The American Spectator : The Old Horse Home

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The Old Horse Home

By Bill Croke on 11.9.09 @ 6:07AM

There'll be no death panels for our nation's aging mustangs.

The West has been home to wild horses since the days of the conquistadores. For instance, the 1680 Pueblo rebellion that expelled the Spaniards from New Mexico for twelve years scattered large herds into the hands of the tribes of the Southern Plains. Today, there are Spanish bloodlines present in wild stock found as far north as Montana.

Rounding up mustangs destined for the leather tannery or the dog food factory used to be the formula for keeping the public lands herds numbers at manageable levels. But gone are the days of The Misfits, John Huston's 1961 film about wild horse wranglers in Nevada. In 1971, the federal "Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act" outlawed rounding up horses for slaughter. Afterwards, an annual quota of mustangs was collected by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) personnel from herds in ten Western states and offered locally for public adoption. But the weak economy has caused adoptions to shrink in recent years. With feeding, shelter, vet bills, etc., it costs thousands of dollars a year to keep a horse. And breaking a mustang to the saddle is hard work that might require a paid, professional cowboy to perform.

Americans are not tolerant of animal cruelty, witness the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal. Even the morality of legal hunting is more and more questioned by an increasingly politically correct populace. Some think burgeoning whitetail deer numbers in the East should rate birth control for suburban Bambis. In the West, it's the wild horses. "The fact is that the American public has shown that it does not want to have slaughtering of these animals," Secretary of the Interior (BLM is under the purview of the Department of the Interior) Ken Salazar recently stated.

Approximately 37,000 mustangs roam degraded BLM rangelands (where they compete with domestic cattle for grass on leased grazing allotments) in those ten Western states. Another 32,000 (for a 69,000 total) have been rounded up and corralled in BLM "holding facilities." According to the Washington Post, 3,706 horses were adopted in 2008, down from 5,701 in 2005. All this (the roundups, the holding facilities, feeding, the BLM adoption process bureaucracy, etc.) costs taxpayers $50 million annually, with a projected estimate of $85 million for fiscal year 2012. The U.S. Congress finds this intolerable.

In July the House of Representatives passed the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act," which would require the BLM to set aside an additional 20 million acres of rangeland for the horses. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the total cost of the bill at $500 million. The Senate has yet to weigh in. But Interior Secretary Salazar has an alternative plan.

He recently proposed a program that would move the 32,000 detained horses to seven preserves in the East and Midwest (the locations have yet to be disclosed). Two of these would be financed by the taxpayers at an initial cost of $96 million, and $1.7 million annually for the first five years. The other five would function in partnership -- with additional federal assistance -- between the federal government and nonprofit animal welfare groups such as the Cloud Foundation, a wild horse preservation group based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Post story goes on to say that, "All the animals would be sterilized or segregated by sex to prevent procreation. At the same time, the government would seek to sterilize or control the reproduction of enough animals on the range so that the birthrate is 3,500 foals a year." The goal is a population of 25,000 horses on the seven preserves by 2014, with an equal number left wild on the range and subject to reproductive strictures. And whether Salazar's plan as a fine-tuning of the House bill will actually save money is comparing apples to oranges. Time -- as in years -- will tell.

In actuality, what these projected preserves will be are outdoor nursing homes for neutered, aging horses. Geriatric equine petting zoos. The preserves will be open to the public, though whether the taxpayers will be charged admission to their horse refuges has not been established. "We think there is real potential for ecotourism…. Everybody loves horses," Interior spokesman Tom Gorey told AP. All this because polls indicate that the American people can't stomach the idea of regularly culling the herds to produce commercially marketable horsemeat and horsehide for leather products.

It's telling that people who, when it comes to the right to life, have no compunction being "pro-choice," yet are horrified by the idea of Fido feasting on Old Paint.

topics:
Ken Salazar, Restor Our American Mustangs Act

About the Author

Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (41) | Leave a comment

owyheewine| 11.9.09 @ 9:17AM

I vote for assigning all states a quota for taking excess wild western mustangs. Turn them loose in the east, north and south, just like the west. San Francisco and Berkeley should also get their share.

Dixie Pixie| 11.9.09 @ 12:28PM

A better idea would be to distribute the excess mustangs by congressional district and give each congressmen the joy of picking who gets a “free” horse. It would be a new congressional perk and a cheap one at that.

Allybarb| 11.10.09 @ 10:17AM

How about rounding up the "corporate cows" that graze for next to nothing fees on our Public Lands. Check out the numbers and just who gets to graze beef on our Public Lands.

