each year by removing a stallion or two. You have to remove ALL stallions.
It would require cooperation and competence to implement that management policy here. Both are in short supply.
As usual, the American people want it both ways.
They want horses running free with the wind in their manes and to never know what a fence is *and* they want them to enjoy all the creature comforts domestic animals are granted (particularly the never going hungry and dying a peaceful death at a ripe old age parts). Sadly, Mother Nature’s a cold hearted bitch and controls wild populations through, primarily, predation and starvation.
In Australia they routinely manage wild herds from helicopters too. They fly around and shoot entire bands of horses. It sounds dramatic and heartless but you know what, I think it is the most humane and natural option for what is, in reality, artificial population management. What I think is inhumane is the current American style of half-assed population management–putting animals through the stress of capture and culling and loosing herd members just to lock them up in pens and give them half-assed care (you KNOW they aren’t getting their hooves trimmed regularly people) and the most boring life imaginable until they die of ??. Actually what do those penned up mustangs eventually die of? How bad off do they have to get before they get put down? How old do they normally get? Why do I never see anyone asking these sorts of questions?
Chasing down animals with helicopters *every year* and shooting them with contraceptive dart guns? Giving wild animals invasive surgery without the means to gently handle them should they require wound care or medication afterwards? These are the alternatives we are considering? Can you imagine the hell a wild horse would go through to be 1)captured 2)anesthatised 3)wake up from anestesia in a foreign place with foreign horses around 4)recovery from major surgery, possibly requiring several trips in a chute for follow up care 5)being thrown back out on the range and having to find a new herd to join 6)possible ongoing stress from unstable herds because there are no stallions or in-tact mares to lead and few or no babies born each year. If I were a wild horse I’d rather live like a frikkin’ wild horse and would welcome the quick death from a bullet from above as a possible attractive alternative to the more ‘natural’ methods: having my guts ripped out and eaten by wolves while I was still alive or dying from starvation/exposure during the winter because there wasn’t enough food to go around the summer before.
I don’t know about the contraceptive vaccines used in horses, but I do know those used in goats, sheep and deer actually last three to four years.
Personally, I would have no objection to allowing people to hunt mustangs for food, with a bag limit and proper regulation, but I know I am *far* in the minority here. (There IS a small demand for horse meat in this country, which could be met by this means without slaughtering riding horses and having tasted both wild caught and farm-raised venison…)
*wearing her fireproof suit*
I think hunting is a great way to control populations of some animals such as deer and elk, but we’re also not trying to breed quality into them. If we’re trying to improve the mustang herds through selecting better examples of the breed, birth control, and other methods, hunters could screw that up faster than you can say ‘bang’. My impression is also that deer and similar animals are generally solitary and don’t form herds with social hierarchies like horses do. I don’t like the idea of a hunter that is not familiar with herd dynamics randomly playing havoc with that.
(There are other problems with hunting horses as well. There are already cases where domestic horses get mistaken for other animals and shot, how many more would there be if it’s just ‘oh, I didn’t see the fence”, or ‘oh, I didn’t see the rider’?)
Oooh…I sense it’s almost time for happy hour…
“OMG you must hate horses” – take a drink
“If you hate horses so much, you should just get out of the industry” – take two drinks
“You are a cruel and evil person” – take half a drink
“I’m going to stop reading if” – chug a glass of champagne
“If you believe that, I pity your horses” – two drinks
“You don’t know what you’re talking about” – don’t even bother, you’d get drunk before you get halfway down the page.
“I’m going to sue you!!!” – Finish the bottle, you have achieved Fugly status!
An American in Copenhagen said “(you KNOW they aren’t getting their hooves trimmed regularly people) “. Yes they are.
First of all, it is not ALL Americans. There are a lot of us who don’t agree with the current management practices. I have no problem at all with shooting a horse, as long as it is a good clean kill. I don’t have a problem with eating horse meat either. I do have a problem with torturing any animal, and that includes allowing them to starve to death on range land that can’t support the population.
And, wild horses don’t need their feet trimmed. They keep them quite nice by constantly moving and wearing them down.
Oh lordy….I did NOT read all the comments, but after several posts in a row complaining about “ranchers on federal land”….I just want to ask…DO YOU LIKE TO EAT??? Seriously, unless you are buying from a local farmer or raising it yourself, where do you think that steak on your plate comes from?
There has to be a balance – domestic livestock and crops to feed the population, wildlife including animals and plants, water quality (“we all live downstream”), and a place for the mustangs. Careful management, not the knee-jerk “all or nothing” response. Until you’ve been to a holding facility and seen the ‘stangs – many of which are now born in facilities and live for years in them – you don’t understand the scope of the problem. I can tell you from experience, once a mustang lives in a holding facility for awhile and gets used to the routine of being fed, etc, they aren’t much different than any other range-raised horse that gets used to coming up to the truck for feed, patted on the neck, and turned out.
…maybe a side of ribs to go with that beer
Way off topic, but I am currently beginning a search for my next horse. I am a Michigan resident, and I am specifically looking for breeders of QUALITY Morgan horses. I intend to purchase a 3 to 5 year old gelding within the next year. A show prospect that did not pan out would be ideal, must be professionally started under saddle. No uber specific disciplinary training necessary, however in case it matters I strictly trail ride and “fence check” with my horses and prefer english. Sound for flat only is fine with proper veterinary documentation of the nature of injury. I prefer basic black, would entertain a bay. I am not looking to spend more than 3 to 5,000. Can someone please refer me to an ethical and concientious breeder of nice Morgans? I am sick of wading through crap, and would prefer to go to the source. Thank you!
