AGED HORSES
&
SOUTHWEST RESTRAINT SYSTEM
Written for
The BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
WILD HORSE AND BURRO PROGRAM
and
The L.I.F.E. FOUNDATION, INC.
September 17, 1997
by Barbara Eustis-Cross
BACKGROUND:
On Dec. 15, 1971 Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act (PL 92-195) which is often called the Wild Horse and Burro Act or the Act.
The objective of the Act was to protect wild horses and burros as a "recognized component" of the public land environment. This meant that wild horses and burros now had a legal right to live on the public lands. The horses and burros would share this right with native wildlife such as deer and privately owned domestic cattle, whose owners leased the public lands from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service. The law gave the responsibility for the management and protection of these animals to the U. S. Department of the Interior to be administered by the BLM and to the Department of Agriculture to be administered by the Forest Service.
With the passage of the law, horses and burros could not be removed for commercial or private use. It also confined them to specific areas. These areas were later to be called Herd Management Areas (HMAs) by the BLM.
As the populations of the confined animals grew, many horses and burros began to face starvation and water deprivation when they could no longer follow their normal seasonal migratory patterns out of the HMAs. Neither the wild horse and burro populations nor the number of domestic cattle, on public lands within the HMAs, were adjusted to prevent the environmental stress put on the ecosystem by the legal confinement of the horses and burros to specific HMAs by the Act.
As the health of both the herds of horses and burros and the environment of the HMAs declined, it became clear that the number of horses, burros, and cattle must be managed to maintain a "thriving ecological balance."
Excess horses and burros were removed from HMAs where the number exceeded the capacity of the land. In some areas the number of cattle were reduced or removed. In other areas the number of horses and burros were reduced and the number of cattle were increased.
From 1971 until the BLM took over the adoption program in 1976, Wild Horse Organized Assistance (WHOA) under the direction of Wild Horse Annie, International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros under the direction of Ms. Helen Reilly and NOAH under the direction of Ron Zaidlich, DVM, adopted out approximately 10,000 wild horses.
In 1978, with the passage of the Public Rangelands Improvement Act (PL95-154), the U. S. Government was permitted to transfer ownership of up to four animals each year to individual adopters who had given the animals one year of humane care and treatment.
Although younger horses have been readily adopted by the public, older horses and those with physical deformities are less often adopted.
The BLM has initiated four (4) programs to counterbalance this problem.
These programs have met with various degrees of success. The mass adoption / fee waiver program ran into trouble when many of the horses were humanely cared for during the required year and then after receiving Title, the adopters sent them to slaughter.
The South Dakota sanctuary closed in 1993.
The Oklahoma sanctuary currently holds approximately 1,500 horses with the average age of 15-18. The majority of the horses are stallions which have been gelded by the BLM. The cost to maintain a horse at the sanctuary is $1.06 per day. The estimated life span of a horse at the sanctuary is 10-15 years.
The cost to the BLM budget and ultimately the taxpayer, for a single horse at the Oklahoma Sanctuary for ten years is $3,869.00, for fifteen years $5,803.40. For the current 1,500 horses, if no horses are removed or added, the projected cost is $5,803,500.00 for ten years and $8,704,500.00 for fifteen years.
Clearly, these figures have the potential of becoming a political "war" ground for those who are against the Wild Horse and Burro Program and others who are looking for budget cuts, who would find fertile ground.
On the other hand, the American public and the Wild Horse and Burro Advocacy groups have consistently and adamantly opposed funds to euthanize wild horses and burros. Congress has also refused to appropriate funds to destroy healthy animals.
In order to reduce the expense of maintaining a large number of horses at the Oklahoma sanctuary, the BLM is looking at ways to make older horses more adoptable.
Halter breaking or gentling the older horses may be a cost effective way of making these sanctuary horses more adoptable to the public. Older mares have a tendency to be more adoptable as broodmares, despite their age and in general, are not dealt with in these programs.
GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS:
There are many factors which come into focus which go beyond a simple view of the Southwest Restraint System. These factors directly affect the funding and / or success of any supplemented training program. These will be addressed briefly as areas which require further detailed study and consideration.
Only 186 Herd Management Areas (HMAs) remain of the 303 which were originally identified in the 1970's. Research needs to be conducted to determine if older unadoptable stallions could be gelded and returned to HMAs which have been zeroed out or no longer contain wild horses or burros. Although there are inherent risks that the horses might not adapt, certain support through water and rangeland improvement may decrease some of the liability. Additionally, supplemental feeding and monitoring may be more time and cost effective than the current policy of transporting older processed horses to repeated adoptions, sanctuary, or financially supplemented gentling by professional trainers.