KyMouse| 11.10.09 @ 2:37PM

On a less argumentative note, the Isle of Man (between England and Ireland) has had a Home of Rest for Old Horses since 1950. Established near the capital city, Douglas, by a pair of sisters -- and sustained by a generous trust, as well as donations -- the home has given TLC, and green pastures to roll in, to more than 280 animals. At last count, they have more than 50 old horses and 8 donkeys. In the early days, they also took in elderly "pit ponies" who worked in the mines.

Douglas still has horse-pulled trams for the tourist trade in warm weather, and the Home has first dibs on tram-horses that retire.

The Home has a little museum, gift shop and cafe, and is a nice place to go scratch a few long noses. For more info, visit www.iom-horseshome.com.

Now, back to the arguments...

Kitty| 11.9.09 @ 9:36AM

I always look forward to Bill Croke's columns because they're usually a blessed relief from politics. Unfortunately, avoiding politics, especially with this administration, is becoming almost impossible.
...

russ| 11.9.09 @ 9:43AM

Here in Wyo., we let out a good laugh upon hearing the do-gooders from back East might get a dose of their own meddling . My friends are ranchers ; I've seen first hand how much a hay burner can consume for breakfast through dinner . On the range , that's forage an Antelope , Deer or Elk will never see , just as some Sierra Clubber won't . Thanks Bill , at least you can see some common sense .

vicki| 11.9.09 @ 10:21AM

If the land cannot sustain less than 50,000 wild horses, how can it sustain over 7 million privately owned cattle? The GAO study indicated it is the cattle that have decimated the land, not the horses. Why aren't cattle being rounded-up? If they want an ecological balance, 500 cattle should be removed with every horse. Over 20 million acres have been taken away from the horses and given to cattle ranchers and other special interests in direct violation of the law. The BLM is out of control. Until range studies are done and BLM can get their stories and numbers straight, please call your legislators and ask for an immediate moratorium.

Dixie Pixie| 11.9.09 @ 12:37PM

Vicki, The cattle are regularity culled and many of them may be your future hamburger meat. The cattle are not the problem unless you consider the West a giant eco-park.

Gordon| 11.9.09 @ 10:54AM

Mr. Croke,
A wonderful, honest article. As a young boy, I helped my family gather wild horses in Wyoming's Little Colorado Red Desert. It was a time honored tradition. We built traps using the deep washes, and utilized a brave Cessna pilot to gather the horses and drive them towards the trap, which worked probably 50% of the time. Of the captured horses, some were branded and released back to the desert, others (mares) were kept for inclusion in the breeding herd for the ranch, some were taken by local folks who broke them and used them for riding or packing. A number of them were sent to the "fox farms". I believe at that time it cost $100.00 to get a permit from the BLM to gather the horses. There was no expense to the taxpayer. The number of horses was kept to a reasonable level. It was a common sense thing to do. Just think how the culture and mindset of the American public has changed in the last 45 years. God forbid you eat a horse, but there had damn sure be taxpayer money available for the killing of unborn children here in America and around the world.
Thanks again. Peace and God Bless

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 10:56AM

(SIGH!)
Because, Vickie, those "private cattle" feed people.
They also breed calves that feed people.

Drill for oil and gas across this country, and millions of acres of corn wasted in gasoline additives could be replaced with acres of perrenial grasses to feed the darned horses without the stupid greenies.
Duh!

vicki| 11.9.09 @ 11:37AM

Ken, the land was granted by law for the wild horses and burros. The cattle only represent 3% of the beef produced and should be sharing the land, not taking it over. The less than 20,000 horses and burros on the open range vs. over 7 million privately owned cattle is not an ecological balance. The cattle do far more harm to the range.

Gary Cape| 11.9.09 @ 11:53AM

These wonderful animals are indeed quite expensive to keep, but other reasons the adoption rate is so low include:
Many wild horses have been inbreeding for generations and are stunted physically and mentally. Very hard to train (if it can be done at all) and simply not worth it. Many are damn unfriendly and nothing much can be done with them.
Then there is the current surplus of privately owned domesticated and competitiion horses. People are giving them away if they can find takers or selling them for a pittance. The less desirable wild horses simply have little place in a world with too many horse of every kind.
At least feed and grain is plentiful and not overpriced in much of the country. For now.
Reducing fertility is probably the only viable longterm answer. For horses, that is.