Something to keep in mind: gelding some of the stallions will do nothing to reduce herd population. A population is determined by the number of fertile females, not males. To reduce mustang herds through birth control, you have to control the ability of the mares to reproduce. Shy of somehow preventing any contact with a stallion, that means birth control for the mares, but whatever means.
Gelding some of the stallions only takes those stallions out of the gene pool, it won’t reduce the number of foals born.
Who determined this? I always read this argument, but I am not convinced it is true. If you JUST KEPT GELDING STUDS, as fast as you could (gelding is way cheaper), you COULD eventually reduce the stud population to where not as many mares would get pregnant. Yes, mares who do get pregnant will have colts but you have about 2 years to catch those and geld them. Look, if you started gelding every guy on earth, even if you left someone super fertile like the Duggar husband out there, there would STILL be less people because he can only be in one place at one time.
So I am totally unconvinced of this gelding-won’t-help argument. Why don’t we TRY it first?
I actually think the gelding-won’t-help argument is advanced by people who don’t WANT the wild mustang to die out.
I do want that. I don’t care if people keep a limited number of them in captivity and breed them like any other horse, at that point. But I don’t think we need loose horses running around any more than we need loose cows running around. Nothing worse than driving through a “free range” area waiting for a thousand-pound animal to wander out in front of your car. If you own animals, buy land and put them on it…if you can’t buy that much land, don’t own so many animals.
IF (and that’s a big if) you can geld so many of the stallions that a significant number of mares never come in contact with one, and keep that condition going, you can reduce population by gelding. However, as long as there is a stallion within range of fertile mares, he can fertilize lots of mares. Which, with his competition gelded and so not competing, is pretty much every mare within range. It’s a basic fact of biology: In polygamous species (most of them, in other words) as long as there is a fertile male available, the population of any group is determined by the number of fertile females.
Imagine a breeding farm that has gelded all but one of their stallions but still has 30 broodmares. How many foals can they have in any given year? One or 30? What determines the number of possible pregnancies? The one stallion or the 30 mares?
Go to any rural community (the sort of community where dogs and cats are outdoor or indoor-outdoor critters) that had a problem with too many litters and ask around: which is more effective to reduce the number of litters, neutering males or spaying females? The answer, if they were smart enough to notice, is spaying the females because sure as there’s one intact male left around, he will impregnate as many females as are available. That applies for any species (although it is more dramatic in animals that have litters rather than singletons) – one intact male can impregnate as many females as he can reach. One female can get pregnant only once per season.
I’m not against gelding, I just think it’s a waste of effort.
Additional info: We are financially stable and have exemplary vet, farrier and personal references. Not looking at a rescue at this point, but will be looking for a sound for flat middle aged babysitter for the grandchildren in the near future. I am not so specific in my requirements for this one. Must be a gelding, must not be over 14.2hh, between 10 and 14 years old and must be child tolerant and bomb-resistant. This one will replace my current babysitter who is at least 33, (I have personally known him 30 yrs, he was adult when we first met) who will likely be PTS before winter due to chronic arthritis that is starting to impact his quality of life. Any references to TOP NOTCH rescues in the Michigan or tri-state area would be greatly appreciated.
Frog pond draft horse rescue. I personally have two of their animals and know many others with horses from them. They are not doing this for profit and the horses that leave them come with a strong contract and wonderful manners. I would let my Belgian mare babysit almost anyone, she is just that kind hearted and I guarantee you would be hard pressed to get a bad reference on them.
Forgot to say, they are located in Ohio. Check them out.
I wont flame you Jennifer. If people want them wild, let them be wild. Wild things that are not endangered are hunted. Hasn’t the numbers people are allowed to shoot, and or the length of the hunting seasons sometimes increased when other species are over populated?
To “Around the Block” …when other animals “increase” after a hunting season, it’s enerally because their natural predators were the ones who were killed off. Even with increased limits on deer in our area, they’re not controlled to the extent that we have fewer deer/car accidents, etc. etc.
To those who think spaying is too expensive, the best was to control a population is through culling the females. This has been proven in an Elk study, where the future populations declined significantly when more females than males were taken during hunting season. Therefore until you know what is a manageable number, you have to protect some.
Any population that’s hunted is controlled by how many females are taken. I know that in areas where the deer population is low or stable enough that whatever agency is in charge of managing them doesn’t want the population reduced, doe tags (a license to take a doe) are limited. I’ve never heard of needing a gender-specific tag to take a buck.
I don’t hunt, so I follow hunting related things closely. I do remember something from several years ago about hunters having to use one or more (I think it was more) doe tags before they could get a second (i think) tag that would allow them to take a buck. In a sense, that is a gender specific tag (doe) to take a buck.
And, yes, I know you meant buck-specific tag.
This may seem a bit random, but horses evolved in North America, so they aren’t as foreign as one may think. Of course, the horses here now are all descended from domesticated stock, but they could (hypothetically) still fill the same ecological niche as their long-gone cousins (non-ruminant grazers). Of course, this doesn’t solve the current management (mismanagement?) problem. If people aren’t up to the task, then we need to allow predators to be. Horses do have natural predators, even in the states. Wolves and mountain lions were around during the Pleistocene, after all.
