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NEW RAVENDALE HERD MANAGEMENT AREA (CA-243)

The New Ravendale HMA is located near the town of Ravendale, CA and is bordered on the east side by Highway 395. On the other side of Hwy 395 is Twin Peaks HMA. The herd management area contains 27,500 acres in Lassen County, California. The HMA has not had an AML determined, but is estimated to be approximately 25 head. The wild horses in this area are descended primarily from domestic ranch stock consisting of both draft and light horse breeds.

Pancho, adopted by Rebecca Sanderson

NUT MOUNTAIN HERD MANAGEMENT AREA (CA-266)

The Nut Mountain HMA is located 40 miles east of Cedarville, CA in Washoe County, NV. Nut Mtn is just North of High Rock HMA, West of Wall Canyon HMA, South of Sheldon USFWS Preserve, as well as Bitner HMA. The HMA is about 40,500 acres in size. The area has an AML of 55 wild horses with a range of 30-55 head. The horses in this area likely originated from historical ranching operations. This herd is made up primarily of blacks and bays with some pinto individuals.

Cody from Nut Mountain (right after adoption (above) and 6 years later (right)

Adopted and owned by Nancy Elbertson

RED ROCK LAKES HERD MANAGEMENT AREA (CA-251)

The Red Rock Lakes HMA is located about 10 miles east of Macdoel, CA in northern Siskiyou County, California. It is entirely isolated from any other wild horse area. This HMA contains 17,000 acres on Mahogany Mountain. This area has a estimated AML of 25 wild horses. These horses may have ancestry tracing back to the Spanish Mustang. The Spanish blood lines have been diluted by a large variety of horses brought into the area by pioneering ranches. Gray and bay are predominant colors in this herd.

When we visited Litchfield in September, three or four Sisters mares came right up to us and wanted to be petted - and they had just been gathered, and not worked with at all!

Colt from Sisters. gentled by Lesley Neuman and adopted by Becky Sheridan

SISTERS, USFS

This small area near MacDoel, California, was gathered in late summer of 2006 by California BLM in cooperation with the US Forest Service. Approximately 75 animals were gathered. They are large horses with unusually calm temperaments and obvious draft ancestry.

For information about adopting Snowflake
contact California BLM

TWIN PEAKS HERD MANAGEMENT AREA
(CA-242)

BLM Website about the 2010 Twin Peaks gather, including daily notes, adoption info, etc.

Amy Dumas' photos of the Skedaddle sub-HMA area of Twin Peaks, 2010 Twin Peaks gather:
Skedaddle is the home range within Twin Peaks that produces mules, as well as some of the best horses.

Twin Peaks Mare adopted by Roxanna Vickerey	Twin Peaks Clyde- adopted by Melissa Shur	Hoodoo from Twin Peaks - adopted by Lesley Neuman
Virgil, adopted by Kris Wendee Walker and her Twin Peaks horse, Yogi	Twin Peaks Internet Adoption Horse, who became Bear, adopted by Lisa Knighton	Ruby from Twin Peaks - adopted by Michael Kerson
Cheveyo, adopted by Karen Mayfield of Nevada www.wildmustangcoalition.org	This is War Paint, from the Twin Peaks HMA.  We adopted him in 2003, and got title for him in April 2004.  He is the sweetest Stallion.  I raised domestic horses for years.  I would never have owned a stallion because they can be so mean.  Mustang stallions are so different.  War Paint is my Papa Bear.  He has the best personality, and manners.  - Becky Winters, Colorado	Twin Peaks "Ms Jake" owned by Joan Baeskens
Twin Peaks horses at an adoption: These horses at a BLM Adoption in Turlock, CA in spring of 2003 are all from Twin Peaks HMA

Ruby, adopted by Mike Kerson


Twin Peaks filliy at an adoption

Dave Freeman and Dakota from Twin Peaks

Rowdy, adopted by Katie Barrett

Rowdy in training

The Twin Peaks HMA is located approx. 25 miles northeast of Susanville, CA. Highway 395 borders the HMA to the west. The herd area contains some 798,000 acres in Lassen County, California and Washoe County, Nevada.

The HMA is managed as 5 separate home ranges which provide a home for both wild horses and burros. (and yes, they do occasionally inter-breed, creating wild mules!) Appropriate management levels have been established for this herd management area. These levels call for managing between 448-760 horses and 47-79 burros.

Some of the original wild horses in this area descended from Spanish stock. Descendants of US Army Cavalry remounts prior to and during World War I and historic ranch stock consisting of both draft and light breeds make up most of the herd today. The wild burros likely originated from historic sheep operations in the area.