Gary Cape

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 11:58AM

Vickie
I don't believe you.
I don't believe your 3% number either.
You are either misinformed...or informed by liars.
In fact, all your numbers are wrong.
Prove me wrong from a reputable source.

John Holland| 11.9.09 @ 8:49PM

Ken,
It is always a good idea to know what you are talking about before calling someone a liar. Here is just one reference. Depending on whether you are talking percentage of growers or percentage of cattle the numbers come back about 1 and 3 percent respectively. You will find these numbers on several BLM sites if you take the time to look.

3 USDI-BLM, USDA-Forest Service. 1995. Rangeland Reform ’94 Final Environmental Impact Statement. USDI-BLM.
Washington, DC: 26. See also K. H. Mathews, K. Ingram, J. Lewandrowski, J. Dunmore. Public lands and western
communities. Agricultural Outlook (June/July 2002): 19 (noting that public lands grazing permittees account for less than 1
percent of beef cattle growers nationally).

Irish Spectre| 11.9.09 @ 12:34PM

People don't want Fido feasting on Old Paint due to the danger of lead poisoning!

Dixie Pixie| 11.9.09 @ 12:44PM

Has anyone considered a line of “Trigger-Burger” franchises. Just a thought I had after reading Vicki's post.

Wee Willie| 11.9.09 @ 12:46PM

Culling wild horses on a regular basis, along with losing race horses, and superannuated horses all over America are a useful source of foreign exchange since French and Japanese and others enjoy horse meat. The slaughter houses and truck transportation wouldl provide needed job.

Meanwhile the taxpayer would same much money that is now used to feed penned horses in such places as Elm Creek, Nebraska.

Let humans eat horse flesh, Let Fido eat horse offal.

donald barr| 11.9.09 @ 2:00PM

You think the wild horses are expensive you better look at the rang cost compared to the one dollar and 45 cents the goverment gets from the ranchers,for a cow and calf on the range, rancher welfare

donald b| 11.9.09 @ 2:07PM

Old texican your wrong it is 3to 3.65 percent on federal land and dropping, cattle ranching out west is dying, it goes down every year not due to goverment just ecnomics. Florida and the midwest and south can out produce desert cattle. It is that simple.

Ned| 11.9.09 @ 2:13PM

All we got to do is put out a bunch of information stating that the remaining wild horses are all descendents of army cavalry horses; horses that allowed the conquering of the Indians and settling of the west. We could say that none of the wild horses are left over from the ones owned by the Indian tribes since they were starved into eating their own by the evil white man. This should seal their fate with the folks who are presently pulling the levers of death.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 2:41PM

Donald B.
I don't accept your numbers either. Even if I did, though, that's a hell of a lot of steaks and hamburger.
Nuetering...yeah, I'll go for that. We do it to steers every day...and dog-pets too...though I would not.
...heh...I want my dog jumpin every guest's leg! heh heh!

vicki| 11.9.09 @ 2:50PM

Don’t believe me. You can do the math yourself. Take the number of privately owned cattle on the horse’s land and divide it by the number of cattle slaughtered. Read the 1971 law. Over 50 million acres were legislated for the WH&Bs;. 22 million of the acres have been taken away. Go to KLAS-TV and view the documentary and follow-up, Stampede to Oblivion, by George Knapp. There are map overlays so perhaps if you see it in a picture, you will believe it. Perhaps if you hear out of the BLMs collective mouths, you’ll believe it. You can read the report in black & white or view the documentary in color. You can chose to ignore the mounds of evidence but that doesn’t change the facts. Another 12,000 are targeted for removal for full year 2010. The cattle numbers are not reduced commensurate with the wild horses. How do you know where our burgers come from? Check they labels, they all say US, Mexico and Canada.

Wee Willie, better check your facts. 85% of the horse slaughter house workers were illegals. That means only 30 workers out of the 200 were US jobs. You can read the court transcripts to verify that. Cavel didn’t have one US citizen on the kill house floor – unless you count the inspector that was sometimes present.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 3:06PM

SIGH!
Vickie, you don't get it yet do you? Your numbers are lies. THE BLM is yet another fed agency with an agenda...stay employed doing nothing.
Send us an unbiased link or go home.
Ken

donald b| 11.9.09 @ 3:43PM

Old texican - you have a computer use it.