The current policy of turning aged horses back out into the HMA is unacceptable, in that it will eventually overload the HMA with aged horses and interfere with the social and physical dynamics of the HMA.
Established Wild Horse and Burro Advocacy Groups which hold current IRS recognition through 501 (c) (3) status should be considered as a source to assist with older horses, specifically the less adoptable stallions. These legitimate groups could be offered the number of horses which they can humanely and efficiently care for, gentle, and adopt out to the public at no fee. The specific details would need to be worked out regarding issuance Certificate of Title, conditions of care, etc.
The more exposure a feral horse has to the "domestic" experience, without positive reinforcement and training, the more difficult the eventual training experience becomes. It has been well documented that "fear memories" in equines are never forgotten or erased. Eventually these memories, with good training, can be suppressed but will remain an underlying concern for the lifetime of the horse.
The majority of older stallions are processed at the BLM Holding Facility and then sent to as many as eight or more adoptions, before they are declared unadoptable and sent to the Oklahoma Sanctuary.
Transport, handling, care, and the staff time costs involved in attempting to adopt older studs at multiple adoptions is an additional expense which needs to be taken into consideration.
Several sources including the Southwest Restraint System have confirmed that those horses which have been sent to multiple adoptions are more resistant to all phases of training.
It is recommended that if age is the primary consideration in choosing which horses will receive additional care i.e. gelding and / or gentling, that these horses be shipped directly to the handling / training facility after processing.
Informal surveys have shown that the average adopter has:
Any training system is only as successful as the follow up handling and continued training by the adopter.
With the above taken into consideration, it becomes clear that the majority of adopters who are taking older, recently gelded horses will need support or guidance after adoption. Not only does this convey to the public a sense of responsibility and caring on the behalf of the BLM but would appear to be cost effective in that the ratio of returned horses or those which must be taken back by the BLM will decrease.
Support can be facilitated through any or all of the following:
These programs would require little funding if trained volunteers were utilized. Additionally, corporate funding and foundation grants may be available.
It is recommended that the BLM develop a national adopter support program utilizing volunteers which will facilitate successful adoptions.
In order to protect themselves from predators equines have two defenses. The first is to flee and the second is to fight. This is commonly referred to as the flight or fight response. It is important to understand that the key to training any feral horse is breaking though the horse's natural impulse to flee. The older the feral horse, the more developed this flight/fight response is and the more difficult it is to suppress these needs in order to gentle the horse.
The rate of accidents resulting in injury or death to the feral horse during training increases with age. These include a horse running into the fence and the horse rearing and falling over.
Additionally, adopters who are unfamiliar with gentling older feral horses are placed at increased risk of being kicked, bitten or run over while attempting to gentle them.
A method which reduces these risks and produces a horse which willingly accepts and responds to human contact would be a positive addition to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Program.
This type of program would generate positive publicity for the BLM in creating "successful" adoptions and a more advantageous reaction from the public toward the adoption program.
One of the continuing debates between the BLM and the Wild Horse and Burro (WHB) advocacy groups / humane organizations is the definition of a successful adoption. While the BLM is responsible for the care and well being of these horses only until Certificate of Title has been given after one year of humane treatment, the WHB advocacy groups / humane organizations concern continues to the death of the individual horse.
A horse which is adopted and given one year of humane treatment and receives Title but then is sold to slaughter because it is unmanageable is not acceptable to these organizations. An additional concern is that these horses will be "castaways" because adopters are placing unreasonable expectations on a aged horse.
In any equine community or riding decipline a horse who is 20+ years old is considered "aged" and is usually used for only light riding or retired to pasture. A person who is adopting an aged horse will have to spend approximately one year to train the horse for saddle riding past the "green" broke stage. They may be able to ride this horse for only a few more years. It is also important that adopters are made aware that aged horses cannot perform with the same athletic ability that younger horses can. These horses also require additional medical care related to age.
It is essential that the public adopting these aged horses are aware of these inherent problems. It is also possible that individuals may be willing to adopt aged horses for the purpose of "retirement" if they are halter broke.
It is further recommended that horses over 20 years of age not be adopted out except under "special circumstances" which might include a specific contract where adopter agrees not to sell or give the horse away without permission of the BLM. The adopter would accept the responsibility of having the horse euthanized by a licensed veterinarian if they could no longer care for it. The adoption fee on these horses could be waived to offset the costs of euthanesia.
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