Where the Wild Winds Blow, Wild Horses are No longer Free
Story and Photo by Leslie Peebles
TWIN PEAKS, CAL, (Special to Horseback) – In the north east corner of California, near Susanville, there is a piece of land that is so vast and expansive that it seems it may go on forever. Standing there a soothing sense of peace comes over you as the only sounds you hear are the breezes and the birds, and looking out over the hills, the grasses, trees and rock formations, it is so beautiful that you feel as if you want to stay there forever. This is the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area where a living part of the history of the old west roams. Driving along we came upon a small herd of five adult burros and hidden behind a bush was a tiny baby of about one week old. His mom started moving him away and he pranced like a parade horses across the prairie all ears and legs, the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
We rounded a corner of this incredible place and were delighted to see a herd of Wild horses, three separate bands each with a stallion and his mares and babies, about 25 horses in all, taking shelter from the hot afternoon sun tucked in under a shady tree. The horses were beautiful, fat and shiny, and so peaceful enjoying the afternoon with us and their families. Out from under the tree came a baby, about a month old, black with a white spotted rump, he was adorable. We were immediately enchanted. He wanted to play with the other babies in the neighbor’s band so he headed towards them and just as he got to the other band of horses a white horse came out of his band and retrieved him and brought him back, scolding him soundly with a nasty look. Feeling a little insecure the black and white colt found his mom for a drink and that’s when we realized that the white horse was his dad. Dad was keeping him out of trouble, a familiar family role. It was fascinating to watch the family dynamics at work in these wonderful wild horses. We watched until the horses moved off up the canyon, quickly disappearing and realized how lucky we were to have been able to spend a few moments with piece of the disappearing history of the old west.
The Twin Peaks Horse Management area was a once in a lifetime, must see for us, and I have to wonder why these incredible sights that we witnessed are not known or promoted for tourism. To demonstrate how under promoted the horses are, most of the people I spoke to in the nearby town of Susanville did not know about the Wild Horses or the round up at all, less than 20 miles away. If people knew that they could travel out to this crazy beautiful place or book a jeep tour they would come from far and wide. I never wanted to leave this land once I experienced it. There is a fascination all over the world for the American old west and the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area and its Wild Horses and Burros is as wild as it gets, a true living piece of the history of the American old west and a gold mine in tourism dollars for local economies.
But it will soon be gone, this living history of the Old West, right now as I write this the Bureau of Land Management is rounding up 2,300 of our Wild Horses and Burros from the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area and they will only be leaving 487 horses and 72 burros on this expanse of land which covers 2,150 square miles. By the look of the horses they are doing well and have plenty of food and water even with the 32,000 head of cattle and sheep that they share the land with, the land, the grass and the water are in great shape. At 800,000 acres each horse will have 1,333 acres, many, many more acres than one horse needs. The grazing revenues (cattle/sheep) for 2010 for this land are only 120,000. a loss to the Federal government that you and I subsidize to the tune of 150 million a year nationwide while the tax payers are paying 4 million dollars (67 million nationwide) to have these Wild Horses rounded up. The Bureau of Land Management says that there will not be enough food and water for them and they are over populated. There is no over population of horses but there is a huge over population of privately owned livestock grazing on our taxpaying backs and then our tax dollars are used by our government to inhumanely round up this precious resource, the Wild Horses of the West.
Cattle graze, range and drink differently than wild horses, they stay very close to water sources virtually camping out in and around the water fouling it and the surrounding area with defecation and removing all plant life from the banks and nearby. The water sources are covered in cow pies but you will not find any horses manure around them, so clearly they don’t stay long enough to do the damage that cattle do. Cattle have no to teeth in front so they rip the grass up from the roots so it cannot grow back. Cows have three stomachs and fully digest seeds so they do not help with replanting of forage. Wild Horses snip the grasses leaving the plant intact and have only one stomach so they do not digest all the seeds and disperse seeds in their nutrient rich manure as they travel. Wild Horses travel long distances each day only coming to water to drink once or twice a day. The wild Horses do very little damage to our public lands while cattle damage is evident and extensive.
