Management of wild horses and burros on the range should start with gaining an understanding of what you are managing. How a horse/burro processes their environment, uses their environment, physiology, psychology, etc., all are basics that need to be understood before any sound management, capture, holding facility, could even be contemplated or created.

Understanding horses and burros is simply not part of current practices on range, during capture and in holding.

Below: Simple things like the “dust bath” to remove sweat and loose hair are all part of natural behaviors. The change in frequency of natural behaviors like rolling, the amount of time spent grazing or resting, grooming each other, etc. can be used to measure stress. BLM does not use these simple metrics in any part of their program. WHE keeps records before, during and after capture that we use to measure stressors. BLM will not allow any path for public input for the inclusion of this data, and other information, to be a part of consideration for an enforceable welfare policy. 

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As helicopter roundup season approaches, it is a good time to talk about the sheer lack of understanding of how horses and burros perceive their environment is evident in the program.

In much the same way that on range management is data poor and ignores “what a horse is,” so does a roundup.

BLM has done roundups in essentially the same way they did them 50 years ago. There has never been any real attempt to understand the horse to make capture safer, just propagate what is convenient and expedient. `The attempts they claim they have made, have more to do with restricting public access and convenience than changing how they do things to make them safer for the specific species they are handling.

BLM needs to manage wild horses and burros humanely; that is the law. BLM keeps creating expensive programs instead of taking the simple steps required to create transparent enforceability.

We are working hard through numerous channels, including the courts, to hold BLM accountable. Transparent and site-specific management planning that includes herd and habitat protections as well as gaining an enforceable welfare policy are high on our priority list.

In 2021, BLM simply finalized their Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) by typing the word “permanent” and calling it “policy.” BLM claims a “compliance” with the CAWP standards that, in fact, are not even interpreted the same way district-by-district.

We are in the courts, now, on this critical issue.

To the public and media BLM calls CAWP a “policy.” But in the courts they are playing a “word soup” game and claiming they have no mandate to create a welfare policy (even though the law clearly states they have to manage humanely and every other entity on the planet had to go through rulemaking; even big cats on display have a policy that went through rulemaking for welfare standards).

You can help urge Congress to create an incentive for BLM to move through the final hurdle to make the policy truly enforceable. Just click HERE. 

Horse vision and flight zone (Consortium of the Animal Transport Guides Project (2017a))

Reprint:

“How a horse sees the world?” is one simple subject BLM does not seem to understand or even care to contemplate. It serves as an example of the obstinance of the agency to consider any change, no matter how simple that change would be to implement.  

As far back as ancient Greece, where chariot racers used them to keep their horses focused and prevent them from being distracted by the other horses, the crowd, or the surrounding environment, blinders/blinkers have been used. It takes a lot of mental energy to ignore the signals horses are getting from their nervous system that there is something moving in the “predator threat zone” of their vision. How a horse sees has been contemplated since ancient times, but not by BLM today.

The eye of the horse developed for grasslands’ existence as a large prey species.  Laterally placed eyes with a horizontal pupil allow a broad field of view. Each eye used separately is called  “monocular vision.” Each eye sees approximately 200-210 degrees. Many people mistakenly think horses can see 360 degrees. Horses have two clear blind spots: a cone shape directly 3 feet in front of them and right behind their head, over their back, and behind the tail. Monocular vision is great for seeing more of the world, but lousy for depth perception and seeing right in front of you. If you look at the eyes of a predator species, they line up on the front of the face creating “distance to prey.” Binocular vision is needed for true depth perception.

Placement of the eyes on the side of the head decreases the range of binocular vision (using both eyes at the same time in the same field of view) and binocular vision is very limited in horses. Horses use their limited binocular vision by looking straight at an object the same height as their head or by raising their head when looking at a distant object. Closer objects near the ground require a horse to drop its head so they can see distance and depth. A horse will raise or lower its head to increase its range of binocular vision. An example: A horse needs to lower its head to see before moving down an incline, or raise its head before attempting a jump. Only in moving the head can the horse judge depth.

A horse being pushed fast into the catch pen (the first set of panels at a trap) is processing an insane amount of information, in a panic, and has lousy depth-perception and, literally, can’t see objects right in front of it’s face. BLM gives them no time to determine where they are before pushing them into an alley to load on a trailer because they have more horses coming in and want to clear the trap. “Settle time” rarely ever happens.

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Above: Angled approach and a small chaotic trap pen more than likely caused this broken neck at Swasey in 2020. BLM felt the trap was “fine” because they were only catching a lot of smaller bands of horses. There was no consideration of how a horse sees, the distance from a human the horse would need to feel safe and not panic, and to make matters even worse, they used rebar to ensure the panels had no give. In 2020, BLM finally hired someone to supposedly review and revise CAWP and start enforcing a policy. No review, revision or formal rulemaking ever took place. 