On another random note, the North America of 1492 was not the ecological paradise we think it was. The arrival of the first humans saw the extinction of nearly all of North America’s natural mega-fauna (although there is debate as to their role in the cause). Bison (which didn’t evolve here, oddly enough) were some of the only ones who did survive. I’m not arguing that we try to bring back the wildlife of the Pleistocene (that would be impossible), but I would like us to keep in mind that nature is in a constant state of change. We have to think about how much biodiversity we want/need and make changes (or stop making changes) accordingly. Personally, I would love to see horses on the range, but the ecosystem (including predators) needs to be up to the challange.
The landscape of North America in 1492 (when America was “discovered”) wasn’t a whole lot different than it would be today without the changes that people have made to the land. Not much changes in 500 years. In geologic time, 500 years is a blink. The changes.. a few volcanic eruptions, plates moved, maybe a couple hundred feet…
Yes… it is thought that horses did originally begin to evolve in North America. That started about 4 million years ago. The Pliocene Epoch. The last of those horses died out 11,000 to 12,000 years ago, with the mega fauna. Horses lived in North America when North America had mega fauna and “mega predators”. Most of those died off (due to some “natural” cause), and North America had been evolving without horses for over 10,000 years before they arrived again.
As for bison… yeah, they likely came through Alaska from Siberia. On there own. How does that make them a non native species?
What you are failing to realize is the changes that took place in the landscape and climate during these millions of years. There were several ice ages and periods warming and cooling. Marnine transgressions and regressions. Continents were not even in the same places they are today in relationship to the equator. Geologists cannot even agree as to how many ice ages there were because each iceage erases the evidence of past ices ages.
Dinosaurs also were at one time “native” to North America and I do not think going all Jurassic Park, and cloning some T-rexes is a good idea, either.
Species that can adapt and or migrate keep up with the slow changes that naturally are always occuring survive. Those that do not, die. The problem is people can make changes happen fast by removing habitat, introducing non native species, killing a lot of one thing, which allows another thing to have a population surge, etc, etc.
Horses in North America could not keep up with the changes, and the rest went on without them. Period.
I did not mean to imply that the land remains static over the ages, I am aware of global climate shifts. There is, however, some debate as to whether climate change alone was responsible for the mega-fauna die-off. After all, these mammals had been through huge climactic shifts in the past. Personally, I tend to believe that it was a combination of a new super predator (humans – mega-fauna died off wherever we went) and the end of the last ice age.
As to horses fitting in to the equation, I personally think they could still have a viable existence in North America. It would depend on the public’s will to have them on the range, and what measures they are willing to take to keep them there. Without large predators (most people don’t take kindly to the thought of an increased amount of predators), we will have to get creative with out management practices.
Thats the problem…. if the horse herds were “natural” there would be less need to “manage” them. Managing the horse herds in a way that they can be on the land with as little impact as possible does not make them natural or native… it just means they are there.
Nobody knows what caused the extinction of the mega-fauna, but if it was caused or helped hunting by Paleo American’s, who hunted with spears and clubs.. well that is a lot different than what humans are capable of doing (and do) to the land and wildlife today…
Jennifer R – Hunting? Bag limites? Are you kidding? It’s bad enough what man has done to the wild/feral herds. Now you want to let yahoos with guns and four wheelers ram around the countryside shooting down horses, cut them up, take them home, and serve them as burgers to little Suzi and Johnie? And when they are done and ready for bed, mommie will read them all about Black Beauty – another horse who went from piller to post because of man’s cruelty to horses.
Ponykins apparently has never ate meat…
Seriously kids watch Bambi, read The Three little pigs, and then eat bacon for breakfast.. what about little red riding hood and the big bad wolf, and then go play with the family husky or malamute.
There COULD be regulations, as to how the horses could be hunted. Hell, hunting cound be restricted to bachelor bands…Could be done outside of breeding season, when herd dynamics are mellower.
And you know very little about deer and elk if you think they are solitary. Apparently you have never had to stop and wait for a herd of elk to cross the highway.
I knew I would be flamed for saying it (and actually, the risk of people shooting the *wrong* horses is a very good argument against it). But I would note it is illegal to sell game (which it would be) retail. If anyone did hunt them, it would be for their own consumption and that of their family and friends.
One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that MOST hunters are NOT ‘yahoos’. They have a vested interest in making sure there are still deer to hunt next year and are often some of the strongest advocates for all wildlife. Sure, there are assholes, but there are assholes in every group of people.
I assume the comment about a herd of elk was aimed at me, and no, I can’t say I’ve ever had to stop for a herd to cross the road. My part of the country has white-tailed deer, which I’ve never seen in groups larger than three or maybe four, and my impression is that it’s usually immediate family groups. (Well, except for the one campground with a couple dozen deer that would mug people for food. That was a completely screwed up and dangerous situation.) My point is that to the best of my knowledge horses are more intelligent and have more strongly defined herd dynamics than their antlered cousins. I’ve never heard of a matriarch deer or a herd stag. So if we’re discussing the problems involved in hunting horses, disruption to the herd structure comes to mind. That’s all.