Ashton| 11.9.09 @ 5:43PM

Support this organization -
http://www.unitedorgsofthehorse.org/
People eat horse meat all over the world - lets feed the hungry! I am an avid equestrian but lets be realistic about what it costs the taxpayer! There are no horse slaughter plants left in the US because the folks that aren't associated with the industry have had them closed - what is someone supposed to do with a 1500lb animal when its time has come? Now, the horses from the sale barns are shipped to Canada and Mexico so they spend HOURS on a truck w/o water. Why not get some use out of the animal. As for cattle ranching is dying because the Feds are supplement the diary industry! It cost more to raise a calf today and the cattle prices are the same as they were 40 years ago relatively speaking. Don't get me started on the stupidity of the Federal Govt. when it comes to the Mustang issue. Feed the hungry.

vicki| 11.9.09 @ 6:12PM

Ken, those numbers are what the BLM is using to exterminate the horses. They won’t listen to the ecologists or anyone. That’s why we want a moratorium until range studies can be done and we have solid numbers. If horses need to be removed, there will be science behind it, not cattle ranchers. Of course, United Organizations of the Horse has a more scientific method to count horses – Google Earth. We about fell over when we heard that one. Next, Wallis will be enlisting George Clooney for drug protocols. What is scary is there are a few people that believe her.

Ashton, who cares what other countries eat. Our horses are not food animals – we don’t eat our horses. Let them butcher their own horses. Feed the hungry? I can see you’ve done a lot of research. Horse meat sells for $20-$40 per pound. Do you know any hungry people that can afford those prices? What to do with a 1,500 pound animal. Uhmmm, did you ever hear of humane euthanasia? That’s what you do when an animal has reached end of life. Is it a surprise to horse owner that their animal weighs 1,500 lbs? Isn’t that something you think about before buying an animal – life long care and provision for their death? Jeez, it’s everyone’s fault but the owner. Typical anti-horse rhetoric.

BTW-horses traveled very long distances across the US when the plants were open. Were you complaining about the thousands and thousands of horses going to Mexico and Canada when the plants were open. I’ll bet not.

passinthrough| 11.9.09 @ 8:30PM

The greatest challenge the wild horses of the west face is the surviving the ministrations of the wild horse advocates. Long on emotion and short on knowledge. I can tell from your remarks Vicki that your knowledge of is the issues is scant to non existent. When the cattle ranchers were managing the wild horses they took better care of them than the BLM and horse advocates ever did.

russ| 11.9.09 @ 8:47PM

Passin' is correct : Vickie's a Clubber without a clue . She has never even seen a horse eat . An Equine will bite down and turn that big head and rip the produce from the ground , roots and all . Nothing left to grow back . A Bovine will nibble and bite off the blades , but leaving the root intact . When the horse is through , the landscape is all but wasted for years . Her figures on the leasing of BLM land are also nothing but fiction . The modern rancher all but owns most of their own grazing land now . Go ask Ted Turner .

vicki| 11.9.09 @ 9:16PM

Oh, Russ. You really haven’t done any research, have you? The leases to the cattle ranchers are public record. There are currently over 7 million cattle on the BLM land with more leases being renewed and reinstated. During the 1018 hearings, the number that was given was 8 million.

Wild Horses can travel up to 20 miles per day, grazing and moving on. The damage to riparian habitats is immense from cattle. Cattle concentrate in high numbers around water sources vs horses that graze over a much wider area. Read the GAO study. The primary cause of degraded rangelands were livestock (sheep and cattle)

If you don’t like researching, apply a bit of common sense - 7 million vs. 20,000.

Laura| 11.9.09 @ 9:42PM

Let's get REAL. The number of cattle raised on BLM leased land represent less than 3% of the beef cattle raised. The "welfare ranchers" could disappear and the economy would hardly burp.
A select few have learned how to create hysteria off the wild horse issue for profit. Current protocol has created and compounds the problems by being hell-bent to keep money going into the same "good ol' boy" pockets for decades.
Why do you think they are pulling all the stops for this idiotic Salazar plan? So you don't look too hard at how they spent the money.
This FEW horses should not be so hard to manage... unless you are doing a few things "shady."

Craig | 11.9.09 @ 9:43PM

It is a shame how our last very sparsely distributed wild horses and burros are being largely eliminated from their legal herd areas in the west to be replaced by livestock big game and other exploitative interests. The equid element is a restoration in North America, the cradle of evolution of the horse family and the very place of origin of the modern horse, Equus caballus. These animals are great healers here in all respects and it is a shame they are being eliminated from their rightful freedom. To turn this around all we need to do is actually to enforce the law of the land already on the books.

