Testimonials
and Pictorial
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Idaho,
2004
By Golde Walllingford
Last summer in Idaho, I watched the BLM do a wild horse round-up, just up the road from where I had been staying all summer. I was very hesitant about it, as the whole idea of it turned my stomach. Then the trucks and trailers rolled down the road. My friend Bonnie and I followed up the road. We were only a few that observed what was about to happen, for they did not want people out there. We knew someone that gave us the info on where the round-up would take place that day.
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It was something that I am sure, as time passes, will impact my life more than I realize. We climbed the hillside and watched as the helicopter slowly pushed the horses...stallions, mares, and foals, down the rocky hillside towards the funnel they had set up with fencing....and the cowboys waited to push them into the holding pens....my heart was crying...then a stallion jumped a 6 ft. fence...from a dead standstill…uphill…and to my heart's delight escaped... I am sure he was already exhausted from the round-up...but what heart and spirit he had...pushed him on...to freedom... For a short moment my heart and soul cheered him on. Then the next group was pushed into the pens; again, one of the stallions tried the same thing....he caught a leg, and hung there for what seemed to me, an eternity... I could no longer watch... I held my head in my hands until I heard the gunshot that gave him freedom ....he was not going to be caught.... Numb, tears rolling down our faces, we climbed off that hill.
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When the man who was running the operation came over to us, he clearly was shaken, told us how awful he felt. I could only express what was in me. I told him that I did not have a lot of money, but I would buy some plywood and fix those fences, so that it would never happen again. I said that with all the resources and technology that the US government had available, there was surely a method that a wild horse, trying to jump out of a pen he was held captive in, would not break a leg and have to die... There has to be a better way...a solution....please direct me if you can to someone that could help prevent this from ever happening again....
-Golde
California, 2005 -
Death of a Mojave National Preserve Burro
By J.& K. Foster
In June of 2005, a wildfire in the Mojave National Preserve destroyed 70,000 acres and burned out several homes. The National Park Service (NPS) requested and received $84,500.00 in federal funds for burro removal from the burn area. They scheduled a roundup of all burros in the area and, over a period of about ten days in September, helicopters were used to catch 40+ burros, none of which came from the burn area.
When I got the call that they were holding burros at Kessler Springs Ranch, which had been turned into a Ranger Facility, I called BLM to see why we were not informed they would be gathering burros. It was not a BLM operation, so no one except Park Rangers and wranglers hired by NPS was over-seeing the roundup to make sure animals were safe. The burros that were captured were kept behind locked gates with big NO TRESPASSING SIGNS.
One day during the roundup, the wranglers located a beautiful large Jack (i.e. a male burro). They began chasing him until they literally ran him to collapse. One of the wranglers said, “Oh he has had a heart attack and died” so he started jumping up and down on the Jack’s abdomen. He would pick his head up by his ears and slam the head into the ground. The burro was exhausted he had no way to fight back. He was not dead when they left him. He was bleeding from the nose and the mouth. Chances are when the so-called “cowboy” jumped up and down on the Jack’s abdomen it probably crushed ribs, which punctured lungs. He may have even crushed the skull.
The wranglers asked a film crew present at the scene if they would use this film against them; the crew said they were no longer filming but cameras kept rolling. They sent me still shots of the Jack over what looks to be a 12-14 hour period. He died a terrible, slow, lonely death. They would have been more humane by shooting him to put an end to his suffering, but they did not even give him that much respect or dignity.
Several witnesses also observed the NPS crew loading burros into a trailer, how each burro was restrained with ropes and two “cowboys” had ropes around the burro’s neck and go at a full out run on their horses and flipped the burro right into the trailer and dragged them until they could drag them no more. Every time I have to repeat the story all I see is torture and death, severe animal cruelty.
BLM took possession of the herd that was captured and they are now being held as we look for land to put them on, until we can release them safely back to freedom where they belong. There were 41 delivered to Ridgecrest California in pretty bad shape. We lost 3 Jennies over the first few weeks. We are hoping that we can get the Herd Area opened back up at Clark Mountain. I am trying to keep faith that, one way or another, NPS will leave this herd alone.
That dead burro did not stand a chance and there are more out there that won’t either unless we all find a new approach to this overwhelming problem with out-of-control governmental agencies. Please let us not let the few remaining true signs of Freedom and our Living Breathing Western Heritage disappear in this shameful manner.
-Jennifer
& Ken Foster
Public
Lands For Public Use,
pl4pu2@verizon.net
Pictorial
Nevada,
2003
Courtesy of Return to Freedom
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Copyright
© 2004-2008 AWHPC. All rights reserved.
Reproduction authorized solely for educational purposes,
provided www.wildhorsepreservation.org
is credited as source.