The Skedaddle Mountains area within Twin Peaks HMA also produces WILD MULES!!!

JC from Twin Peaks

Dr. Gus Cothran, noted equine geneticist, analyzed 25 blood samples from Twin Peaks animals. I have done my best to give a synopsis of this report below.

Red Sabino Twin Peas mare adopted by Tara Flewelling of Orland
 

Symphony, Twin Peaks mare born in 2000 and adopted by Kathy Mahan

Symphony was captured in Twin Peaks HMA in July 2001 and went to Susanville, CA. Somehow she was moved to Ridgecrest, CA. and Kathy Mahan adopted her June 23 2002 at an adoption held at Pierce College in Woodland Hills CA.

We named her Symphony Solstice to honor of the day we met her, and the change it brought about in her life, little did I know how big a change it would bring in my life.  It's been 4 years.  I have moved. I bought a house where she could live with me. Even though it meant moving away from my friends, family, and a job transfer.  We have since adopted a second mustang who is also very special to us.

Symphony is everything I imagined she would be and more. She watches over our other horses, ignoring her own fears if she thinks they are in danger. She is always the first in line to greet me.

She is mine because she chose to be, and I am hers. There is no mistaking that she claims me every time I enter her yard, her herd. She is my shoulder to lean on after a rough day; My place of instant peace.

- Kathy Mahan

Twin Peaks Will, Lesley Neuman's "Blue Mule"	Lesley working with a 6-year-old Twin Peaks mule at an adoption	TWIN PEAKS MULES Apparently there has been some question about the origin of Twin Peak's mules, because Dr. Cothran makes a point of mentioning that one of the samples used was from a mule, and that everything about the mule's blood markers is consistent with having originated within Twin Peaks' wild horse and burro herds. In other words, the mules are not domestic runaways or recent introductions. Wild Mules are not generally good adoption candidates. Even domestic mules that ahve not been well-handled from birth are more than most modern horse people can train effectively! It is the opinion of this author that wild mules should be allowed to live their lives in the wild (sicne they can't reproduce anyway) and should not be offered for adoption. Their chances of success are quite low. If you want t Mustang Mule, get a good Mustang mare and breed her in captivity, or adopt a wild Twin Peaks mare and hope that her baby is a mule!
		Ginny & Dave Freeman adopted "ThomASS" the baby mule at the November 2006 Special Adoption in Litchfield, CA.
Although Tommy seems to be doing great in this picture, he ultimately reached a plateau in his training, which his adopter was unable to get past. He has been through at least two unsuccessful adoptions since then. Wild Mules generally do not domesticate well.		Beautiful 3-year-old mule from the 2010 Twin Peaks gather.

Dr. Gus Cothran's Genetic Analysis of the Twin Peaks Herd:

(Summarized by Nancy - my apologies if I didn't get it right. If you want the "real deal" ask your BLM agent for a copy)

The two main areas he looked at were:

1. Herd health from a genetics standpoint, and

2. Clues to the herd's history. 

1. GENETIC HEALTH & DIVERSITY:

Looking at herd health, one of the first things to look at is genetic diversity - the more variable the genepool, one expects to find greater genetic health (as opposed to inbreeding, which narrows the genepool and can cause doubling up on weak or defective genes) 

He made the quite surprising discovery that the genepool is not very diverse. Normally this means inbreeding, but since Twin Peaks is a huge area with a very large population of wild horses, inbreeding is most unlikely. The more likely possibility is that all the horses are descended from a small (but diverse, in terms of breed represented) "founding population," and have not been infused with "new blood" or outside mixing, for a long time.

This is consistent with known history - that the already-present wild horses - who may have been fewer in number than we usually think, due to "mustanging" or whatever, were mixed with high quality domestic stallions for the Cavalry Remount program, etc. 

Another way a gene pool becomes less diverse is when people develop a new breed - the desirable animals are mated and reproduce, and the undesirable ones tossed out. New blood is not allowed in, and the genepool becomes, well, for lack of a less-highly-charged word, "purified." The animals "breed true,"  meaning they and their offspring have a certain set of recognizable and predictable characteristics that set them apart from other breeds, whether that be color, behavior, movement, conformation, performance, or whatever went into the breeding decisions. 

Obviously, people often mess up and along with the genes they want, they get disasters that they don't want, and they get the classic inbreeding issues associated with pure breeds. 

