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Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless,

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Speaker 1: severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can't predict anything, be honest. I um ordered, but

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Speaker 1: have not received a little kitty compound bow m for

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Speaker 1: my eight year old and I can't decide. I didn't

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Speaker 1: have one of those when I was eight. I can't

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Speaker 1: decide Carl would be interested. Get your perspective on this.

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Speaker 1: I can't decide if it's like, um right, should he

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Speaker 1: be shooting like a stickbow to learn or should he

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Speaker 1: just like jump in because this is how it works

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Speaker 1: with a site pin in a comp um like are

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Speaker 1: you are you wasting time messing around learning fundamentals with

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Speaker 1: a traditional bow? Like? Are you just like messing around

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Speaker 1: in order to get to the real thing? Or is

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Speaker 1: it better just to be like, this is where it's leaded,

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Speaker 1: this is where it's heading, So just do this now,

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Speaker 1: learn how to shoot a compound and a pin and

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Speaker 1: eight years of age? I got. I got one major issue.

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Speaker 1: You said, I'm taking for granted the fact that this

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Speaker 1: is where it's headed. I feel that that's where it's headed. Okay,

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Speaker 1: well you could you could line up archery and hunting

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Speaker 1: in general, just me like, no, we're not on the

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Speaker 1: same page that like a compound with a pianist where

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Speaker 1: it's headed. Yeah, I just mean that when like in

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Speaker 1: four years, five years, when he's ready to hunt with

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Speaker 1: his bow, I just feel like we'll have landed at

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Speaker 1: a compound with pins and we will not have landed

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Speaker 1: at a traditional bow. Just basing it on, like who

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Speaker 1: is what is old man shoots to be weird that

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Speaker 1: he would be a purest like that he would develop

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Speaker 1: a purest sensibility in defiance of his old man right

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Speaker 1: at the age of twelve. So I'm just jumping him

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Speaker 1: into I just bought him a You're like bank fishing

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Speaker 1: with nightcrawlers, and he's casting upstream to rising fish only

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Speaker 1: with the in fact, doesn't like his father, but at

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Speaker 1: twelve he's still gonna like me not. I think you could.

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Speaker 1: You could also, I'm sure secure the right equipment for

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Speaker 1: him to be dabbling with a variety of different options.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like a good analogy would be the dad

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Speaker 1: who's helping his son or daughter learned to bat from

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Speaker 1: either side of the plate from an early age. What's

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Speaker 1: your take on it? Do protel his kids are still

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Speaker 1: shooting m but was made out of PBC. But trad

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Speaker 1: bow is made out of traad ball out of PBC.

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Speaker 1: Is that oxymoronic? Uh? No? Um? I think, yeah, give

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Speaker 1: him both and then let him choose, you know, let

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Speaker 1: him play with dabbling both and you know, if he's like, man,

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Speaker 1: this one's more fun than you know, let him shoot archery,

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Speaker 1: because I don't think that really the important thing is

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Speaker 1: that he really needs to be developing archery skills, you know,

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Speaker 1: at the age from eight to twelve. But more important

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Speaker 1: things that hopefully at twelve he still likes to shoot

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Speaker 1: a bow. Oh see, how yelled at him already? You

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Speaker 1: yell at him? How like? What? What like his stance?

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Speaker 1: Why yelled him? When I catch him shooting from a

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Speaker 1: seated position, I take all the fun out of it

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Speaker 1: except for my little girl. And I'm like, oh, s heart,

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Speaker 1: whatever you want classic. I know it's really bad, but

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Speaker 1: he seems to be receptive to it is from what

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Speaker 1: I see. Yeah's to like about it, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: but even when you're like kind of hammering on him

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Speaker 1: about technique, he's not. He's not like but it was

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Speaker 1: the boat away and it's like mildly dangerous and definitely destructive,

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Speaker 1: and so it's like they love it. So you're sending

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Speaker 1: a thing going really fast across the yard and it

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Speaker 1: can like break something. Was not like we just had

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Speaker 1: the I think I was telling you this. That was

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Speaker 1: my oldest who's six now. She just had and I

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Speaker 1: wasn't even there to witness it, but my wife was

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Speaker 1: saying that. She just picked up the boat. And up

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Speaker 1: until now, it's still been like left hand hold the boat,

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Speaker 1: the string towards you, right hand, you know, put the

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Speaker 1: arrow on that, you know, kind of explain everything every

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Speaker 1: single shot, and for the first time, she just they

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Speaker 1: just pulled their bows down and she's out there all

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Speaker 1: on her own final, you know, flinging them. But they

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Speaker 1: still have way more enjoyment than both the six year

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Speaker 1: old and the four yield together. They get more enjoyment

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Speaker 1: out of they eat shoot once or twice, and it's

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Speaker 1: long as there's an arrow sticking in the target, whether

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Speaker 1: it's the turkey that's there or the deer or whatever.

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Speaker 1: The bulls go down and then they have this like

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Speaker 1: this big imaginary play of you know, sneaking up to

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Speaker 1: it and talking about who killed it and how it

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Speaker 1: died and what they're gonna do with it, And that

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Speaker 1: goes on for fifteen minutes and they finally loop back

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Speaker 1: around to taking another shot. They like that part of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just that the playtime around. You know, what happens after

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Speaker 1: there's an arrow stuck in that thing? Ye know, I'd

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Speaker 1: be like, oh, gut shot. I'm gonna lay out a

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Speaker 1: little bit about what we're going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: here and just give a kind of brief overview of

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Speaker 1: the deep history of the feral horse wild horse issue

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Speaker 1: here in the US. And this story, like, this story

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Speaker 1: can go back as deep as you want, because horses,

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Speaker 1: you know, evolved here on our continent many any millions

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Speaker 1: of years ago. So the funny thing about it is

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Speaker 1: like if you look at continental drift, like at that time,

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Speaker 1: our continent wasn't even where it is now on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So it gets to be this sort of like really

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Speaker 1: weird question of where it happened. But so like this

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Speaker 1: land mass that we now know was configured differently and

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Speaker 1: in a different position at one point in time, and

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Speaker 1: at that point in time, we had horses, right, and

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Speaker 1: and horses seemed developed here and spread into Eurasia and

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Speaker 1: then the horses were around here for a long time.

