9 Wild Horses. S Carol Johnson

eye on them, but he wasn’t keeping them in that tight side-to-side circle like he had been doing the previous fall. He seemed very aware that another stallion could be close by and try to steal his mares – maybe even the white stallion could come back and take another run at him.

      And speaking of the white stallion…. It turns out he and his harem were just fine. I spotted them up on the hill to the north of the house – clear line of sight – especially with binoculars, but probably a half mile away as the crow flies – by ground it is probably a mile. Because that stallion is mostly white he stands out dramatically up on that hill which makes it easy to be sure he is still with us. That herd had babies too and the two herds were about the same size. The white stallion’s herd was not visible all the time but I would catch a glimpse of them as they came over the ridge, grazing their way down this side of that hill to the north.

       White/paint stallion with his 3 mares

      It didn’t take long that spring to see how some visitors to this part of the state reacted to the wild horses. A number of vacationers came up here to the mountains with their ATVs and dirt bikes, and I don’t know if they spent all their time or just part of it chasing the horses across private property that wasn’t their own. If it makes me feel any better, they also chased the cattle with their ATVs and dirt bikes to where they even broke the legs of some of the cattle!! I saw them so many times that I started calling the County Sheriff’s Office. No one knew me up here, so I wasn’t necessarily comfortable calling anyone on the carpet for chasing the horses (and cattle) so I thought I needed some official help. Many times I was told there wasn’t anything the Sheriff’s Office could do about it.

      Finally one of the deputies started coming to visit me – probably just to shut me up. But I learned a lot from him about who these homeless horses were and why I couldn’t find anyone that would claim them. I was told that folks from as far away as California would bring unwanted horses up here to these mountains and set them free to fend for themselves. To fend for themselves in someone else’s back yard!! This country has several creeks that run down out of the mountains most of the year. These creeks carved the terrain and each creek created ridges on both sides. The creeks provided water for these animals most of the year. But the creeks often go dry in the summer and completely freeze over in the winter. In the winter there is usually snow to provide some limited source of water, but in the summer it can get pretty scarce.

      Setting horses free was apparently even more of an occurrence after the financial meltdown of 2008. But he said there was one lady who lived over the next ridge to the south of me who had set many dozens of horses loose several years ago when she got sick and couldn’t care for them anymore. I learned that she set loose cattle, goats and llamas too. The first winter after she set them loose killed many of the other animals, but the horses are better adapted to survive a severe winter than most animals. In heavy snowfall years the horses are more likely to be able to dig through the snow to find food – they will eat tree bark and sage brush if they have to for survival. But many foals and yearlings don’t make it through a tough winter. What strikes me as even stranger is that no one saw fit to throw a bale of hay out for these animals. After due legal process the cattlemen were eventually allowed to pick up whatever cattle had survived winter. I had heard that some of the goats and llamas were still evident every once in a while – if you were in the right place at the right time. The gist of the whole conversation was the deputy was pretty sure the original 7 horses here were ones this lady had set loose several years ago.

      I was told that if the horses weren’t marked there wasn’t anything the Sheriff’s Office could do to hold anyone accountable for the well being of these animals. And, of course, none of the horses were marked and the cattle weren’t branded or ear-tagged. Everyone knew where many of these animals had come from, but when she was asked, she denied ever having owned the horses, cattle, goats and llamas.

      Remember why the Deputy kept coming to see me: over and over again people were chasing the horses across my property and my neighbor’s property on their ATVs and dirt bikes. Each time I would call the Sheriff’s Office. The same deputy kept coming to visit me and he told me that because I was part of an association that it made the whole area private property and there wasn’t anything he could do. One time, though, he reminded me that he couldn’t officially do anything, but chances are that the ATVers and dirt bikers didn’t know he couldn’t do anything so he told me he would drive around and make sure everyone knew he was in the area and watching what was going on. So off he went around the road that serviced this entire piece of private property – not just mine. I don’t know if he actually spoke to anyone or not, but whatever he did, it worked.

      The chasing seemed to stop and the weekenders were more respectful after that, or else they just made up their minds to stay away from the crazy lady who was trying to protect that herd of wild horses -- me. When I’d hear the occasional (not constant) trespasser come along I would get my can of bear spray and grab one of my 160 pound dogs and walk out along the ridge to the north that would allow anyone riding on my property down by the creek to see me standing there with this huge dog. I never knew if these people had guns or not and, if they did, would they shoot me? Often times the offender(s) would see me and this huge dog and they would take off up the road. I always take courage from my dogs but I also realized that a gun would stop the dog as well. Then I started wondering if I am not only putting myself in jeopardy, but also my dog…..

      Sometimes the trespassers would stop their vehicle and stare at me. I would holler to them ‘hello.’ They would holler back to me and I would ask them if they knew they were on private property and let them know, as nicely as possible, that they shouldn’t be riding their vehicle/s on other people’s property. They would tell me they didn’t know. I would ask if they saw the ‘no trespassing’ signs and they would say no, but they would leave. That scenario played out several times and each time it was no less nerve-wracking than the first time. The whole deal about the trespassers being armed always kept me on edge, because I had no way to know how they would react to what I said (no matter how nicely).

      My ‘no trespassing’ signs were put high up on the trunks of well spaced pine trees. My brother helped me put them up and we used a 6 foot ladder to get the signs high enough off the ground that someone couldn’t easily reach them to tear them down, but low enough that they were easy to see. We even put pink plastic streamers on the signs so they could be easily spotted. People being people, since they couldn’t reach the signs, started shooting at the signs to get rid of them. In one case the tree with the sign and what was left of the sign had lots of bullet holes in it. That probably means that they also missed the tree several times and if so, that means the bullets were aimed directly at my house!!! My exact thoughts on this won’t be printed but you can probably guess that I have a great deal of concern over people shooting at my house – and consequently at the dogs and horses, too!!! In all cases the signs were either shot up or gone all together, with nothing but the pink streamers remaining. I guess these folks really had it in their hearts to trespass and do harm to innocent horses. And that, of course, made me all the more determined.

      I learned a lot about human nature while I was learning a lot about wild/feral horses. Cattle ranchers and horse breeders were glad that the young horses would not make it through winter. It kept the horse numbers down. They said this way there were fewer animals competing for the cow’s food. Horse breeders said it was fewer horses to worry about ruining a breeding line. I was, and still am today, appalled that human beings couldn’t find another solution to this perceived problem besides watching these animals die. Horses don’t eat anything near what a cow eats and the only way you would ruin a breeding line would be to not have your mares properly protected with an electric fence!

      So I became determined to try to do something to protect, at least, this one herd of horses. As you may remember I didn’t know anything about horses and especially not about wild horses. Heck, I didn’t even know anything about domestic horses, but I was willing to learn. Some neighbors said I could benefit from talking to folks who know horses and I became very hopeful that help might be on the way. I was given some names of some prominent local “horse people” that might be willing to give me some guidance. I made several