As WHE runs for the wild into 2022, we take time to reflect that each image, document, piece of data, that we can bring to bear in our advocacy was gained by one of our team members; a human experience that gets burned into a heart and mind of an individual.
We will publish memories from our team members in the coming days as we review 2021 and prepare for the new year.
This wild horse answers the question “Why did the wild horse cross the road?” to get away from the BLM and the contractors removing them for private cattle. You can see earlier images and video from Fox-Lake HERE.
A Stallion, from WHE volunteer Colette
A stallion’s strength and sense to evade capture is spectacular to see. The survival of a stallion against man and machine is inspiring to us. Wild ones are showing us who they are and what they need to survive. We are listening and learning from the wild ones.
This is an easy piece to initiate writing because humankind is good and wants to help wild horses. There is an extraordinary shared desire to fight for what is right. If we fight to protect and preserve the wild places horses call home they can survive in the wild. We are inspired and motivated, of course by the animals, but also by people who want to keep horses in the wild. There is a strong, irrepressible sense in people that this is the fight. Our united focus on how we will keep horses in the wild is the key. We celebrate and respect the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and know how to build on it to help wild horses.
Here is one lone stallion that for some inexplicable reason is relentlessly chased back and forth by the helicopter through the valley. When man in machine could not prevail, man on horseback takes his turn at capturing the exhausted horse. But the horse slipped through the roper’s loop and remains free on the range today. This was the last capture attempt of an unnecessary roundup. It ended with the stud evading capture.
I am inspired to continue my journey by this tenacious stallion that never gave up no matter how many times he went back-and-forth and how hard he was pursued.
Video of “Fox-Lake Range 2021 Day 5, One” of the stallion, that could well be the same horse that avoided capture a few days earlier by the same helicopter and pilot and same man on horseback, co-owner of the contract company.
The Fox-Lake roundup was an example of what BLM hopes will become the new normal under the 2020 Plan: the area was NOT over the number BLM says the land can sustain, yet they did a removal and fertility control anyway.
You can learn more about Fox-Lake HERE.
2021 has been a year of acceleration of the BLM 2020 plan (incorporated “Path Forward”). As newly confirmed Secretary of Interior, Debra Haaland stated that this administration was committed to following the plans crafted under the last one. Fully funded by Congress in the last Appropriations bill, we saw the plan run full force in 2021.
Our team stepped up, stretched and accelerated. In 2021, we expanded our reach in field, at the table and in the courts. In 2022, our team will move that work forward. The litigation filed in 2021 remains active and work on those cases continues. We have ignited a review of CAWP and, in 2022, will be meeting with multiple lawmakers to talk about failures in site-specific planning.
Critical end-of-year fundraising is needed to keep our work running into 2022.
You can help us continue our innovative work.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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