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Speaker 1: They used to be like a four toad horse, and

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Speaker 1: it became a one toad horse. And at the time

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Speaker 1: that human beings first arrived in the New World, you know,

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Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen, perhaps twenty thousand years ago, they would have

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Speaker 1: come here and found a type of horse, along with

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Speaker 1: all sorts of other places scene megafauna that went extinct

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Speaker 1: around the time of the end of the last Ice Age.

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Speaker 1: And so starting around thirteen and years ago, there's no

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Speaker 1: horses here in North America. They're gone. No horses in

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Speaker 1: South America. No horses in North America. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: later like what might have happened to them, but they

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Speaker 1: just weren't here. And then we enter into this long period,

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Speaker 1: this you know, basically thirteen thousand year period where we

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Speaker 1: have a horseless continent. Then we get into the early

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Speaker 1: hundreds and the Spanish you know, start coming over into

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Speaker 1: the New World messing around on in Mexico, and they

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Speaker 1: bring horses with them. They bring a domesticated form of

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Speaker 1: the horse with them. And it's around the late fifteen

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Speaker 1: forties that the Spanish start bringing some horses up into

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Speaker 1: what's now the US. Up into the real Grand region,

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Speaker 1: you know, around Santa Fe, New Mexico, up around Taos,

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Speaker 1: New Mexico. They show up with horses. And there's this

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Speaker 1: like long period of time where you have domestic horses

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Speaker 1: owned by the Spaniards and sort of managed by Pueblo

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Speaker 1: tribes and Native American groups for the Spanish who are

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Speaker 1: like living among and working with the Spanish, up until

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Speaker 1: this thing that happens called the Pueblo Revolt. And we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about the Pueblo Revolt in a minute, but you

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Speaker 1: gotta understand, like how how much time passes between the

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Speaker 1: arrival of the Spanish with horses and the later distribution

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Speaker 1: of those horses up into the central parts of the

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Speaker 1: continent through trade paths developed by Native American tribes from

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Speaker 1: the date when the Spanish showed up up until the

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Speaker 1: Pueblo Revolt, when horses really started to move north. Um,

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Speaker 1: that time span is about as long is what separates

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Speaker 1: us now from Custer's death at the Battle of the

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Speaker 1: Little Big Horn. So horses for a long long time

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Speaker 1: we're confined down to the American Southwest. But during the

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Speaker 1: Pueblo Revolt, a lot of the Pueblo Indians rose up

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Speaker 1: and in a very you know, violent outbreak and retaliation

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Speaker 1: for even worse violent outbreaks committed against them, drove the

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Speaker 1: Spanish back out of the US, and they made off

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Speaker 1: with hundreds of horses. And the Spanish had always had

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Speaker 1: these prohibitions like Indians weren't allowed to ride horses. Indians

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Speaker 1: weren't allowed to own horses, but they had learned how

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Speaker 1: to breed and handle them. And once they booted the

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Speaker 1: Spanish out and stilled all these hundreds of horses, it

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Speaker 1: was like, you know, you took the cap off the bottle, right,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, these horses started getting traded

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Speaker 1: in in various northward directions. They were traded up the

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Speaker 1: west side of the Rockies, they were traded up through

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Speaker 1: the Great Plains. Uh. And it happened fast man. So

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Speaker 1: the Pueblo Revolt is eighty. By the seventeen thirties, horses

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Speaker 1: were up in the hands of Plains tribes up along

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Speaker 1: the Missouri River. By the seventeen seventies, tribes up in

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Speaker 1: the Canadian Plains had horses the principle like forms of distribution.

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Speaker 1: It seems that the Comanche Indians were very involved in

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Speaker 1: moving horses and in fact, once the horse came into

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Speaker 1: into being here, it really changed the way a lot

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Speaker 1: of the tribes functioned. So the Comanche, Lakota, the Cheyenne,

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Speaker 1: they all left their traditional homelands and moved onto the

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Speaker 1: plains to become nomadic bison hunters. Because of the introduction

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Speaker 1: of the horse, it changed everything. You could move more

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Speaker 1: material on a horse, you could keep a bigger lodge,

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Speaker 1: you could follow the herds through a buffalo herds throughout

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Speaker 1: the year, and it really changed everything. And it causes

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Speaker 1: major power division where these one these groups that had

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Speaker 1: once been kind of small, weak tribes became very powerful,

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Speaker 1: dominant tribes through the horse trade. And it said that

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Speaker 1: perhaps the Comanches through it, like through distribution channels that

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Speaker 1: they created, that they had funneled horses through their network

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Speaker 1: and and subsequent tribes along the trading path all the

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Speaker 1: way to French settlements east of the Mississippi. So horses

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Speaker 1: were just exploding out there and going everywhere. And it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to think, like, how how narrow this time window was.

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Speaker 1: Right that when Lewis and Clark show up on their transcontinental,

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Speaker 1: you know, journey out to the American West, they're encountering

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Speaker 1: groups of Indians that it only had horses for for

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Speaker 1: less than fifty years. We now look and we think

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Speaker 1: that this idea of the equestrian Native American bison hunter, right,

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Speaker 1: so so that an Indian mounted on a horse out

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Speaker 1: chasing buffalo across the Great Plains. We tend to think

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Speaker 1: of that as this thing that had just occurred for

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Speaker 1: a long time. There's like the static thing that had

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Speaker 1: all always happened, and then it was interrupted by the

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Speaker 1: arrival of Europeans. But in fact there was a narrow blip,

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Speaker 1: you know, like that those cultures lasted about a hundred

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Speaker 1: years from the introduction of the horse up until the

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Speaker 1: military conquest of those tribes in the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: reservation systems. But it's just sort of like indelible images

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Speaker 1: burned into our cultural mind that these people were interacting

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Speaker 1: and using horses in their daily life for time immemorial,

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Speaker 1: when in fact it wasn't that long. But horses just

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Speaker 1: exploded across the American West in these years. And there's

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Speaker 1: this estimate that even between the Arkansas River and the

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Speaker 1: Rio Grand at one time, you know, around the time

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Speaker 1: of when we were doing early European settlements on the

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Speaker 1: Great Plains that there was maybe two million horses wild

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Speaker 1: horses existing between those rivers. As you got more north right,

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Speaker 1: the more severe winters, much harder for him, and far fewer.