Our beautiful wild Icons of the west are driven with a helicopter for up to 3 hours and 15 miles with day’s old babies at their sides over harsh terrain and lava rock and slammed jammed into small traps where, terrorized they smash into each other and into and over the small baby foals, many of them just days old. Many are injured and killed, their peaceful lives and families forever shattered and lost to the public. (No private citizen could get away with the same level of injuries, death and inhumane treatment of horses and not be charge with animal cruelty.) There will be no horses to see after this brutal round up is over. You are lucky if you see them now with 2300 horses and burros out there on the range, when there are only 450 horses and 72 burros on 800,000 acres of land there will be no chance of tourism for many years to come. This is a travesty of epic proportions. The Bureau of Land Management by its own admission is a land management agency not a horse management agency and it sure shows in their mismanagement of Americas Wild Horses.
The American wild Horse is protected by law but apparently they now need protection from the very people charged with their protection. We will have, at the end of this year 42,000 wild horses in long term holding pens at a cost to the American taxpayer of 67 million in 2010, while on the range management costs very little. Our wonderful once Wild Horses are at risk of being slaughtered for human consumption at slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico. All once wild horses over 10 years of age or that have been up for adoption 3 times are labeled “Sale Authority “and are eligible for unlimited sale to anyone and all they have to do to buy them is sign an affidavit saying that they don’t intend to slaughter them, but the next day the horses can again be sold to anyone and can and do end up on peoples plates overseas. Horse slaughter is alive and well as 120,000 horses some of them Mustangs, 92% of them young healthy and sound, left the U.S. to go to slaughter in foreign owned slaughter houses in 2009. I personally rescued a BLM branded once wild horse from the local kill pens on August 4th, 2010, a sound healthy 10 year old. Unthinkable the Wild Horse, the symbol of freedom and on whose back our country was built, would lose their freedom and then their lives brutally in a slaughter plant.
There is a sign on highway 395 outside of Susanville that says “YOUR PUBLIC LANDS” Today it sure does not seem like our public land are our lands, we just pay taxes for the Bureau of Land Management to ignore our voices of reason while catering to big money interests. This is a familiar sentiment in America today. We want the land back. We want to use and enjoy the land and we do not want to subsidize cattle grazing and the destruction of America’s wild horses with our tax dollars. We want to go out and enjoy the wild life and fauna and the magnificent Wild Horses and Burros. We want to build local economies with Wild Horse tourism. We want sensible Management and humane treatment of our Wild Horses.


Facebook
It is just a horrific crime against these wild ones and a crime against our own small economies to strip them of any opportunity to capitalize on the living icons of our Western United States. I know Europeans who saved as children and came here for the first time in their early 20s – why? Because they were enthralled with the Old West, horses, landscape, the wide open, the freedom of it. Those people come back year after year and many more like them through their small tour agency. All because they love and value the strong iconic wild land and wild life of the American West. And that most definitely includes American Wild Horses which are to the US as lions or elephants are to Africa. Do you see Africa on a mission to exterminate all their lions or elephants?
Shame on the BLM for completely disregarding the opportunities to make wild horses a vibrant part of our tourism economy. Shame on the locals for not even realizing the gems in their own backyard. Sadly, with the wild ones now removed, it will be a very long time until there are enough on the lands to make viewing reliable. What a terrible shame.
Who benefits? Where does the money go that is generated by the horrible slaughter? It doesn’t go into our pockets!!
It’s a sad state of affairs that this is happening.
Let us all enjoy these horses that in spite of what BLM says are fit and healthy. Leave them alone!!
These wild horses belong to ME! And YOU! Why are we letting the BLM get away with HORSE STEALING?? In the old days, horse stealing was a hanging offence!
Maybe we should round up a few BLM big shots and HANG ‘EM HIGH!!