Or just a few tofu burgers
This is true. I am pretty sure a soybean field could be turned into some nice mustang habitat. I am also sure the tofu factory uses lots of resources… SOYBEANS ARE KILLING THE MUSTANGS!
just inhaled my wheat thin!
LMAO! “Soybeans are killing the mustangs!” That was funny!
Well if soybeans really were killing the mustangs, this would be a good year for the mustangs because here in the mid-west the soybean crop isn’t going to amount to much. The plants came up but due to lack of rain many did not produce any pods and what pods there are don’t have any beans in them. In the part of Missouri that my husband and I live and farm in the crops aren’t going to amount to much.
Okay, that’s it, I finally have to comment and it is going to be long!
When I was very much younger I followed the Wild Burro and Wild Horse Act. I actually have a copy of the original bill as submitted to Congress. This was about the same time that Margarette Henry wrote “Mustangs” to promote the saving of these symbols of history. I have a first edition. Around that same time there was a big foo-foo-tado in the Arabian Horse world, written up in Equus, about some Arab Breeder who donated a bay two year old stallion to be turned out with one of the major breeding bands in hopes that he would “upgrade” the local Mustangs in the same sort of idea that the Remount Depot at Fort Robinson, Harrison/Crawford, Nebraska did to improve the cavalry mount gene pool of local ranchers using TB, Arabians and Morgans. Around WWI. They followed up the next year and the young stallion was still alive. I can document all of the above. Been to Fort Robinson several times as well as the museum not to mention having decedents of those Arabian Remount stallions
Fast forward many, many years. Different life, (still very horse oriented and owning my own purebreds), and different state. There was a major project within several Southwestern prison systems. I worked for one of those Corrections Departments that had Mustang projects. (I have video, as well as one of their hand books.) Upon one occasion along with a number of co-workers in the Classification Department (we were responsible for assigning inmates to the Mustang Work Detail) and my supervisor, who also had horses, we were all “ordered” to attend the BLM “training” session given to the inmates, before the inmates were sent to work with the horses. Seriously, I could have taught a better class in my sleep!!!! Little Miss BLM in her snow-white-western-square-dancing type dress with her red boots and red trim…. And third grade mentality (GAG ME!!!) (Soooo appropriate to deal with inmates…) So I was basically ordered to keep my mouth shut and NOT ask questions. THEN we went out to see the horses that were to be vet checked/vaccinated and hoof trimmed that day. The severity of the abuse and stupidity (of course) provoked some remarks by me to the point that I was ordered to the state truck, at which time I climbed up on top of the 18 foot high, 24 inch wide adobe walls to get away from the supervisor. I watched terrified horses, all intact stallions, (with huge balls!) run through ¼- ½ inch plate steel livestock chutes. Fought with to get halters on their heads by terrified inmates. Saw the faces split open and blood everywhere, but not treated. (NO horse deserves what these Mustangs went through). Given vaccinations by local vets (yes, plural) and then pulled out the chutes with huge long lead ropes, roped again and wrestled to the ground by five inmates, one on the head, four on the feet and four local horse shoers run in to “trim” the feet. A different horse-shoer, on each kicking foot. Then instead of castrating the stallions at the same time the horses were let back up and run into holding pens. Since I was on top of the wall the supervisor could not get to me. I was angry enough not to care if I go wrote up or fired. The abuse and stupidity was beyond belief. Not to mention the sheer trauma.
There were some decent horses, but clearly decedents of ranch horses gone feral or that arab stud I mentioned above. These horses, especially the nice mares were held for special adoptees to get further down the road– not put out for the public to see…. and some were gentled and shown at the State fair and did very, very well. But they were the cream of the herd. There were adoption clinics and the stallions were also adopted out, intact! At the time, this was putting a serious crimp into the local sales of good quality well bred stock of any breed, mostly Quarters and Paints. ‘Cause we can get a horsey for $125.00!!! Not to mention loosing stud fees to good local stallions. FYI, Program in this state has since been discontinued. Some of these Mustangs were also sent to the east coast after basic gentling by the inmates, some were even started under saddle to make a better chance of a decent home.
Then fast forward a long time down the road to 2008. I was at a trade show and there were some specialty booths in another building, including a Save-the-Mustang-Group. There was a flyer out about a fancy seminar coming up in April 2009 for the Preservation of DNA tested MUSTANGS, supported, by National Geographic, Cambridge University, London England, University of New Mexico Anthropology, and various other research big shots, including a documentary film maker and I think at some point prior to my knowledge/entry Pat Parelli got to “play cowboy” in a documentary. There was a lot of grant money. There had been a series of television documentaries about the DND’d Mustangs in New Mexico, several “documented” herds that are “privately” owned all are DNA tested and freeze branded by the BLM. There is someone from NM who posts here who might remember….
Yeah, I went, as a possible future photography opt. Turns out I knew several of the people there, in particular the “private owner”. Did I have concerns? Yep! There were also the also a whole collection of the usual kooks who were typical Save-the-Mustang-at-any-cost advocates, there for the let’s paint a purty picture (literally) sort of folks. To say the least it was an education. Professor from Cambridge was really super cool!
Then the grant monies clearly dried up. The private preserve is privately owned and the horses run wild there. 13 hand, tiny footed, plain headed, hard as nails “wild” mustangs that cannot be rounded up with only a few good riders. That is a whole ‘nother story… BUT they are DNA tested to trace all the way back to Cortez’s horses. Problem is that the “preserve is only 37000 square acres of the roughest country I have ever ridden over! Little to no water except at stock tanks and very little decent forage. Only sighted the mustangs one time and yeah, I got some pictures.