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Speaker 1: But on the southern plains there were probably so many

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Speaker 1: wild horses that it was probably like displacing native wildlife

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Speaker 1: even back then, even in the late seventeen in early

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. What happened from there is that, you know,

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Speaker 1: over the course of Western settlement, those horseherds were just

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Speaker 1: reduced and reduced into reduced, like they weren't protected. People

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Speaker 1: could go out and round them up to sell them,

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Speaker 1: they could round them up and use them for their

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Speaker 1: own personal use, and many, many, many of them were

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Speaker 1: rounded up by dudes called mustangers, who would go out

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Speaker 1: and just round a bunch up and put them in

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Speaker 1: a trailer and haul them off to a slaughter facility

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Speaker 1: and get some money for him, and they would go

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Speaker 1: into sausage and dog food and export markets. And that

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Speaker 1: line of work continued until it started to seem like

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Speaker 1: the wild horse was gonna vanish from the American landscape.

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Speaker 1: At the time we got down perhaps as few there's

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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand wild horses in the American West. And

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Speaker 1: then Congress came in and made what I regard as

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Speaker 1: a pretty big mistake where they came in and do

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Speaker 1: the Wild Horse, Burrow, Wild Horse and Borrow Protection Act,

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Speaker 1: which gives wild horses like a level of protection that's

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Speaker 1: greater than what we give things when we put them

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Speaker 1: on the Endangered Species Act. Because when things go on

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Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act, imperiled species go on. There there's

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Speaker 1: a mechanism by which they come off once they recovered.

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Speaker 1: But the Wild Horse and Borrow Protection Act doesn't do that.

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Speaker 1: It just says hands off, um, no, you know, not

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Speaker 1: doing lethal control on these, and it just it was

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Speaker 1: a mess. It created a mess. Even like in two

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Speaker 1: thousand seven there were twenty eight maybe an estimated point

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Speaker 1: five thousand wild horses in the American West. A decade later,

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Speaker 1: eighty three thousand, there is now far and away more

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Speaker 1: wild horses living in the American West. Then then we

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Speaker 1: can sustain um, it's having devastating impacts, devastating ecological impacts,

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Speaker 1: devastating impacts a native wildlife. Where we're taking this feral

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Speaker 1: creature right, this feral horse, it was a domesticated animal

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Speaker 1: cut loose out in the landscape and it's wreaking havoc

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Speaker 1: on our native wildlife. Um So we're losing native wildlife

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Speaker 1: in the advancement of the interests of an introduced feral species.

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Speaker 1: It's a mess. And since there's not lethal control right now,

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Speaker 1: people take some of these excess animals, not nearly all

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Speaker 1: of them and moving to these off range holding facilities

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Speaker 1: where you you lease private land and more lush grasslands

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Speaker 1: to the east. And they got forty four thousand of

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Speaker 1: these horses there living out their lives um at the

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Speaker 1: expense of American taxpayers and at the expense of a

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Speaker 1: minim will budget for managing wild horses in general, to

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Speaker 1: the point that half of the money designated for wild

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Speaker 1: horse work is being sucked up. And these off range

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Speaker 1: holding facilities total mess. So much of what I just

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Speaker 1: told you, you know, a lot of that's like has

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Speaker 1: a serious bit of personal spin thrown on it. And

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Speaker 1: you know that there's I'm revealing my opinion about the issue,

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Speaker 1: But we're gonna talk to people who know a hell

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Speaker 1: of a lot more about it than I do, and

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Speaker 1: they might prove some places or show some places where

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Speaker 1: I was wrong or mistaken, but I wanted you have

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Speaker 1: that a little bit of background. And we're joined here

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Speaker 1: by a frequent guest on this show, Dr Carl Malcolm

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Speaker 1: and also Dr Tilani Francisco. So how how did you come, um,

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Speaker 1: how did you come to get involved in the feral

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Speaker 1: horse issue? Yeah? I want to get answer that. Then

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about what term we're going to

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Speaker 1: use during this conversation. Yeah, I'm glad because is um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's a lot of discussion. It does, it

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Speaker 1: really does. You're probably checking out that I said barr

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Speaker 1: barrel horses. Yes, we'll go ahead with the first question.

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Speaker 1: How did you get involved in this? How did I

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Speaker 1: get involved in it? Well? And path? Yeah, so I

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Speaker 1: knew from the outset that I wanted to be a veterinarian.

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Speaker 1: I mean from I think somewhere in junior high. I

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Speaker 1: mean I grew up around animals, grew up around horses,

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Speaker 1: and so I've always had a desire to do that. Um,

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Speaker 1: my family owned lots of horses. Of course, we were

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Speaker 1: cattle people, So I grew up riding a horse. I

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Speaker 1: think I first got on a horse when I was

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Speaker 1: two weeks old. My dad said, so Yeah, I've had

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Speaker 1: a lifelong history of working horses and and life on

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Speaker 1: the rez, you know, free horse, free ranging horses on

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Speaker 1: the rez. When you needed a horse, you went out,

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Speaker 1: you rounded horses up, you put them in a corral,

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Speaker 1: and then you proceeded to tame them. And you know,

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Speaker 1: so around I grew up around. I grew up around

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Speaker 1: you know, untamed horses, taming them and then riding them

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Speaker 1: out on the rez, and you know, and using them

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Speaker 1: for transportation. So I knew at an early age I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do something to help horses. So what right now, like,

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Speaker 1: what is your what is your role right now and

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Speaker 1: working with wild horses horses? Yeah, we have to we

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Speaker 1: have to talk about what we're going to call them.

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Speaker 1: So my position right now is I'm with the for

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Speaker 1: US for Service because they are part there are two

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Speaker 1: agencies that are entrusted with the the management of wild

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Speaker 1: horses and burrows as per the nineteen one Act, and

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Speaker 1: so the US Force Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

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Speaker 1: I specifically work for the Southwestern region of the U.

