Recently the mesa had an attempted theft of some of the bachelor stallions that reside by the lake. I received a call early one morning from a family by the lake warning me that someone had a rope on one of the young stallions down in the valley. I contacted the ranch manager, and the sheriff and headed to the valley as fast as I could. Luckily they weren’t having much luck containing the wild stallions. When we all came at them at once they decided it wasn’t such a good idea. They stated they were looking for any cows that had gotten left behind.
They had a rope on Bolt, the 3 year old son of Lightening and CeCe. They couldn’t hold on to him, thank goodness. What they had done was to bring a domestic mare that was in season and put in a pen in the valley. The stallions looked like they were velcroed to the fence.
As many of you know we had 28 horses stolen last summer that were taken to slaughter in Mexico. I chased them to the border with Mexico and went to every border crossing from Texas to Arizona leaving pictures of the horses. I was not able to save them. That band was One Eyed Jack Black Band, I had been photographing for 10 years. Jack was an amazing stallion. When I met him 10 ago he had already lost his left eye. That didn’t slow him down. He had a band of 14 mares and 13 babies.
Recently, on the internet there has been a lot of discussion regarding the BLM allowing wild horses to go to slaughter. Tom Davis of La Jara, CO, a former employee of the BLM, has admitted purchasing wild horses from the BLM for $10 each and taking to Mexico for slaughter. Making a profit of $3000. per truckload. Davis made $150,000 on 50 truckloads of our wild horses. He has purchased 1800 horses over the last few years. No one is being prosecuted. Everyone is playing dumb. Davis says the BLM should have known what he was doing with that many horses. BLM says Davis told them they were going to homes near the border, duh! These are horses that belong to the American people, a part of our heritage and the history of the United States. Not to be eaten in Europe.
Spirit of the Wild Horse and Costilla County, CO are setting up Rio Grande Wild Horse Preserve at the north end of Rio Grande National Monument. The Colorado side is call the Rio Grande Natural Area. The preserve will be on the Colorado side of the Rio Grande and Highway 142 and will protect 200 Spanish mustangs that have lived in the area for generations. Working with the county we are in the process of designing a camp ground and will be doing a scientific study of the Spanish horses in the next couple of years.
It is that time of year again, we need hay. By feeding the horses through the winter, they stay on top of the mesa and away from the ranches where they get captured. Any cash or hay donations are tax deductable. We can pick up hay that is donated. Happy Thanksgivings to all.