In the case of the Twin Peaks herd, this isn't happening. They got the concentration of genetic material that one associates with a true breed, but, probably since Mother Nature culls heavily, they don't seem to have the problems that go along with humans developing a breed. I should note, about the low diversity: When loss of diversity happens quickly (such as through inbreeding or suddenly low population due to disaster or even through periodic massive roundups), the herd is in trouble. A genetic bottleneck is created, with all subsequent animals being descended from a small group of individuals, thus concentrating their genetics. Animal breeders do this purposefully, of course but the danger is that "bad genes" as well as good are suddenly doubled up on, and you start to see a lot of weak and defective foals. But when it happens slowly, gently, over a long period of time, allowing Mother Nature to weed out the undesireable genes, as it did with the Twin Peaks herd, it simply results in a more uniform"breed."

Since Twin Peaks horses are known for their size, beauty, nice temperaments, and fairly recognizable conformational similarities, it seems to me that this is what we have with Twin Peaks. Many  people report that they can pick out the Twin Peaks horses when they go to an adoption or horse show - there is something unique, recognizable, about the Twin Peaks horses. So the Twin Peaks Herd, according to my interpretation, may qualify as a True Breed - Dr. Cothran didn't come out and say it in his report, but the fitting description is there.

Dr. Cothran does not recommend making any introductions of new blood at this time, but notes that he would like to study more samples (as 25 individuals is a small sample size, especially from so large a herd area) and the situation should be monitored carefully over time to catch genetic problems if they arise.

2. ORIGINS:

The breeds most likely to have played a part in the origin of the herd are Iberian, Thoroughbred, Draft, Morgan, and the North American gaited Saddle breeds. (Most of this is typical of the Southeastern Oregon horses that I've read genetic studies on, too, only most of them don't have much, if any, draft)

As for ancestry and history, this is very technical, but the synopsis seemed to indicate that the Twin Peaks herd is similar genetically to other wild herds in the region - a combination of original Old Spanish horses, with more modern domestic stock, and the herd bears closest similarity today to the gaited American saddle horses, the Standardbred carriage horses and Thoroughbreds and Morgans - none of this is surprising.

What was surprising, although he made absolutely no reference to it in this report, was the inclusion of one of the known "Old Spanish" marker known as "D-dek" on the chart of markers identified. When this happened in the Kiger analysis, this was much ballyhooed, proof of "Old Spanish" lineage. But it was not even mentioned in this one, because Old Spanish was not the focus of the report.

There are only four known markers that are absolutely indicative of Iberian (Old Spanish) ancestry. One is the "D-dek" This is the one the Kiger herd has. It is also in the Twin Peaks herd!

It is believed that in the 1860’s two men brought 500 head of Spanish horses from San Diego, and drove some of them north to Buffalo Meadows, near Wild 17 Horse Canyon. Descendants of these horses were captured, driven to Amedee (near Honey Lake), and shipped for use in the Boer War (1880), the Spanish-American War (1898), and World War I (1914) (Amesbury, 1967). During World War II the Marr Ranch of the Madeline plains was involved in gathering wild horses of the Twin Peaks HMA for US Army remounts. During this time local residents attempted to improve the herd quality by culling horses with undesirable traits and introducing saddle horses with desirable traits into the herds.

After the war, and the decline in demand for remounts, some local wranglers captured the horses to be sold for horsemeat and pet foods...

Click here for Nevada BLM'S "MUSTANG COUNTRY" booklet - chock full of info for mustang buffs, including wild horse history, visitor tips and camping info for the Northwestern HMA's, including several that are located in Nevada but administered by California. It takes a while to download but is well worth the wait! 

Wall Canyon Internet Adoption horses

WALL CANYON HERD MANAGEMENT AREA (CA-265)

According to Glenna Eckel, WHB Specialist, Harry Wilson operated the Wall Canyon Ranch prior to WWII for the production of horses for the Army's remount program.

The Wall Canyon HMA is comprised of 49,000 acres in Washoe and Humboldt Counties of Nevada, just South of Sheldon USFWS and East of Massacre Lakes HMA. Warm Springs Canyon HMA is on its Eastern border. The HMA is located 46 miles east of Cedarville, CA. This HMA has an AML of 25 wild horses and a range of 15-25 animals. These horses probably originated from domestic stock from historical ranching operations. The predominant colors in this herd are black and bay. Some paint/pinto individuals also occur.


Lucca has the strong sturdy bone structure and large, lightly featherd feet, that is typical of most Mustangs. Lucca is owned by Veronica Hammer

Lucca at the 4th of July Parade