But the fences are not well maintained (private owner got seriously hurt a year or so back and no longer rides) and these mustangs get onto the a-joining ranches and the Ranchers are NOT pleased. (To say the least). But since these are all DNA tested and branded Mustangs even though alleged to be privately owned, they are protected. Like if a rancher shoots one there is a law against that, and it is a felony. So there are a lot of hard feelings all round. Some are relatively friendly when penned up,and allowed to settle down, but they are hard to find and there is not a decent crew to bring them in.
I basically walked away from the whole thing. I was riding for free and the photo opt. But there are so many other serious issues with these specific mustangs, and after my saddles were stolen out of the horse trailer in the front yard….. There truly are other things to photograph.
Sosrry this has been a disertation, but there has been a lot of really good information provided by various posters, that is accurate and not of the Cloud TV version. If the horses I have seen hre had that much land as in the Cloud documentry to live on they might be larger. But truly at this point there are so many issues that the BLM is just the tip if the proverbial ice berge. Thanks for reading….
I am familiar with the situation around the private owner of whom you speak (well, write). Those horses have not been DNA tested to trace all the way back to Cortez’s horses. That is not possible. The equine geneticist who tested the blood he provided has asked him (more than once) to cease and desist with his inaccurate, i.e. false, claims about what the DNA testing showed; but obviously, he has not. There are also questions about the blood testing procedure, which I won’t go into here except to say that the test results he attributed to his feral horses may not have come from them.
He has got to be one of the wackiest people to have adopted BLM horses. I don’t think it is fair to the BLM to use him as an example of the BLM adoption program.
(And how the heck did he take in National Geographic and Cambridge University? He must be the consummate con-man! Sorry that you got entangled.)
Painted Pony,
Hugs to you! Some things clear and some remain clouded and manipulative is a word which comes to mind……
I was aware when I saw his booth “NMHP” (UNM Anthropology was also there and had a rather nice display.) in a seperaste tent from the building our booth (photography) was in, WHO he was, having met him many many years ago and while I remembered him (he is kinda unforgetable), he had no clue who I was, LOL. He always was a shyster and then some. Way back when… I had an Arabian Mare for sale that he was interested in, and the young woman who lived next door to where I boarded, had a litterally screaming fit and wrote out a check for a substancial amount of money (in those days). To keep him from buying the mare. (she paid the downpayment on my current horse property)
l Had not seen him in years, but the UNM Professor is legit and so were the other people and photoraphers from Cambridge and National Geographic and Univ of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. I also kept the flyers on this seminar. I was very skeptical, but the seminar was free, on a weekend and the bar-b-que after was really nice and I got to meet some nice professional people. Kinda figures that while these horses do look like old style Mustangs and have been some sort of DNA tested , that the whole thing is a bit of a skam. There was also supposed to be camp sites for the handicaped, yada, yada, that have never been completed. We actually got an invite to go spend a weekend to build on the site as a suprise, but when checked out walked-ran from that part of their little fun and games. The people who rode when I was there …. the guide was okay but the rest were “southvalley-goat-ropers” if you understand the term and I would not “feed” one of their horses let alone use their “tack”.
All told we have two trips to the preserve, one overnight for four days and some nice photographs at a half mile distance. Also some of the ruggest country I have ever ridden over and my mare performed like the champion she is considering she had not been ridden in YEARS! (Made points for Aabs as well, LOL). I paid for a one year membership at $75.00 but have never gotten a renewal form and as I said earlier, I walked away from the whole thing when my horse trailer was broken into the week after the last ride. The whole Rio Grande valley in our county got hit, but I lost three western saddles and seven bridles, I am still trying to replace… The timing was ugly to say the least.
Thanks again for the input! It figures…….
D.
OK now that we have all said our piece (or peace depending on who you are), Now What?
Where is this thread heading? Round and round and round? Out to the Range to round up a few worthy equine souls?
What is the objective of this thread? Enlightenment? Venting?
I am Topic Neutral and curious about the Intended Outcome.
Sorry about the spelling errors in the last couple of paragraphs. I was using word then added more after the cut and paste.
To Ponykins, et al….
Yes Elk run in herds, very large herds in places. Antelope run in herds ranging from two to fourty. I really don’t think shooting Mustangs by hunters is an option. But some of the other ideas for getting rid of the excess Mustangs kept in holding pens surly has merit. But the BLM being what the BLM is mind boggling……
We raise our own beef and exotic sheep for human consumption.
And there are issues about BLM land and what are called School sections and state or federal leases. Some leases are by the year and some are by the seasons. Some ranches in NM are deeded land with leased land making up a good portion of their land. Then of course we also have the orox that have migrated to areas of the state that they should not be. As with all WILD animals they do not respect fences or property lines….
D.
