Monday, June 17, 2013


"The dream was always running in front of me.  To catch up, to live in the moment in unison with it, that was the miracle."
~ Anais Nin


A Time to Catch Up:

As Lady Blue and I settled into a new life in Northern Nevada, I did find a few moments to travel with camera in hand.  We live in a small town on the south side of the Virginia Mountain range.  There are fewer wild horses to be seen here.  As some of you may know the 'wild ones' traveled through our yard at the house in Reno.  But this side of the Virginia's one must work harder to catch a glimpse of these intriguing feral creatures. My camera and hopes always at the ready. There are fewer in large part because the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) used contractors with helicopters to chase mustangs out of the canyons and into waiting trucks.  The wild horses were then shipped to a holding facility, where conditions, at least according to concerned animal advocates, were less than desirable.  In the early Spring, I managed to catch two sightings of a few horses and snapped their photos.  There is a hot debate boiling over in the western states, about whether or not we should send these horses to slaughter.  I personally vote an emphatic "NO".






4 comments:

Brian Miller said...

oh i would vote no as well...we have several stables nearby and i love to go watch the horses...so much rippling muscle...

sage said...

They were debating the horse problem a quarter of century ago when I lived in Nevada--I remember a big outcry as some ranchers too things into their own hands and shot a bunch of them. They are beautiful, but there needs to be a way to keep the herd sizes down.

WR said...

Of course the herds need to be smaller. As of yesterday, Nevada has decided to use fertility control instead. Finally! I'm not sure what they will do with the horses already in captivity. They are now accustomed to being fed. Hard to know if they could be safely reintroduced.

Ranchers shooting wild horses in the fight over who gets to use free range is more than a little annoying. I use to raise cattle back east. If you can't feed your animals don't have them. Then there if the issur of free range being trampled to pieces by herds of cattle. Free range for cattlemen at the expense of other animals amounts to welfare for those folks.

WR said...

Of course the herds need to be smaller. As of yesterday, Nevada has decided to use fertility control instead. Finally! I'm not sure what they will do with the horses already in captivity. They are now accustomed to being fed. Hard to know if they could be safely reintroduced.

Ranchers shooting wild horses in the fight over who gets to use free range is more than a little annoying. I use to raise cattle back east. If you can't feed your animals don't have them. Then there if the issur of free range being trampled to pieces by herds of cattle. Free range for cattlemen at the expense of other animals amounts to welfare for those folks.