Run Wild
Forever Free
ABOUT THE IDEA
​The purpose of this site is to get people talking, to get people putting their heads together and coming up with a new and better plan to aid our wild horses.
I have an idea which I put forth for discussion, does it need work... yes... but my hope is that with discussion a new and better idea will emerge and our beloved wild horses will reap the rewards.
To begin with let me tell you about myself. I am an ordinary, widowed woman. I am not part of any organization. I don't have a board behind me or a sanctuary to work for or from. I am simply an ordinary person who deeply loves wild horses and who wants to help.
I do have a background in horses and in ranching. As a young girl I loved horses and became a professional groom as an adult. I worked with many fine show horses... hunters and jumpers of the day, traveling all over the Eastern US and CA. At one point I even cared for Olympic horses. I further trained in England getting a horsemanship degree and then spent a number of years working with both the show horses and then on Thoroughbred breeding farms. Then, after a vacation in Arizona, met my fella (with whom I spent most of my life) and moved to the US. Here I worked in a commercial stable, established a riding school, published an equine newspaper and then moved to a remote cattle ranch.
Living on a ranch I saw the delicate balance between survival and prosperity. I also saw first hand how every predatory animal was destroyed routinely... from cougar to bobcat, from coyotes to foxes. All shot, trapped or poisoned.
I've worked with many breeds of horses and a few mules. I've loved them all... the high strung TB's, the stoic Standardbreds, the sculpted Arabians, the stocky Quarter Horses, the showy Appy's... I even owned Belgians and Percherons. All beautiful, all unique but all molded and basically "made" by man. Then I saw my first wild horse... an animal that didn't have mans stamp all over them. An animal that had that look of pure freedom. These horses had a beauty and substance above and beyond all the domestic breeds. These animals had done what few can... they had learned to make it in the most hostile of worlds, survived and prospered.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES A WORD MAKE? PLENTY!
What difference does a word make? In the world of wild horses it makes plenty of difference. That word is the difference between life and death.
Thousands of years ago, the horse ran free in the America's. Smaller and very agile, it was once a prey species in great numbers. The horse, along with other mammals such as the Woolly Mammoth became extinct. Maybe it was climate change... there were severel weather changes from droughts to ice ages during those times. Maybe it was the rise of a superior predator that wiped out it's own food supply and thus passing to extinction as well. What really happened is not known.
Then about 500 years ago, horses returned.
I've watched over the years as fellow wild horse lovers have struggled to save wild horses and failed. I've seen the powerful people win out over the little people time and time again. Sadly I saw first hand when government agencies make decisions and wiped out established herds. In the 1980's I saw Spanish bloodline wild horses removed in totality from the Buenos Aires Wild Life Preserve. Those bloodlines were forever lost. Now fire is used annually to control the grasses which once the horses controlled naturally.
My idea promotes that all wild horse groups come together as one unit and by so doing present a united front has more power for change. My idea promotes removing present government agency leaders and replace with more progressive minded and less biased management. My idea promotes rethinking the entire spectrum of range land management by sub-leasing grazing leases already in existence and by paying for those sub-leases using money already in the system. My idea promotes allowing nature to control populations. My idea brings children into the mix through sponsoring a specific herd and by doing so become educated into the responsibilities of man to nature. My idea has everyone working together.
Is this idea the perfect answer... no... but it is a start at a real and meaningful conversation. Parts of the idea may be adverse to some but with an open mind and new fresh ideas, things can be worked out.
The idea mentions predators. This controversial idea upsets many but man has played with nature for so many years and frankly has really sucked at it. Allowing nature to be nature is the only way to control animal populations. Will there be livestock losses... possibly but these losses can be compensated for in the program. These losses will also be minimised because horses will replace this livestock. For some allowing wild horses to be killed in this way is horrendous. Yet numbers need control and present methods don't work. If we really believe wild horses to be WILD then we need to treat them as if they truly are and allow for natural controls.
For thousands of years great herds filled the west. The grasslands thrived and predators were part of that... nature will balance things, nature always does in the end.
It is my thought that wild horses should never be captured. Their beauty is in the wildness of their lives. It is my thought that all men should preserve these horses as the treasures which there truly are.
This is just my idea. I invite discussion.
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