Oh I thought about making a single, cohesive argument, but instead I’ll just make a few points more clearly:
- The remark on “gun-toting whackjobs on 4-wheelers”…. seriously? I love how “enlightened” people who abhor violence assume anyone with a gun or hunting is either on the verge of climbing a clocktower or just likes killing fuzzies and grunting. I won’t go hunting simply because it’s a ton of WORK! Although, it would be an excellent way of avoiding the “big farm” industry that is so trendy to hate but so friendly to a tight budget. Most hunters I know are into it for having humanely grown meat (think of goose hunting as the ultimate free-range chicken that also walks your dog). I’d love the meat but the scouting, hiding, getting the shot, making the shot, and then the amount of carcass processing… and that’s not accounting for how HEAVY horses are. You can’t just throw that in the pickup and process it at home. Trust me the Jim-Bob and Cletus in your mind are not going to be littering the range with Coors Light shooting blindly into herds of horses. It would kill the 4-wheeler to have to bring it home.
-One would think to control population in a “harem” situation would be to take away females, not males. I’ve known about 10 wild-caught mustangs (hey I’ve only been riding about 6 years). All were male.
- People talk about how nature is the ultimate selector. Wild lines are “polluted” with domestic stock, etc. Well, what wild is going to select for is what we see everywhere else in established wild equines that have been around longer than the USA: Ponies. They need less food, have proportionately more bone and are sturdier, have tougher hooves, and if you think that a pony stud is not tenacious enough to take over a herd you should meet one. What is not going to be selected for? Being built to carry a rider well. Smooth or fancy gaits. Why? There’s no need to keep these characteristics. Oh yes, you can find big, smooth Mustangs now, and you can point to the more Spanish-ey herds and see them…. but if Nature is your selector, Nature will not select for this size and gait for long, it will go with what is most ecologically economical. Each generation the more hardy pony-like will have a greater likelihood of success. Now, I love ponies, but if we can’t find uses for over 50K horses, we will not find uses for over 50K ponies unless we either: shrink, have lots of children, or get REALLY into cart ponies. That’s why we’ve continually messed with mustang herds by releasing drafts and other tall horses like TBs. (TBs being taller than the local ranch QHs at the time). Good hooves, bone, colors, and hairiness are around in other breeds, ones that don’t require me to have 6ft panels and cat-like reflexes (the last mustang I met double-barreled a 4-wheeler with food, turns out it was crypto.)
- The argument that it’s really hard to get a BLM mustang. No, it isn’t. Yes, you have to have suitable fencing and fill out a form. No, they won’t check if you just give them the right answers. No, they REALLY don’t check if you adopt from other sanctuaries, or have a buddy pick one up who has been approved.
- The argument that we need to preserve rare horse breeds. Why? Lots of species go extinct, and this isn’t even a species. There’s plenty of diversity amongst all of the horse world that keeping this particular genetic potpourri preserved. Why worry about how much Green paint you have as long as there’s Blue and Yellow still around. Really concerned? Collect semen from the studs. There, saved for all time. I had a friend adopt a Nakota who claimed she would “never adopt another domestic, inbred POS again!” Um…. Anyways, if you’re so dedicated to have a Spanish horse, buy a Spanish horse!
I don’t know what to do about them, other than that there should be fewer of them, people need to realize that they don’t have any more Spirit or Soul or Rights than any other horse, and America can’t afford to keep them. I love the idea of privatizing the horse issue. If like in GB we did have ownership, a trust/nonprofit could own them, and you could “adopt a mustang” kind of like I can adopt a dolphin, wolf, whale, eagle, etc. Glossy postcards and all. There’s your funding and your accountability, even if you live in NYC. The nonprofit manages numbers, any land leases, moving them to food, etc, which isn’t insanely hard because they don’t have a billion of them. Worried about inbreeding? That whole frozen serum thing.
I have to say most of your point are valid. Most are not as biased at they are presenting facts, but I have to say there are some things debatable that don’t even relate to the Mustang issue. Nature does select ponies, you are right. The Chincoteague ponies were once large,. Prezwalki horses are not large, and things like the Mongols wild horses are not large, however it is false that they are not able to be built sturdy or strong enough by nature to carry humans. From what I have seen they are still the best. You want to know a fact? Naturally NO horse is built for carrying humans, that is not their natural niche. They are herd mammals, no more than deer or elk, and only a few hundred years ago were still primarily just prey animals. Their backs were never made, for humans. Those little Mongolian horses, range from 11hh to 14hh tops. They carry humans greatly. They live on little, and are prized horses. They are tiny, but strong. Same with Mustangs, you can turn whatever you want out with them, as we humans have,and damage their lines. Still the horses with very weak points are going to die. Those with crumbling weak hooves,are going to die plain and simple and sooner or later strong will be drawn out or they will all die, either way I don’t truly care. I just wanted to point out that large misconception that because they are ponies, does not truly mean anything.
I am not going into a herd of horses looking for something with gait. Horses are not naturally smooth in most cases. Quarter horses have been bred for the longest time for flat knees,we have breed these horses to be smooth and have became spoiled by it. Show me a naturally smooth mustang and you’ll see me die. I just want something rideable. I am not wanting a horse that is fancy, I am not looking for a world class winner, if I go to adopt from the BLM. However if you don’t believe Mustangs can do all that, look up Padre, the mustang stallion who is calmer than a kitten and earning high marks all over the world in dressage and in halter classes. He is a horse I desire, and yes he is grade.
Just from experience, I have found mustangs to be different, I have found them to have more spirit. Why? They’ve needed to. Look where they live. However if you take them off the range at a yearling,or weanling (which I am not against) yeah after a few months (generally) you don’t notice a difference. Take a 3-6 year old off the range and tell me it’s not different from your family horse in the backyard,even after being broken. If you ever get there, some don’t, either because of the trainer or horse.