Very- very well written. Kudos to you Leslie. I felt as though I was right there with you on the sage lands, watching the wild horses… and felt the cold starkness of reality when you spoke of our wild horse/burro travesty. Thank you for writing this. ~Sonya
These aweful people that are doing all this…taking our Wild horses, saturating the land with cattle that ruin it have got to be stopped. Letters & call do not seem to be helping. We need a better plan NOW!!
My heart breaks to know these horses are merely the pawns in a very corrupt chess game. We need to Check Mate the BLM.
One thing is not quite right about the cows, they have bottom teeth in the front, thus by twirling it with their tounge, and the lift up the bottom teeth pull up and yes most of the grass can come up by roots, but they won’t eat the roots, they usually get it back out if they come up, I grew up on a dairy farm, and sheep, and goats, do a lot of grubbing it to the ground, so nothing is left they yank up also, they eat weeds,and all which actually have vitamins and such in them too, Horses only eat weeds when they are wanting a diff taste or not any grass to eat.. Goats will leave red clover, and not eat it, I had to put my horses in that lot to eat the clover down..So many things need to be told to these people that want the money the cows, and sheep and such bring as you pointed out..the horses, do not use that much nor do they stay in one spot, they are natural grazing animals. they move on before the grass is gone, and come back around when it is grown up again, except sharing it with the money paying cows and sheep , there is no such sharing, cows like to stay in one place longer til they have to go, and they stay close to the water holes, and get in them causing a different problem all together not pointed out enough..but they did get a good effort in on the problem is it causing by them being in the same area. The cattlemen use it for so much $ to the government each year, and the Horses are being taken for granite as a usual thing is if it near your home, sometimes things close to your home are ignored, but someone coming in and looking at it will be in awe of it…because they do not take it for granite it will always be there. I live near the Indianapolis area, yet never been to the Indy 500, nor care to, it could leave, and never bother a lot of people, yet people come from all over the world to watch it the same thing is going on with these wild Mustangs and Burro’s Burro’s do not populate as fast as a horse..so they are not being picked on as much, but their day is coming..slowly but coming too. Just another Point of view from someone who grew up in the 40’s and see how much land is changing and to what extent it is being used up, and disappearing so fast.. Miss the old Days, when you could walk down the street and even smile at someone, and knew who you saw, without being accused of something, or followed and robbed..and such..Miss the days their were parks and places kids could go and talk and not be run off, and Drug Dealers selling drugs, to mess up their minds…you could go to a drive in movie with friends, and be home by one, and no one stayed out all nite…Miss those days..But they will not come back either,they are gone, just like the Mustangs and Burro’s will be if no one stands up for them, and many are trying, but the failure rate is so high it is loosing battle it seems to save them, Group together and make a stand, that is about the only way anyone gets any attention at the Governors office, or the White House…Hope this is understood. Thanks for all you are doing, and I am with you also 100% like many others.. Thanks for all you do..
Thanks for a good article.
BLM lying murdering thugs all belong in jail for their fraud on the American people. Report these criminal thugs to the FBI, PRES, CONGRESS AND SENATORS and demand that our Majestic beloved Wild Horses be protected from these lying criminals now !
Unfortunately our voices are not enough for the government to hear. If you are not saying ,money,money money, to them, they are deaf to your pleas. The big corporations with their billion dollar pipeline is all that is heard. It is a sad country we live in now.If you do not have money you are nothing.
White man has been a plague on this country since they stepped foot on it. Nobody gave a shit when the Native Americans were run off the land, then the buffalo disappeared,land being scooped up by the bucket loader full to build bigger factories, bigger houses, more malls, and more apartment complexes. The wild horses are in the way for bigger and better things.
Hell our President isn’t even an AMERICAN. But nobody seems to care about that either.
Until our corrupt government is fixed,America as we now it, will be gone forever.Only the rich have a voice.Only the rich will survive.
EXCELLENT WORK LESLIE! THANKS FOR PUTTING YOUR BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS INTO EXPOSING THE CONSPIRACY WHERE THE WILD HORSES ARE THE VICTIMS!
YOU WILL BE BLESSED!