d holding areas could have been avoided or at least delayed, he says. Instead, the BLM is in a tough situation: Horse numbers in management areas are rising fast and in many areas exceed legal limits. In those places the agency cannot gather horses, treat them with PZP-22 and put them back. According to the law, it must gather and remove them. So more removals will probably have to take place before the BLM shifts to contraception.
Holly Hazard, HSUS senior vice president for programs and innovations, says the switch from roundups to contraception represents a fundamental change in the culture of the BLM. “The agency is set up for large number, shorter-term, aggressive gathers—that’s the skill set they have in place. I’m hopeful within the next two to three years they will have a significant minority of their populations for which they are trying some new technology.”
When Boyles Griffin looks toward the future, she sees all the ways in which PZP-22, available now, could improve the lives of wild horses: With contraception, there will be fewer roundups in which horses in a herd are separated from each other, fewer gathers overall long-term, fewer horses in captivity and more opportunities for strategic removal of the youngest horses, who can be trained and stand a good chance of being adopted. With fewer roundups, there will be fewer chances for horses to be accidentally killed or injured, as happened most recently during September in Wyoming, when 10 horses died. Boyles Griffin says it’s possible that if next year’s results at Sand Wash are good and if the mares continue to receive the vaccine every other year, that herd will never need to be gathered again.
The last time the Sand Wash horses were rounded up was 2008, when 263 of them were removed from the range. Those who weren’t immediately adopted after the gather were taken to a crowded, dusty holding area in Canon City, Colorado, where 2,500 horses live on the grounds of a prison. With the help of inmates, horses are readied for adoption. They have their hooves trimmed and are branded, vaccinated, dewormed and tested for disease. However, only about 125 each year find homes. So in 2012, there were still 10 Sand Wash mares waiting in pens with floors of trampled earth, able to see but not enjoy the shade of nearby cottonwood trees. They had arrived as 1-year-olds. They were now 5, passed over by adopters looking for younger horses.
Seeing them, says Michelle Sander, founder of the Great Escape Mustang Sanctuary in Colorado, broke her heart. The sanctuary, east of Denver, took the mares in and let them out on pasture. Sander says she watched as the 10 became horses again. “Just being in a holding facility, it’s traumatic. Some of them used to be pretty pushy. Others were really shy, really afraid.”
With contraception, there will be fewer roundups in which horses in a herd are separated from each other, fewer gathers overall long-term, fewer horses in captivity and more opportunities for strategic removal of the youngest horses, who can be trained and stand a good chance of being adopted.
Today the Sand Wash mares graze on 800 fenced acres along with a Sand Wash stallion picked up on a rancher’s land. The sanctuary is a bit like Sand Wash—rabbitbrush, yucca and greasewood—but there’s more to eat: native grasses like buffalo and Indian ricegrass. The pasture has year-round creeks, with willows growing by the waterside. When food gets sparse in winter, animals receive hay.
It’s a fine ending for the 11 horses, reunited in a beautiful place. One of them, trained at the sanctuary, has become an ambassador for the group—confident and friendly. Two others, prepared for riding there, have been adopted, including the stallion, who arrived at Great Escape a miserable shell of a horse and has since had the life return to his eyes. More of the horses will be trained. However, Sander says this isn’t enough. “Our ultimate goal is to keep the horses on the range. … That’s where they belong.”
In an ideal world, Sand Wash roundups will end, and the remaining horses in the basin will 