I’ve never claimed it to be hard to get one, you are right it’s not, but just like all adoption agencies, they do have standards,which is all I was saying, you do need to prove basic knowledge, before they just hand one over.
I agree almost totally with your first point. Guns don’t make a man stupid or reckless, however if horses did become legal to hunt, I do believe as you said “Jim Bob and Cletus” will show up and just kill for the hell of it without a tag,without reason. That is all situations. Protected animals still get poached, when they shouldn’t, but it is less often than the illegal killings of actual game animals. What I am saying is, do you think someone is more likely to kill an endangered species of rhino, or just a game animal out of season. I’d take the one with less consequences. People who head in for target practice,at some point will end up leaving the carcasses there.. However I am not against hunting them? I personally couldn’t do it,just like I couldn’t kill a cow myself but boy do I love beef. =] Overall however I do agree, hunters aren’t going to go out shooting into a herd to take them all home. There will be a few assholes though,as usual.
I’ve heard many people say they love Nakotas. I won’t make a BS statement about them, I haven’t handled them enough to know. I’ve just heard from many many people that they are intelligent. Maybe it was just her house. But I won’t pass judgement or assume on that one because I just truly don’t have enough of a clue and can admit it.
The thing I’d like to applaud you on the most, is saying what I’ve tried to say before in fewer words.
TAKE THE DAMN MARES. Leave the studs, it does leave genetic diversity, but take a bunch of the mares! It makes sense. Typically deer hunting is done to keep the population down, well when things get [i]way[/i] out of hand people do go out and start killing does instead. I’m not saying kill them, I’m not saying round them up, I don’t care. Just take the darn females.
And you know what else I LOVEEEEEE that you said? Enough that I had to type like a 3 year old..I LOOOOOOVEE your idea on symbolically adopting mustangs the same way you do dolphins,wolves, local zoo animals and so forth. Might not cover the cost for all them, everyone might not be thrilled, we might have to still do some maintaining, but there you go,it will help out a lot with all them “pretty horseee” lovers. I’ve thought about this once myself too, and I just don’t understand why we don’t have a program like that. I don’t know what to do either. I am not a genius, I don’t have a cure-all however I don’t understand why this idea isn’t talked about more. I can’t stress it enough..if we decide to keep them,it is going to take time and effort to fix it, but it’s going to take something new. If what they are doing isn’t working, why keep doing it? I think personally the “adopting” is a great idea. Some people want to help, without trying to take on a mustang,without training, who do not have the space or horse knowledge,and all it would cost them is $20 a month or less.
It’s not that I don’t think ponies or mustangs “Can’t” carry humans, it’s just that they’re not being bred to become better at carrying people- something we ( in theory ) are striving for in planned breedings. One of the smoothest horses where I board is a mustang, but again, he’s got quite a bit of draft in him. I mean that conformation-wise, the things you look for in a riding horse vs a cart horse aren’t going to contribute toward survival enough to be selected for anytime soon. A longer loin, slab-sides, narrow chest, etc. In nature when a mustang lives to be about 7, being a little over at the knee and prone to mid-teen arthritis is not going to play a role. Nor is being a little roach-backed, sway-backed, cow-hocked etc, which is why there ARE some fugly mustangs in the round-ups that didn’t get eaten by the cougars. And the nicer we make the range, the less important a lot of these things will be. ESPECIALLY in mares. The stud’s not going to refuse to breed a fugly mare. So while I love ponies, it’s going to attract a different crowd than is currently interested in mustangs, and by NOT interfering with the direction of phenotype we may end up with something that’s less desirable during adoption roundups.
Another way I meant “not for riding” without really meaning that it’s impossible is that lots of mustangs have mule-backs, and not a lot of withers. It’s always a little sad to find out someone’s 125 dollar mustang needs a 1250 dollar saddle. And again, if we’re getting smaller, pony-like mustangs over time… that means different saddling to avoid rubbing the loins.
Another thing we do breed for in riding horses is temperament. Yes, I’ve met very sweet mustangs, and they are very smart. Sometimes you don’t want the horse that has figured out 125 ways to get out of doing what you’re asking, though, and like someone above said, sometimes the rankest stallion gets the mares. It’s something we won’t get to control, so it could go either way. I think if you actually expose your horse to things besides stalls, small paddocks, and arenas and let them become smart they end up a lot more interesting, so whether it’s due to their breeding or just their learning environment I don’t know.
The people I know ga-ga over Nakotas are so because they go to go to colt-starting summer camp and came home with one. It’s like the free vacation where you only sit through a small seminar about owning a time-share… In general though I abhor colt-starts because they work babies on tight circles, too quickly, and ride them too early. I guess it helps keep them off the meat truck though, so lesser of two evils I guess.
The last few blogs have been a little weird. I can see writing an article about conformation, breeding goals and even about the plight of the mustangs in the US. But I don’t see the point of just ranting about what the activists say and what the ranchers say. I think the real issue is that BLM is supposed to be enforcing legislation and there is question/concern/allegation/legal action claiming BLM is in fact responsible for sending numerous horses to slaughter, killing them in the “capture”, terrorizing/killing newborn foals, etc etc. I always think that when we have these bureaucracy such as BLM that don’t do what they ought to be doing then what is the point of having them. Why don’t we just eliminate them and just let things happen. Could it be any worse then what is going on right now. These horses have protective legislation and yet the BLM is allowing ranchers to have more “use” of the land which of course is reducing the amount of land available to all other species. Naturally ranchers want more land in particular because beef prices are pretty low so let’s pump up the volume. Before any rancher is offended I used to raise beef cattle but I got out because it is not a profitable enterprise unless you are running a feedlot or processing plant. All in all I think that these blogs have been poorly written and have thus produced a pretty lame thread. I think it’s back to the drawing board muggly.