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Speaker 1: S Force Service, which is Arizona, New Mexico, and our

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Speaker 1: grasslands in Texas and Oklahoma. And my primary duty My

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Speaker 1: actual job is the wild Horse and Borough coordinator, So

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Speaker 1: I am not employed as a veterinary medical officer, which

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Speaker 1: is a federal job, which I was before I came

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Speaker 1: to the Force Service. And you so you're working on

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Speaker 1: the horse issue on federal lands, just on for services,

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Speaker 1: just on for service lands. So when you say coordinators,

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Speaker 1: coordinator of activities across for a service lands. Yes, But

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Speaker 1: what's interesting to me is that I want to like

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Speaker 1: take them and back up in a second, is to

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Speaker 1: walk through kind of what we're talking about, but really quickly, Uh,

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Speaker 1: right now, what is the esset right now of how

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Speaker 1: many wild horses or feral horses live in the American West. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, I really wish we had a good solid

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Speaker 1: number there. There are people that will say we're ninety thousand.

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Speaker 1: Some people have said no, We're closer to a million.

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Speaker 1: Some people yeah, and I'm like, I don't believe that.

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Speaker 1: I know that in stretch well, and I think where

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Speaker 1: they get confused is that owned horses. So you go

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Speaker 1: back to the latest count by the World Animal Health Organization,

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Speaker 1: they reported that North America, well United States, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand sixteen, the US had one point five million owned horses,

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Speaker 1: and so a million and a half horses in in

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Speaker 1: the United States, and some component of that could be

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Speaker 1: some of these wild or feral or unowned horses that

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Speaker 1: are free ranging. Because the reason I asked that it's

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Speaker 1: so because you've lived on the Navajo Nation and they

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Speaker 1: afford Apache, the White Mountain, Apache Reservation, the Mississippi Band

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Speaker 1: of Choctaws. The but I've read that that perhaps thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand wild horses are on the Navajo Nations. There's in

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Speaker 1: the American West, do they does it really have that

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Speaker 1: like that, that percentage of animals are found on that

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Speaker 1: land mass. That's what they say, In fact that their

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Speaker 1: latest one that I read was thirty eight thousand, and

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Speaker 1: then they gather between thirty yeah, yeah, and the Yakima,

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Speaker 1: the Yakima Nation up in Washington. They think they may

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Speaker 1: have somewhere in the same, you know, like thousand. So

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Speaker 1: I mean, really, we don't know, to be honest with you,

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Speaker 1: we don't know. I mean, you'll see all kinds of numbers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you'll see all kinds of numbers thrown out out there,

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Speaker 1: and when it really comes down to it, we don't know.

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Speaker 1: We don't know. We just know there's an awful lot. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about why that's a problem or

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Speaker 1: is it a problem? Well, it's an issue? What Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's an issue. Okay, So I want to talk about

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Speaker 1: why that's a problem slash issue. Um. But the next

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Speaker 1: thing I wanted to get into is breakdown for me

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Speaker 1: what people are signaling when they say feral horses and

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Speaker 1: what people are signaling when they say wild horses. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I'm glad you asked that because a lot of

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Speaker 1: people throw the term wild horse out and they just

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Speaker 1: take it as a horse that's untamed that's come off

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Speaker 1: of the landscape, so and Mustang's wild horses. People will

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Speaker 1: use that term and not realize that the true wild

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Speaker 1: horse is a legal definition based on the nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: one Act, and so a true wild horse is a

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Speaker 1: horse that is associated with either one of the US

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Speaker 1: Force Service wild Horse and Borough Territories that Congress established

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Speaker 1: in nineteen one, or it's a horse that has come

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Speaker 1: off of a Bureau of Land Management herd management area

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Speaker 1: that was established in nineteen seventy one. So it's a

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Speaker 1: legal term that is a horse that is associated with

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Speaker 1: one of those two types of properties. This is the

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Speaker 1: answer I expected. Yes, that's that's a that's a wild horse.

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Speaker 1: It has to be legally associated with a territory or

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Speaker 1: a herd management area, like an area where someone came

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Speaker 1: in and specified this is a place for wild horses

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Speaker 1: exist and can't exist. Yes, okay, so what is so

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Speaker 1: then talk about the feral horses. So a feral horse

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Speaker 1: is any horse that has once been in domestication, regardless

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Speaker 1: of how long back in time it was once domesticated.

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Speaker 1: So it was once managed by two leggeds a particular horse,

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Speaker 1: and not like a population any any whether it's a

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Speaker 1: population of horses, whether it's a single horse, so regardless, yes,

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Speaker 1: so regardless of how long ago it was that that

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Speaker 1: animal or that group of animals was once in domestication,

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Speaker 1: so it was once managed by two leggeds. So we

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Speaker 1: look like feral pigs, you know, and we know the

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Speaker 1: southeastern United States and all through like Texas and Florida

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Speaker 1: and Georgia and all the tons of feral pigs. Well

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Speaker 1: we know that we call them feral pigs because they

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Speaker 1: were not in the United States or they were not

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Speaker 1: native here. They were brought in by whomever. However, they

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Speaker 1: were left free and but but they had been brought

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Speaker 1: here as domesticated swine. Now they're free, they're roaming back

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Speaker 1: and and you know, some people say, well, yeah, they

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Speaker 1: look like Eurasian boors, and you know, and and so

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Speaker 1: they're they're obviously you know, I think that just shows

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Speaker 1: that they adapt back to their environment. In the case

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Speaker 1: of pigs, oh there are pigs. There are, and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to call them all feral pigs, but there are

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Speaker 1: pigs that were brought here that hadn't gone through a

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Speaker 1: domestication process, and that they were the ancestral wild pig.

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Speaker 1: M because if you look at the domestic animals we

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Speaker 1: now know, like you take like a cow, okay, yeah,

400
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Speaker 1: the wild ancestral one is gone. The orcs doesn't exist anymore.

401
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Speaker 1: Or now people argue that the wild ancestral horse of

402
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Speaker 1: the Eurasian step no longer exists. We only have domesticated varieties.

403
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Speaker 1: But pigs are unusual because there still are the ancestral

404
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Speaker 1: wild version of Sus scraffa is still running around out

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Speaker 1: there on his native range, and people have at times

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Speaker 1: captured them, not domesticated them, and brought those specific animals

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Speaker 1: in and cut them loose here where they promptly go

408
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: and find feral farm version running around in the wild

409
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Speaker 1: and and inner breed. But I think that that little

410
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Speaker 1: difference causes a lot of head scratching among wild pig enthusiasts,

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Speaker 1: of which I kind of count myself. But I think that, like,

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Speaker 1: because they're not native here, and they all are here

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Speaker 1: from the result of some form of human introduction, we

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Speaker 1: tend to refer to them as like when you're getting technical,

415
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: refer like feral picks, because they're all just dumped out.

