This is a non-commercial, independent website, owned and written by Nancy Kerson, for the benefit of actual and potential adopters of BLM Mustangs and Burros and similar animals.
DVD or VHS (2-DVD or 2-VHS set) almost 3 hours of instruction!
$39.95 plus $5 shipping/handling = $44.95 total
Lesley Neuman: The First Touch Gentling Your Mustang $45.00
Lesley works with 3 wild horses at a BLM adoption, and very clearly explains what is happening, what she is doing, & what she sees in each horse as it progresses. Study this video and you can learn "pressure and release" gentling techniques to gentle your own new mustang!
Help for Burro adopters! Crystal Ward Donkey Training
All the basics of gentling, handling, and training. A MUST for new burro adopters! Good for domestic donkeys, too!
Tired of the cruelty and concerned about the possibility of wild horse extinction, Velma Johnson, aka "Wild Horse Annie" led a campaign of public awareness, and persuaded Congress to pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act. Under the provisions of this law, wild horses and burros may not be captured for slaughter. Instead, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is charged with protecting and managing the wild herds.
"In 1971, Congress introduced and passed The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA). President Richard M. Nixon signed the new Act into law (Public Law 92-195) on December 15, 1971. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act required the protection, management and control of wild free-roaming horses and burros. Local livestock operators now had to claim and permit their private horses and burros grazing on public lands or lose ownership of them. After a specified time period following passage of the Act, any remaining unbranded and unclaimed herds inhabiting BLM or Forest Service lands were declared "wild free-roaming horses and burros" and became the property of the federal government." (from "MUSTANG COUNTRY)
In 1978, the Public Rangelands Improvement Act (PRIA) amended the WFRHBA to give the Secretary of Interior broad discretion to determine what and where excess horses are and to remove them. The 1978 PRIA amendments stressed the multiple use concept and removal of horses to maintain a thriving ecological balance and protecting the range from deterioration associated with overpopulation of wild horses and burros. It removed the provision that required herd areas be managed “principally” for the benefit of the wild horses.
It was in the 1978 PRIA Amendment that the words excess, overpopulation and removal were first introduced into the Act. This was summarized quite succinctly in a federal Appeals Court decision -- AHPA v. Watt – that still stands as precedent in the DC Circuit (694 F.2d 1310, 224 U.S.App.D.C. 335):
The main thrust of the 1978 amendments is to cut back on the protection the Act affords wild horses, and to reemphasize other uses of the natural resources wild horses consume. The amendments introduce a definition of “excess” horses: horses are in “excess” if they “must be removed from an area in order to preserve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship in that area.” *1317**342
16 U.S.C. § 1332(f) (Supp.IV 1980).FN30 This definition makes explicit what was, at most, implicit in the 1971 Act: public ranges are to be managed for multiple uses, not merely for the maximum protection of wild horses.
(this legal analysis from an employee at a large legal organization)
THE SAGEBRUSH REBELLION
As important as the 1971 Wild Horse & Burro Freedom Act is to wild horse & burro issues, it is also important to know about the Sagebrush Rebellion, as these two forces act as weights on opposite ends of a teeter-totter of policy-making.
The "Sagebrush Rebellion" in Nevada during the 1960's through late 1970's targeted wild horses as an expression of people's contempt for increasing federal interevention in their lives and ways of doing business. Animosity toward wild horses from the ranching community continues to this day.
To understand wild horse politics, it is important to know about the Sagebrush Rebellion and the powerful effect it had in the region, and continues to have. Here are some links:
Sagebrush rebels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Sagebrush rebels is a group that attempted to influence environmental policy in the American West during the 1970s and 1980s, surviving into the 21st century in public lands states (generally, the 13 western states where federal land holdings include 30% to more than 50% of a state's area), and surviving in organized groups pressuring public lands policy makers, especially for grazing of sheep and cattle on public lands, and for mineral extraction policies.
...The term "Sagebrush Rebellion" was coined during fights over designation of National Wilderness lands, especially in western states..." see link above for the complete article
"Wild Horses, First Target by Nevada's Sagebrush Rebels" by Rose Strickland (Reprinted from "Western Sportsman" –the official voice of the Nevada Wildlife Federation, –February 1997 issue.) "Nevada State Senator Dean Rhoads’ Legislative Committee on Public Lands (and also regarded as the father of the Sagebrush Rebellion and is a public lands permittee and rancher) is wasting no time after November’s elections to eliminate or cripple the state’s role in protecting the wild horses on public lands in Nevada." (click link for complete article)
Today's wild horse management issues are extremely complex - if you are looking for simplistic answers, you will not find them here. The best thing you can do is to continually educate yourself and make your own decisions. Talk to people. Talk to BLM personnel, ranchers, wild horse advocates, recreationists, hunters & fishermen, campers, bikers, field biologists, wild horse advocates. Go visit the range yourself if you can. See for yourself what it's like. Imagine for yourself what a "thriving ecological balance" might look like...
Wild Horse & Burro Protection and Management efforts in recent times have collided headlong with a difficult mix of circumstances that include:
Climate change (longer and worse droughts in the Great basin area)
Increased pressures on public lands for human enterprises such as energy development, mineral extraction, recreation, hunting and fishing, RV-ing, ATV-ing, biking, and housing and industrial development.
Increased pressures to develop public lands for national energy and mineral needs. I really do not understand why wild horses and energy production should necessarily be mutually exclusive, but that seems to be the trend.
A faltering national economy that is forcing many would-be horse owners and adopters to give up their animals or to put their dreams of adopting a Mustang on hold. This keeps adoption rates down.
Loss of land available for any kind of equine use, (boarding stables, trails, affordable competition facilities, etc) which restricts people's ability to have or enjoy horses, which reduces interest in hroses, etc - a downward spiral.
Development of former "horse property" into housing developments, vineyards, etc, making it hard to find a place to keep a horse.
Changing national demographics: Wild horses are on fewer and fewer people's radar. Today huge blocks of the population have no experience, awareness or interest in horses of any kind. Fewer and fewer people dream of owning a horse. Even fewer have the skill-sets needed to be successful with even a domestic horse, let alone a wild one. The adoption market for captured wild horses is shrinking. Fewer people have a love of horses, and are more likely to resent tax-payer money being used to benefit them.
Increased feed prices due to droughts and increased exportation of hay and feed to Asia, conversion of agricultural land from growing feed crops to growing crops for fuel (ethanol, etc)
Today most wild horse herds are restricted to far Northeast California, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, one small area of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. There are also a few isolated herds on the Eastern Seaboard islands, as well as a few pockets here and there in the Dakotas and the South. These last mentioned herds are not part of the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program - just the ones in the western states.
BRIGHT SPOTS: Volunteer halter training programs enhance adoptability for mustangs and burros, and this kind of project is catching on in many states. Prison training programs are win-win for the everyone. The inmates learn skills and the horses produced in these programs are in high demand. Recently, successful partnerships have started to develop between BLM and wild horse advocates to monitor and intervene in situations that would normally result in nuiscance horses having to be captured. Birth control is being taken more seriously as a way to mitigate the need for large gathers.
Today’s wild horses are a true American Melting Pot of horses, and with the help of Natural Selection, they are intelligent, sound-minded, sure-footed, and strong. Mustangs normally have excellent feet that often do not require shoes, and strong, hardy constitutions. Having had the benefit of life within a functional natural social unit, they are well-socialized and savvy.
copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Nancy Kerson, all rights reserved - I'm happy to share, just need to be asked and have credit given where due.
Disclaimer: Horses are inherently dangerous. Use the information contained within this website at your own risk.
