KBR Wild Horse and Burro News

More scientific priorities set

  WINTER WILD HORSE FEEDING PROGRAMS SUSPENDED
Part Two

FEEDING PROGRAMS SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH EMERGENCY FEEDING SUPPLIES.

The cooperating wild horse groups have many tons of hay cached that can be deployed by helicopter should we have some incredible blizzard that strands bands of horses and prevents them from finding food. Emergency hay drops are "need based," deal with extraordinary events and do not diminish the horses' natural and learned survival instincts. So while we still annually stockpile hay in order to respond to some critical emergency, we are not engaged in creating yet more generations of beggar horses that have inadequate winter survival skills.

Winter feeding programs are hugely expensive. Conversely emergency hay stockpiles often cost very little for if they are not needed for such emergencies, the hay can be fed to horses being held for adoption once winter is past. What we're focused on here is producing the most bang for a very limited buck.

One of the hay caches.
Where we are redirecting our focus

WATER: Money will be much better spent on repairing water supplies and developing new critical water sources so that horses can make better use of available range forage. Water development, however, is an issue that also has to be carefully considered. Water can also create undesirable side effects such as causing bands to cross busy highways, luring horses into developed areas, etc. For that reason the water effort doesn't involve encouraging people to put out tanks wherever they wish, but rather identifying locations where water will help sustain horses in appropriate range habitats and not encourage horses to wander into harm's way.

Naturally the most efficient water related expenditures involve repairing existing springs and letting Mother Nature provide the water.

A formerly viable spring desperately in need of restoration.

DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS: A significant effort is underway to educate planners and planning commissions with respect to developments in wild horse ranges. A development that surrounds a traditional source of water (with no accessible alternative provided) with boulevards landscaped with manicured grass shoulders and medians are a sure cause for lots of horses to get removed from the range. In addition to these common sense issues, developments that impair seasonal movement of wild horses have to provide some kind of mitigation elements such as wildlife corridors so that horses and other wildlife can make use of appropriate available range when winter conditions arrive.

BIRTH CONTROL: I need to present the caveat that we don't believe that GnRH birth control is the be-all end-all for managing the horses, and we want to continue to observe birth controlled bands for any unexpected adverse side effects, however one aspect of temporary birth control is perfectly clear.

Mares, particularly as they get older, lose weight while producing and nursing foals. As a natural cycle, many mares will decline annually until some reach a point that they don't come to full term. Then they recover some body weight to help them resume being full time foal factories. We don't see the same weight decline in GnRH treated mares and it doesn't take rocket science to figure out why.

A band with GnRH treated mares in better weight than the previous year in spite of an unusually harsh winter.
HORSE LIFE CYCLES: We occasionally go out on reports of "starving horses." In most cases we review the most recent photos we have of the horses and if the report involves a band that we don't see regularly, we'll make a field trip. The reality is that unless they succumb to an accident or some sudden onset disease such as colic, horses are eventually going to lose their ability to efficiently process what they eat. Their teeth wear down, their digestion starts to degrade and they lose weight. Aging, while unpleasant to look at, is part of the horse's life cycle. Unless someone wants to undertake a program to bring in the old timers and run some kind of elder care for horses, the old, skinny horses will always be with us.
Older horses in plenty of grass. Bodies starting to "sag" and ribs starting to show, but not unhealthy.
We have to select intervention strategies based on the general overall conditions of the bands. If the stallion, colts and non gestating / nursing mares appear reasonably healthy then it is not appropriate to alter their grazing profile in order to benefit one or two aged horses. When supplemental feed is provided, the youngsters are less likely to develop critical winter survival skills and we put the next generation at risk.

This is not to say that we might not relocate a band that has a large percentage of older horses into a less stressful area, but supplemental feeding is often a ticket to eventual removal.

AN IMPORTANT FACT TO REMEMBER.

Although the Virginia Range Herd is comprised of the offspring of "reintroduced" horses, equus caballus evolved here in North America and is ideally suited to thrive in this environment without being tampered with by man. Obviously we have to make some accommodations for diminishing range and limitations to what otherwise would be the horses' instinctive movement, but horses are the healthiest when we utilize a minimalist approach to their management. The less we manipulate, the fewer undesirable side effects we produce. Ergo the most appropriate management strategy is through range based approaches (mitigating the negative elements caused by human encroachment) and letting natural influences predominantly shape the health and behavior of the horses.

The Project Team is committed to maintaining a healthy, sustainable horse population in a rapidly developing region. To do so, practical and scientifically plausible approaches are going to have to replace traditional "warm and fuzzy" activities. We can either manage an environment that lets the horses act like "natural" horses or we can continue to teach them to be dependent upon humans and the state can continue to set traps and remove our horses.

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