What your horse sees when approaching a gate (quotes from Horse and Rider): “To him, the gate appears to be a hologram—a collage of silver arms, shimmering into and out of focus, reaching forward and back as he approaches and passes it. Why he sees it that way: As a prey animal, your horse has monocular vision, meaning he has one eye on each side of his head.”  “Only when your horse has directed both eyes on an object directly in front of him—beyond his front-end blind spot—do both eyes focus together in binocular vision. Regardless of whether he’s eyeing the gate—or any other up-close object—using one eye or both, your horse’s lenses are much less flexible than yours. His poorly developed ciliary muscles are ill-equipped to make more than small, slow adjustments—much too small, and much too slow to allow him to make quick, informed decisions visually.  This is why Mother Nature has programmed him to first flee to safety, then to check out the situation from a safe distance.”

Research being done today, in fact, shows even a distinction between horses raised in a domestic environment and those born and bred in the wild. A large number of domestics seem to demonstrate a nearsightedness, while wild ones indicate a proclivity toward farsighted vision.

In other words, with all the activity at a trap, horses need time to see what is right in front of them. Trap size and placement should not be based on how many they expect to catch, but how to set a trap with a safe stopping distance and clear eye line for horses. BLM routinely builds traps as small as they can. Setting a trap is work and the smaller the wings and trap are, the less work they have to do.

Drive trapping is the same as it was 50 years ago. When you make a safety suggestion the reply is usually a raised voice answering, “We have been doing this for 50 years!” in a “how dare you make a suggestion” tone. (And if you make a suggestion, be ready to be pushed back where you cannot see at the next trap.)

WHE has the largest base of documentation from wild horse roundups over the last 15 years. Heck, we started doing “daily updates” before BLM ever did. Roundups are not rocket science. Roundups should be run using simple common sense with an eye for safety concerns and the will to do a bit of research to confirm. We carry an expertise that is repeatedly ignored.

Above: On this day at Confusion, more than one horse broke a neck or was injured. Remember, in the vast majority of these broken necks at trap and in holding, they do not happen because a horse is trying to use their head as a battering ram… it is because they can’t see the obstacle clearly while under intense pressure.

Remember, understanding a horse or burro would be the first step in management. It would also be the first step to making capture safer. BLM has ramped up roundups to historic levels. “Expanding fertility control” is something BLM usually applies as part of a helicopter capture after they get to their target numbers. BLM refuses to step back and create actual data-based management planning that would create a real Appropriate Management Level and is instead pushing decades old political numbers they have “affirmed” by just retyping them. (On management planning they are fighting us in court, too.)

In the one area everyone should agree on, a real enforceable welfare policy, BLM is fighting us hard in court so they do not have to listen to anyone outside the agency (through public participation) and can simply keep doing things as they have for 50 years.

At a recent roundup, one of our observers introduced a simple conversation with BLM when someone said something about a red scarf. “They can’t see red,” our team member said. It was not only depth perception and motion sensitivity, BLM didn’t seem to understand that horses do not see color the way we do.

Horses see colors along a continuous range from blue to yellow. Horses do not see reds, oranges, and greens in the same way humans perceive them.  This kind of vision is called “dichromatic vision.” Research demonstrates horses perceive color somewhat like red-green color blindness in humans (red and related colors, appear more green). Example: Orange post, cattle guard or snow fencing, might stand out to the human eyes, but would not be much of an obvious color for a horse to distinguish. This is one of the reasons show jumping is now moving away from orange to high contrast “white against blue” for jumps.

Do you think understanding how a horse sees the world could help design ways to keep them safe on the range and to handle them with fewer deaths and injuries?

We recently did a survey that included a few other points on safety and asked if you wanted to participate in open rulemaking for welfare. The response was a resounding “Yes!”  (More HERE)

Additional thoughts:

BLM is prohibited from using helicopter drive trapping during foaling season, but fails to define foaling season with data.

BLM must use “accepted equine practices” to handle wild horses. Trainers, eventers and veterinarians have been using Heat Index and Air Quality restrictions for a long time. Even how a horse sees is taken into consideration by those designing high end racing and jumping.

An interesting note about BLMs current “policy that is not a real policy” is that they contracted with UC Davis back in 2015. However, UC Davis has done extensive research on heat, air quality, dust, how a horse sees, etc. and none of it seemed to make it into any real consideration under CAWP. How can BLM claim experts help write CAWP when none of their expertise actually made the cut? 

Back in 2019 we did a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out how much was paid (entirely) under the contract and are still waiting for a reply.

Thank you for helping to keep WHE working in field, breaking ground through litigation and educating the media and Congress during these dangerous times for all living beings on our public lands.