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Speaker 1: When I was talking about calling like the debate between

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Speaker 1: feral horses and wild horses, I didn't know that it

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Speaker 1: had I didn't know that there was a legal Can

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Speaker 1: I tell what I thought it was. I thought it

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Speaker 1: was a sort of statement of one's acceptance of this

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Speaker 1: animal as wildlife, no meaning. But but I do, okay,

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Speaker 1: But I do want to walk through. I want to

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Speaker 1: touch on the couple of things to bring people up speed,

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Speaker 1: and you can jump in where you want. But um,

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Speaker 1: in this horse debate, there's some things that people love

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Speaker 1: to point out, right. They love to point out that

427
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: it seemed that the horse evolved here million years ago,

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Speaker 1: right on we were we weren't here because of continental drift,

429
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 1: but on this like moving hunk of land and how

430
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,479
Speaker 1: its orientation has changed dramatically. But on this sort of

431
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: moving hunk of land which now happens to sit where

432
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: it currently sits today, horses came about and emanated from

433
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: here and spread to Europe and or what is now Eurasia,

434
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: and in that process they became a solo ped because

435
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: the first ones were bipeds, had like four that's like

436
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: four toes, there's a one toe. And then then then

437
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: they existed here in a recognizable form up until the

438
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 1: place to see hola scene transition. So they existed here

439
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: in some kind of recognizable form up until around thirteen

440
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. And it's it's reasonable to assume that

441
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: human hunters once hunted the native North American horse, that

442
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: that there was a overlap of horses existence here in

443
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: human existence here. But then for twelve thousand years thousand

444
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 1: years roughly, there were no horses here. Are you? Are

445
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: you cool with everything I'm saying so far? Yea, no

446
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: horses here. The Spanish show up and they bring with

447
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: them some horses. Yeah, because the Vikings probably didn't probably

448
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: didn't care. Yeah, they probably didn't carry their horses, and

449
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: the Spanish introduce a different form of horse here, and

450
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: these horses um were established in the American Southwest and

451
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: in Mexico, co. And eventually they were through trade networks

452
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: spread northward and by around I think by around the

453
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: seventeen seventies, horses had spread all the way up into

454
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: the Canadian planes. And so some people choose to look

455
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: at this as being a continuum and that horses and

456
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: some by some definition, horses could count as wildlife that

457
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: just happened to be gone for twelve thousand years, but

458
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: now they're back on there in their rightful home. Some

459
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,479
Speaker 1: people look at horses the same way to look at

460
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: wild pigs, and they say, nope, not from here. It's

461
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 1: a different kind. They were brought here by humans and

462
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: their feral livestock. When I say feral horse, I am

463
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: signifying my belief. I feel that all I am signifying

464
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: I believe that they should be treated like feral livestock. Well,

465
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: I think people say a wild horse, they're sort of

466
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: signifying a belief that it's wildlife. That was what I

467
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: thought up until the moment that you just told me

468
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: that there's an actual definition of a wild horse. Yeah, no,

469
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: the the wild horse. Like I said, it's a it's

470
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: a legal definition. And those are the animals that are

471
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: associated with those territories or him as herd management areas.

472
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: Is it fair to say right now that we have

473
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: vastly well, let's not put that word there. Is it

474
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: fair to say right now that we have let's say,

475
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: way or just too many, too many wild horses, feral

476
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: horses there and the Yeah, there are there are people

477
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: that would say, yes, we have too many horses. And

478
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: then there will people there will be people that say,

479
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: we don't have too many horses. We have too many

480
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: people with livestock, sheep and goats and cattle that are

481
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: using the same area. So so and that, you know,

482
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: and that's where the disagreement comes in. Um, we have

483
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: groups that are on either side, you know that say,

484
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: and then there's people that say, you know what, we

485
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: can all co exist and and really what we deal

486
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: with in the Forest Service and in the Bureau of

487
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: Land Management are just those managed territories that we by

488
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: mandate Congress told us thou shalt you will manage these

489
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: territories so that we can have thriving ecological balance that

490
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: horses can be on the landscape with the lives of

491
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: the wildlife. And in those areas where we have a

492
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: lot you know, permitted lands, a lot of land allotments

493
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: where people can come in for certain periods of time

494
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: throughout the year, um and and graze their livestock, because

495
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: that is part of America West as well, you know

496
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: land um, people raising their cattle and their sheep. UM.

497
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: So we have to allow for all of that, and

498
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: one doesn't take precedence over the other. And on those

499
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: specified lands, we can't say that the horses are more

500
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: important than the cattle. If there is a you know,

501
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: a part of allotment that is there, what it says

502
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: is you first and foremost have to manage that piece

503
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: of land so that it can grow enough forage and

504
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: brows and everything to allow four horses, for cattle, for

505
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: wildlife and for everybody to be there. Okay, but where

506
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: in this equation, um, you mentioned the conflicts between livestock

507
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 1: grazers and feral horses. But when you rank all that out,

508
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: where does the needs of native wildlife fit in? It's cool,

509
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: they're they're yes, they all have to be there on

510
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: those particular lands. On those lands, yes, on the wild

511
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: horse territories and on the h M A S. How

512
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: do you what is the difference if you talk about

513
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: the legal difference between a legally designated wild horse an

514
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: illegally regarded feral horse. You know, let me ask this first.

