Letter from the President 2005 by Dayton O Hyde
There are new mustangs on the sanctuary. We can thank the Ford Motor Company for stepping in at zero hour to save them from death at mid west slaughter plant. Ford sent them here and for the tired, confused animals it was the end of a long journey. They were captured in Nevada, spent months in feed lots, and made the rounds of various Bureau of Land Management adoptions. The cream of the crop found homes; the rest, considered too old, too plain, too frightened, were rejected time and again. The final rejection came at the hands of Native Americans at a South Dakota Reservation, who obtained them from the government then traded them to a horse broker who sent them to a slaughter plant.
Actress and animal friend, Stephanie Powers alerted Ford officials of the plight of these wild horse. Due to Ford's long association with wild horses through their vastly successful Mustang automobile, the company wasted no time in paying the broker for fifty two of the horses and sending them to our 11,000 acre Black Hills Sanctuary to run wild and free for the rest of their natural lives.
The animals thundered out our gates to freedom, then skidded to a stop at the first grass, and lowered their heads to graze in knee high grass. It was as though they feared that the open gate was a mistake, and we humans would charge out to capture them again. Soon they had drifted off in small groups of friends to explore the great canyons and grassy plateaus of the back country.
Freedom for the wild horses is what we are all about. The BLM tries its best but not all adoptions of horses by the agency are successful. While some younger horses settle readily into a life of captivity, some do not. This year we accepted over fifty head of wild horses that were loved by their adopters but did not adjust, Some had buffaloed their adopters, developed attitudes and become dangerous. At their own expense, the folks sent them here to be returned to freedom.
A group of nineteen mares were remnants of a California state park herd that had run out of groceries in a canyon near the Mojave Desert where they had run for over fifty years. One of the saddest groups I have ever seen, it has been a challenge to get them healthy and shiny again. We get frequent phone calls from Californians who want them back, but the horses have come to love this land and will leave here only over my dead body.
Another shipment of wild horses were gathered on the Sheldon Antelope Refuge in Northern Nevada, perhaps descendants of animals escaped from herds run by the legendary Burro Wilson. We wish that we could provide homes for all the wild horses that need homes, but we have to maintain the condition of our own ranges and can accept more horses only as we are able to raise funds to acquire adjoining lands.
The new horses float like oil on water amongst the existing herds. They are bonded together by shared experiences as well as a failure of the old mustang hierarchy to immediately absorb them. Yet, like some people, there are individuals who tip toe unnoticed into established herds, where others try but are immediately challenged by a boss mare, or the herd stallion. Ears laid back, yellowed teeth bared, whirling, kicking, biting, squealing, weaving toward the newcomer with head lowered, they drive them out of the herd.
Some newcomers persist as outcasts grazing unobtrusively at the edge of herds until they become part of the band; others drift off to try for acceptance elsewhere with other lonely newcomers with whom they can graze without rancor. Horses are such sociable creatures that loneliness often overcomes fear. Many a mustang, separated from its band, has jumped fences to join a rancher's domestic herd.
Some of the Ford horses were recently gelded by the Indians. They prance up to each newcomer, neckbowed, sniffing noses and flanks, squealing insults, or rising in their hind legs, manes flying, to box an opponent, or push in with their chests, trying to seize the enemies forearm with their teeth. Some will even attempt to gather a band of mares, but soon, whatever traces of testosterone they have in their bodies desert them and they desert the mares for a love affair with good grass.
While we would like to accommodate more wild horses in their time of need, we get no help from the State or Federal government and must depend for help from folks who care. Our funding comes from tourism, sale of surplus wild or registered foals, grants and donations, and bequests from those whose contributions to wild horses will continue long after they have passed to another world.
As with many other worthwhile charities, we have suffered greatly from calamities such as 9-11, Tsunami, New Orleans hurricanes, and earthquakes in Pakistan, but our commitment to the horses is to keep trying. The situation makes us even more appreciative of our other volunteers who, like Susan Watt and myself, work without pay to keep this great project running.
Fall is weaning time. Done with haying, I spend my days on high where we have built a safe corral surrounding the main water pump and tank. I sit in my pickup truck and watch as band after band appear silently and enter the trap to drink. If there are colts ready to wean, I close the gate on the herd, release the mares, and load the foals into a waiting horse trailer for the trip down to mountain to corrals where they will be gentled and sold to help the other wild horses stay free. It is a reality I have to face. Once the fillies have been weaned they will be released again to freedom, for it is important to all horsedom to keep these wild horse bloodlines alive.
Timing of the gather is everything. By now there is an independence to foals ready to wean. Not only are the mares tired of providing milk and losing body condition, but the foals have found friends amongst other youngsters, and are tired of trying to get their mothers to play.
Back at the sanctuary corrals, it is a time of easy adjustment to a new world. They learn how to relate to the presence of humans. They are vaccinated as a protection against disease, wormed for intestinal parasites, haltered and trained to lead. They are alert and bright, these mustang colts. I can halter break four of them while I am training one domestic foal. Modern gentle training methods have eliminated the old way of handling horses, and the wildest of the foals soon accepts me as a friend.
With proper instruction, virtually anyone can ground train a weanling. It is the older horses who are hard to handle and should be trained only by knowledgeable horsemen. There are success stories, of course, for each animal is an individual, but generally older horses who have known freedom retain a certain sadness in their eyes, despite excellent care. The sanctuary has taken in hundreds of confused, sad eyed mustangs. Given their freedom they seen fall in love with this great refuge. There are no sad eyed animals on the sanctuary.
Autumn is a time of reality, a time when we have to ask for help from our friends.
Despite world disasters, our responsibility to our five hundred or more wild horses here on the Sanctuary goes on. The wild horses need your help. Faced with a long winter, we will have to raise eighty thousand dollars to buy hay and the necessary supplements to feed our wild horse herds until the green grass starts next Spring. In simple terms that is two tons per horse or 1000 tons at $80.00 per ton. Won't you please help? Your donation of $100 will help feed a wild horse for the Winter. Please purchase one ton of hay or a hundred to feed these great animals who remain so dependent upon our friendship. Thank you for your support!
Dayton O. Hyde
October 2005
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President: Dayton O. Hyde
Secretary: Robert Friese
Treasurer: Richard Blue
Program Development:
Susan W. Watt
Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary
P.O. Box 998
Hot Springs, SD 57747
www.wildmustangs.com
A 501 c 3 non profit corporation
registered in the state of
South Dakota
Federal Tax Number
46-0401462
Toll Free: 1-800-252-6652
or 1-605-745-5955
Fax:1-605-745-4339
Email: iram@gwtc.net