“because beef prices are pretty low so let’s pump up the volume. Before any rancher is offended I used to raise beef cattle but I got out because it is not a profitable enterprise unless you are running a feedlot or processing plant. ”
Actually, beef has been at an all time high this year. If you couldn’t make a profit, perhaps you needed better breeding or a better marketing strategy.
Actually, it occurs to me that lots of horses for sale these days being advertised as “Mustangs” probably aren’t.
It would be easy enough to stick on the moniker of Mustang to glam up any grade-unregistered-unregisterable-unhandled thing, even if there was no freeze branding…not everyone knows you have actual BLM paperwork with an actual BLM mustang transaction.
Its…a MUSTANG! What better way to lure in one of those rose-colored glasses – wearing romantic types who buys a project horse on a whim?
Oh so very perfectly said and Bushama Mustang was brilliant . Ten to one someone figures out a way to register them and make money .
Thanks for this post I hope people start to get it and fix the problems
“sweety”. I must giggle a little at your over educated and not very humble self. I am aware of the ancient horse type animals and of the land mass, I can assure you education was not just offered to you. Fact is they did not survive so that means that the horses that are here now are NOT native, they didn’t reappear until humans brought them. Period. How was what I stated wrong? Now, the “precious” Arabian as you put it is not an animal that I ride, own or know a lot about outside of it’s very important place in the equines history in north America and, really, everywhere. Check your ego a bit and quit reading into so many comments in the old fugly manner. You have called almost everyone here uneducated which normally means you have something to prove yourself. I have read where you drop names but don’t give up credentials. You don’t need to but for Gods sakes share an opinion, lose the insults, it’s just makes you look like a classless hooligan.
That was of course meant to follow the painted one. And, naughty tobiano, so good to see you around my dear.
Patty,
I don’t believe a number of the comments here are “ranting”. The comments are just that, comments, baseed on first hand experience of the isssues stated.
I agree wholeheartedly with you backyard. I don’t think this is so much ranting as a matter of fact, kudos to you mugly for well thought out posts. I am not the grammar nor writing style police. I do like your tongue in cheek style and thought provoking posts so far. It’s nice to have someone just throw the subject out there to see where it goes. It will take a while for some to understand it’s not all about the “fire torch carrying villagers in a mob” mentality that has been the norm here in the past. Reality is, if we really want to change the state of the equine world as it is today in our country, horse folk from all walks are going to have to put aside things like breed preference, pro or anti standings and discuss real world solutions we can all live with. It shouldn’t matter if you ride a cow horse or a Spanish horse, western or English, side saddle or bareback, it’s the love of the horse in general that will help us in this endeavor we just need to weed out the radicals and zealots and get down to smart and realistic discussions. good for you for the changes so far. I know this will lose you a reader or several but I know you will get a few old timers back based on the shift in direction. Also, have fun in the big sky country. Wyoming and Montana are two of my favorite states!
This fairly old information and I cannot say where I found it. At one time, I think the report on the BLM herds may have been on line, but I am not sure of that or where to find it if it is. If you are really interested, do some basic reading on blood testing. Just be sure that what you are reading is a dependable source, preferably in print, not on the internet.
One quick way to educate yourself might be to read what is on the internet about Sulphurs and Pryors. I think their advocates claim that both are the ‘most Spanish’, as well. They can’t all three be.
It is not possible to show that a horse is pure Spanish, or pure anything else, and it is not possible to show that it a certain percent Spanish, or anything else. Dr. Cothran fights these misconceptions regularly. You could show that widely differing herds are different, say that Kigers are more Spanish than Quarter Horses. You cannot distinguish between similar herds, such as Kigers and Sulphurs. It is virtually useless for individual horses since a few rare Quarter Horses will have a lot of Spanish markers while a few rare Kigers will not have very many.
The Kigers do have Spanish blood and to a high degree, but so do a number of other herds to the same or lesser degree.
Nice to see you as well pippacat.
Life sadly has been out of control in all areas and we are just now reining it in.
I have to say I agree with many of the points that several of the readers have made & I, too, am enjoying the new spin, twist, direction or whatever else you deem appropriate to describe where the blog is heading. The laying down of pitchforks and torches is quite enjoyable.
Someone stated that the BLM does not check. That’s a little inaccurate. I know of several people who have been surprise inspected by the BLM. I would be a fool to suggest they check everyone, logistically that is impossible. But, checks do happen.
I also applaud the person who pointed out that “gun” does not mean “inbred, uneducated hoosier”. Obviously the right to bear arms was important enough to our forefathers that it was written in our Bill of Rights and I personally do not anyone taking any of my rights away.
And I will stand firmly by the comment I alluded to previously—until those trying to stop the round ups completely are kept in check and the BS in court of stopping the round ups or blocking measures that would lower the population is stopped, the issues with the mustang will continue.