515
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it won't make sense yet. Can you

516
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: explain what happened when the Wild Horse and Borough Protection

517
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: Act came in in the seventies. Can you explain like

518
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: what was going on prior, like how did we manage

519
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 1: and control wild horse numbers before that? And what happened

520
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: after that happened? Well, I think the biggest thing that

521
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: happened was, um, people, you know, horses were just out

522
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: on the landscape. Like I mentioned on my reservation, if

523
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: we needed a horse, you would go out. You you

524
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: knew that there were areas, you know, on these vast

525
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: landscape where horse bands were at and so you knew, hey,

526
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: we're going to round up horses and we're going to

527
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: see which ones we can use, which ones maybe are

528
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: not usable, and we would tame those horses. We would

529
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: you know, in quote domesticate them, um, when in reality

530
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: they probably somewhere like I said, some ancestor of that

531
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: horse had been domesticated. But so I mean indisputably right. So, um,

532
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 1: if you had if you had to trace it back

533
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: however long ago it was, it was in domestication. So

534
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: what had happened really was that throughout like the thirties, forties,

535
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: fifties and and really I guess it was really like

536
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties. So you know when you

537
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: have the dust bowl back in the thirties and stuff, Um,

538
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: animals were starving, you know. It was we'd go through

539
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: these droughts like we have this year where you just

540
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: have you know, massive die offs and stuff, and people

541
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: will say, well, that's mother nature and all of that.

542
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: Well what would happen is ranchers people that we're making

543
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: money or whatever. Um, they would go up and they

544
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: would round up horses, sometimes by not all that humane methods,

545
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I've seen pictures I've never seen

546
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: it personally where people would, um, you know, very inhumanely

547
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: rope these horses and drag them and um, I mean

548
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: it was pretty barbaric the way some of the methods

549
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: that people used for what purpose? While were they rounding

550
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: them up, then there mustangers, right, they were mustangers, and

551
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 1: they would take them to dogfood plants, you know, and

552
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: and so the methods, and you have to remember that

553
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: back in that time, the mentality or the paradigm was

554
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: animals don't have feelings, animals don't understand pain, so it

555
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. So very different paradigm than where we

556
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: are at today, where we recognize that, you know, humane

557
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: methods are necessary, low stress. Stress has a huge effect

558
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: on animals. But you know, to to I guess a

559
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: little bit to that defense people didn't know any better.

560
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: I know you weren't there to. I know you weren't

561
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: like there to witness all parts of this like personally.

562
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: But was it perceived that horses were handling the way

563
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: that one wouldn't handle cattle, Like would would a mustang

564
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: er be more aggressive, more cruel, if you will, with

565
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: when rounding up wild horses, that would be standard handling

566
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: practice for cattle. No, I think they handled them all

567
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: the same. I think that you know, and and being

568
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: around cattle and stuff. I think I think people just

569
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: look at horses. I mean, let's face it, you look

570
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: at a horse and you just kind of oh, you know,

571
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: and you want to think that every horse is like Secretariat,

572
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: you know, and they're gentle and and every horse is

573
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: black beauty, and you know, and I grew up, I mean,

574
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: I you know, justin Morgan had a horse, and I

575
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: read all of my friend Flicka, and so we all

576
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: want to believe that those horses are like that, that

577
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: every horse is gentle, and every horse is you know,

578
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: just wonderful. And and you see them out on the

579
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: landscape and I'll tell you, I'm I'm you know the

580
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: same way. You see them running and you're like, God,

581
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: they're just beautiful. And yeah, I mean I agree, they're

582
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: they're gorgeous, they're majestic, they're they're just beautiful animals. Yeah.

583
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: Buddy Mines suggests that eye size and eyelash length have

584
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,719
Speaker 1: a lot to do with how we perceive animals. And

585
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: they score very high in that way that tail and

586
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: you know, in a flowing Maine and and in the

587
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: summertime when they're slick, you know, and and and you

588
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: see them if you've got grass and stuff. I mean,

589
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: they are they're a beautiful, just majestic animal. And and

590
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: we equate that too, you know, looking at animals going

591
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: back then to you know, Kentucky where you've got race

592
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: horses and and stuff, and and yeah, I mean there

593
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: is a there's a romantic nature about them. And and

594
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: then you look at UM. Well, you know how the

595
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: West would not have been one were it not for horses.

596
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,359
Speaker 1: You know. So coming from a native background where I

597
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: came from, the horse was huge for us. That was

598
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: our means of transportation. And I mean we're poeblos. We

599
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,239
Speaker 1: were not horsemen like the Plains tribes you know that

600
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: were very accomplished horse people. We had horses, but they

601
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: were you know, they were they were pretty much, you know,

602
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: beast of burden they were. They were transporting, they were

603
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,879
Speaker 1: helping with you know, farming and stuff like that. They

604
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: That's a really interesting perspective about UM thinking about our

605
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: association of planes, tribes, the plane of the nomadic planes, tribes,

606
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: and the horse. It's interesting me look at what a

607
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: narrow window of time that was where when Lewis and

608
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: Clark we're doing there transcontinental journey, they were encountering tribes

609
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: along in the Missouri that had probably had the horse

610
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,839
Speaker 1: for only fifty years. And then that window and then

611
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: with the beginning of the reservation system in the final

612
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: like bloody conquest of the nomadic planes tribes. That window

613
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: was year window of the equestrian right. The equestrian Native

614
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: American bison hunter was this finite thing. But it's like

615
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: it's when people it's when people from like my culture,

616
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: it's when we caught it and saw it, and so

617
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: we hold in our heads. Is this like constant thing,

618
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 1: this idea of the mounted right, you know, when you

619
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:50,800
Speaker 1: had perhaps tens of thousands of years of human history

620
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: absent the horse, but it seemed to just have this

621
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: like it just seems it just still today like really

622
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: captures you don't see that image, you know, the person

623
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: with the bow and the flowing head dress on a horse.

624
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: You don't see that image would be like, well that

625
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: was just like this little thing that happened all of

626
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: a sudden for a short period of time. It really

627
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: it just it like seems to captivate people. Yeah, the

628
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: idea of it. And I don't know if this is true,

629
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: but I've even heard that there are that there are

630
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: Native American creation myths that account for the horse as

631
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: though it always existed. I don't know if that's true

632
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: or not, but I've heard people say that, Yeah, and

633
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: you have horse societies, and in different tribes, you know,

634
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: they have you know, horse societies. I've heard um different

635
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: My my tribe doesn't have a horse society at the

636
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: Pueblo of Laguna, but I've heard other tribes that talk

637
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 1: about they have, you know, a horse society or or

638
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: a clan or something like that that goes back um

639
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: that they believe the horse. Yeah, was very important that

640
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 1: when Creator made all creations, he made he made horse.