North America Man| 11.10.09 @ 7:32AM

Vickie, you don't get it yet do you? Your numbers are lies. THE BLM is yet another fed agency with an agenda...stay employed doing nothing.
Send us an unbiased link or go home.
Ken Roll forming machine

russ| 11.10.09 @ 9:45AM

Ken , are you talking the round bales ?. My ranching friend can't do without them now . Another point on the ' welfare ranchers ' is how much acreage it takes to feed one head ; - a lot. Modern ranchers grow alfalfa and take care of the cattle in feedlots , not traipsing around the wide open country looking for the herd and hoping they're doing ok ..

D. Masters| 11.10.09 @ 10:36AM

And in conclusion from MR Croke,

"It's telling that people who, when it comes to the right to life, have no compunction being "pro-choice," yet are horrified by the idea of Fido feasting on Old Paint. "

What a weasel comment! You protrolls never cease to continually depress intelligent debate by invoking unrelated commentary all in the quest to keep whacking horses for profit, all the while purveying tnon-horoughly tested meats to humans. You're a keeper Mr. Croke!

No Sir, you and your mindset are the problem here. Abortion bothers me immensely, but this is in no way related to inhumane slaughter of an over reproduced product, living, on the ground like the horse. That you try to compare the two (as they are not mutually exclusive) is repugnant.

The rest of your post (and thank God, it's a blog with all the rights to emotionalism and lacking journalist standards) will be responded to soon- point by point. Shame on you, Sir. Shame on the American Spectator for letting you peddle your uniformed, nonsubstantiated manure. Specatator? ...just watching on the sidelines are you? Croke? Isn't that an apropos handle? Just exactly who died and put you in charge?

In closing, you started this garbage with a claring false statement:

"The West has been home to wild horses since the days of the conquistadores." No Sir, they were here long before the Spanish and DNA research along with anthropological studies are identifying the history of these animals everyday as possibly continguous along with Native American oral tradition. Point of fact, DNA and archeological digs are revealing that it may have been possible for select herds to have survived the last Ice Age. And you know what, for you horse killers it will never be enough evidence that they deserve to be here. Look at the management policies for coyotes, wolves, bison, etc and tell me why they are deserving of this kind of brutal mismangement. I know why, special interests of which private land ownership and livestock industry are the primary culprits.

Let's see...approximately 5 million equines 400+ years ago, approximately 2 million at the turn of the last century (1900) and 37 thousand left today (and boy is that number debatable) are a "problem" in 2009? You Sir, do not possess basic math skills nor do you justify your case for removal of the equines in this fashion. Do some homework instead of you listening to your pseudo-facist "friends" up to their necks in the livestock and horse slaughter for human consumption businesses.

Gotta love facists...never let morality get in the way of your percieved ideal or the checking account.

vicki| 11.10.09 @ 12:18PM

North America, again, they are NOT MY NUMBERS. The BLM is using the numbers to exterminate the wild horses. Where do you suggest we get accurate numbers? The wildlife ecologists we work with say there are only 13,000-16,000 left on the open range. I prefer to believe them. There is information on the American Herds and American Horse Preservation sites, to name two. Where is your link that disputes the numbers? John provided a link to the BLM numbers so if you say they are wrong, then give us a link that proves they are wrong.

Again, that is why there must be a moratorium so range studies can be done and we can get accurate numbers. YOU don’t get it.

D. Masters| 11.11.09 @ 1:36PM

After rereading Mr. Croke's "commentary" ad naseum, I've come to the conclusion it will do no productive good to do a point by point rebuttal.

I will only say that Mr. Croke and I do agree on one thing: it is a tremendous and destructive waste of money to round up these animals as currently implemented and the lack of strategic planning and science. Now, I gave you the equines numbers at the turn of the last century. Others have restated census data of the remaining equines versus the livestock and other activities data. Bottom line is that the BLM/USDA/USFS are not in compliance of the 1971 Act. Difference is I assume he wants them slaughtered for profit and I want them managed with as little intereference from the private, public, mining, forestry and livestock grazing interests as much as possible.

Now I realize your a big one for as little government as possible, especially based on expenditures. How about doing a little homework on what the public lands permit system is costing this country before you spout off about how great it would be for Fido or humans eating this meat? I think you'll be surprised...or maybe not.

Steven Shvarz| 1.27.10 @ 11:12AM

yeah
I vote for assigning all states a quota for taking excess wild western mustangs. Turn them loose in the east, north and south, just like the west. San Francisco and Berkeley should also get their share. I vote for assigning all states a quota for taking excess wild western mustangs. Turn them loose in the east, north and south, just like the west. San Francisco and Berkeley should also get their share.

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