641
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: Now they don't specify what type of horse Creator made,

642
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: but Creator made horse just as he made us. That's

643
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: one thing I've heard people reference when people are talking,

644
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: when when people are trying to express their opinion that

645
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,359
Speaker 1: the wild horse has a sort of legitimate claim as

646
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: wildlife in this country, that they would sight oral legend

647
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: from indigenous people's about deep relationships to the animals. So

648
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: during this era, the round up era, when people could,

649
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,479
Speaker 1: like you said, like when you grew up, you catch

650
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: a horse if you wanted it, or you could go

651
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: out and make it. Couldn't have been a ton of money,

652
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: but some money rounding up horses and selling them into slaughter.

653
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: That the animals were actually pushed to a point where

654
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: people felt that they might vanish from the landscape, which

655
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: is hard to believe when you see that. Some people

656
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: estimate that, like around the time, you know, of the

657
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: late ear, that there were maybe two million horses. I've

658
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: heard between like the Arkansas and real Grand Rivers, So

659
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: there were that many. But then there was a fear

660
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: that we were gonna that people thought that the mustangers,

661
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: the individuals out collecting up horses for their own purposes,

662
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: would eradicate the animal. Yeah, does that seem like something

663
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 1: that we could have plausibly pulled off? I mean, did

664
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:34,240
Speaker 1: it seem like that, like that the resources that finite,

665
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:37,919
Speaker 1: you know, as two leggeds. I think we always think

666
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: that we're the apex predator on the planet, and so

667
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: I think that people probably thought, yeah, you know what

668
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: we could potentially if if everybody went out there, which

669
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: is why we have the Threatened Endangered Species Act, right,

670
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: because we tend to look at one thing and you know,

671
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 1: and and a lot of people will say whether it's evolution,

672
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: you know that things are changing and species die off

673
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 1: and new species come in. Whatever. I mean, I don't

674
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: know how that that whole you know, theory goes with.

675
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: And everybody's got their own opinion of it, and it's

676
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: some of it is very scientifically based and some of

677
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 1: it is just opinion based. But um to think that

678
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: that we would eradicate all horses. And that's where I

679
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: think a lot of people lose track in in saying

680
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: that the wild horse is a species within itself, you know,

681
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,719
Speaker 1: gena species, even though it's equis calibus. But and then

682
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 1: you look at you know, Thoroughbreds and standard Breds and

683
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: Tennessee walkers, and you know the American Pinto and all

684
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 1: the different known breeds of horses, that they are different

685
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 1: than the wild horse. So I think that's where a

686
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: lot of people get mixed up is because they think

687
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: that that the wild horses they like to call them,

688
00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: and now you might know that that's not correct, but

689
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: that a feral horse or a free roaming horse, because

690
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: the Act does does call them wild free ranging or

691
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: wild free roaming horses and burrows, so it indicated that

692
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: they were wild because they were associated to that territory.

693
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,760
Speaker 1: They were free roaming, meaning that they were not held

694
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: in the confines of any fencing or they were not

695
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: restricted just to that territory, but they should be associated

696
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: with that territory and as long as they were on

697
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: that territory, they must thrive. There must be ecological balance,

698
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: there must be genetic diversity, all of that. Well, the

699
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: states in the America West, which states have what are

700
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: legally recognized as wild horses. So we have wild horse

701
00:44:52,719 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: and borough territories in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. I'm just

702
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: going up basically up the west. Um Utah, Nevada they

703
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: probably have the most. Utah, Nevada by far have the most.

704
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: California and Oregon they all have it, and then Wyoming

705
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: and the prior mountains in Montana. So in those places,

706
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:28,479
Speaker 1: it's around these designated areas. Those are the places where

707
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: horses have some level of federal protection. So if you're

708
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 1: not in one of those states. Let's say you're in

709
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: Kansas and you and there's a horse running around and

710
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: no one really knows who owns it, it's running around

711
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 1: out in the woods or running around out on the plains,

712
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:51,800
Speaker 1: that horse would not be legally regarded as a wild horse.

713
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: It would not be protected by the Wild Horse and

714
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,240
Speaker 1: Borrow Act. That would depend because we have the Bureau

715
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: Plant Management has some long term holding pastures in the

716
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: Midwest where there's abundant grass, so in uh Kansas, Missouri, Nevada,

717
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: I mean not Nevada, Missouri, and um Nebraska, and some

718
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: I think there's some in South Dakota, even where they

719
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: pay ranchers or farm you know, landowners that have big

720
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,760
Speaker 1: plots of land that have abundant grass because it's prairie

721
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 1: grass where those animals are taken and they live there

722
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. Those animals are still protected

723
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: because they're wild horses and burrows because they have been

724
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: removed from a designated territory or h m A, which

725
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: kind of points of the real mess right where we

726
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: have what many would argue is a great overabundance of

727
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: wild horses that have like exceeded carrying capacity of certain landscapes.

728
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 1: But we can't do lethal control on the wild horses

729
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: because of the Wild Horse and Borrel Protection Act, So

730
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: they need to be gathered up and sent to other

731
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: places where the government leases grazing lands from private individuals

732
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: to allow those horses to live out their life. And

733
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: we paid I think we've paid about a billion dollars

734
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: to feed these horses, and it's projected that will probably

735
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 1: pushing at some point into three billion dollars. Yeah, right now,

736
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: right now, the latest UM that we're looking at is

737
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: it on average in long term holding five to seven

738
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: dollars per horse. So yeah, for the lifetime of their

739
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 1: it gets pretty expensive. Yeah, there's an estimate from the

740
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: BLM that one unadopted horse can run about forty eight

741
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to remain in a corral over its lifetime.

742
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,720
Speaker 1: To the American taxpayer forty eight thousand dollars per horse

743
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: for its lifetime in captivity. That's a little horresponsive costing.

744
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 1: That's where the horse has the potential to wind up costing.

745
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: And to your point about the proportion of the budget UM,

746
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: we're at a point now where the investment in these

747
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: kind of holding holding facilities and paying for pasture well

748
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: exceeds almost two thirds of the budget for the total,

749
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: while horse and burrow program goes to off range care.

750
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: So I've got some numbers from the BLM that talked

751
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: about umto wild horses and burrows in off range corrals

752
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:36,320
Speaker 1: and pastures to the tune of forty nine million dollars

753
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: UM for the twenty sixteen data. Looks like, did you

754
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: follow what went on this past February when the Navajo

755
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:52,919
Speaker 1: Nation proposed that they were going to do a horse hunt. Yeah,

756
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: we were having uh an All Voices Summit at New

757
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: Mexico State University and that week that they put that out, Um,

758
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, we we were having this summit and it

759
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 1: was we wanted everybody there. We wanted advocate groups, we

760
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: wanted the pro slaughter groups, we wanted the ranchers, we

761
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:14,760
Speaker 1: wanted everybody there. And we got a lot of tribal

762
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: because New Mexico has so many tribal nations. But the

763
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: horse that they proposed is going to happen in Arizona, right,

764
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: But Navajo Nation, you know, goes into Utah, Arizona, New

765
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: Mexico and so on. Window Rock. Their headquarters is right

766
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 1: on the state line Arizona, New Mexico state line. So

767
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 1: we we had a lot of um Navajo Nation representatives

768
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: that are All Voices summit, and that was one thing

769
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 1: we wanted them to talk about because we got there

770
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 1: on Monday and they you know, they were talking about

771
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 1: we're going to have this horse hunt. It was only

772
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: for sixty animals, it was in a very remote area

773
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 1: and they only wanted to to sell to tribal members.

774
00:49:54,200 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 1: It was five dollars and um ahead, yeah, ten the tag. Yeah,

775
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: and you're allowed a non branded, a non branded animal

776
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 1: in this one specific location in a very small area

777
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: of the Navajo Nation. And it was in response to

778
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: a drought, correct, Like they figured that hard times are coming.

779
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and they knew and they knew that um

780
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: years years before, they've had a hard time with their

781
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: mule deer population in that area. And so they said,

782
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 1: you know, we need to really look at this. And

783
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:31,320
Speaker 1: and when you look at a lot of tribal groups,

784
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: they are I mean, we're very connected to the wildlife,

785
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: to all the creature, you know, all the creatures that

786
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: Creator made. And so they said, yeah, we need we

787
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: need to really protect those deer. And so they were

788
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: really working hard to try and increase the you know,

789
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 1: the brows for for the deer. And so they said,

790
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: we need to get we need to knock some of

791
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:55,799
Speaker 1: these horse numbers back. And so they've been fighting over it,

792
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: you know, kind of you know, I know, it's it's

793
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: a very difficult decision. And so I was surprised when

794
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 1: I saw that come out, and I said, oh wow,

795
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: I mean that's bold, that's really bold people right away.

796
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:08,959
Speaker 1: I can't tell how many people sent me a link

797
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 1: two like links to the the basically the fish and

798
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: game site for tribal agency, yeah for for for Navajo

799
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: Game and fish. And they were like, the link didn't

800
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 1: last long. It did not like I think it lasted

801
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: over the weekend. But someone pointed out, some pointed out

802
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: that the the you know, we have maybe forty thousand

803
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: upwards horses on our reservation. They eat about thirty two

804
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,919
Speaker 1: pounds of grass a day, ten gallons of water to day,

805
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: and we just don't have the grass and water. Yeah. Yeah,

806
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: anybody who's driven through southern Utah, northern Arizona, western New Mexico,

807
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: you will see there is not a lot of vegetation.

808
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 1: And then you throw in this drought that we've had.

809
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: We've had what two rains last October? So what were

810
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: the primary things that what were the primary pushbacks that

811
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: caused them to cancel the hunt? Was it internal or external?

812
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: What I was told was that it was to twofold,

813
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: So they did have some um, some external um involvement

814
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: um from non natives that you know. Of course, you

815
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: came up and talked to the tribal council and presented

816
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 1: their anti you can't do this, you can't do this.

817
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:32,239
Speaker 1: And then I've also been told um that that internally

818
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 1: within the tribal um people, they said, Hey, the tribal

819
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 1: council never never voted on this. This was not something

820
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: that was taken to the tribal people and the people

821
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,720
Speaker 1: were allowed to vote on this. This was just something

822
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: that was done arbitrarily. And so rather than having lawsuits,

823
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, for arbitrary and capricious decisions made by the

824
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: Department of Natural Resources, Game and Fish, they just ceased it.

825
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, we're not We're not going

826
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: to go there. And then in May, horses on the

827
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 1: Navijole Reservation turn up dead around a dried up water hole. Yeah,

828
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: very unfortunate up at Green Mountain. And that's we've it's

829
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: and it's something that we fight with those of us

830
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: that are out here where you have um dirt tanks

831
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: like that, you know, natural catchments, whether they were man

832
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 1: made or not. When when the water starts drying up,

833
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: especially if you've had a lot of silk in that

834
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 1: in that dirt tank, um, you know, kind of becomes

835
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: kind of a bog. And we have you guys have

836
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 1: probably heard about it. You know, we have quick sand

837
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: out here, a lot of it, and and so expandable

838
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: clays and stuff, and and so whether that was part

839
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: of it or it was just these animals get in

840
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,439
Speaker 1: there and you get stuck down in that mud where

841
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: that silt is at and and they're already you know,

842
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: their health is already compromised because they're very skinny to

843
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:06,439
Speaker 1: go in there in the first place. They there's nothing

844
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 1: out there for them to eat, there's nothing for them

845
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: to drink, and they find this little tiny bit and

846
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: you know, nearly two animals getting in there, they're all

847
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: competing for that little bit of moisture. They get stuck

848
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 1: in the mire and it was a horrific scene. The

849
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 1: pictures I saw it just how tragic, how tragic. So,

850
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: so how are people balancing out? Like if you if

851
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: you were looking at a similar situation with rabbits, a

852
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:41,319
Speaker 1: situation with feral pigs, a situation with white tailed deer,

853
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:45,840
Speaker 1: people will be like, sure, this seems like this seems

854
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:50,720
Speaker 1: like a The reasonable thing here is that if there's demand,

855
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 1: we would allow some hunting to occur. Yeah, and how

856
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: did it be that they wounded up being that it's

857
00:54:56,680 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: this like exceptional animal that we would rather watch die

858
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 1: of thirst than feed some human desire. You know, I

859
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:09,719
Speaker 1: think it goes back to like I said, you know,

860
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,560
Speaker 1: we have this romantic notion of horses and everybody you

861
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: think of horse when you say horse, and what's the

862
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:18,799
Speaker 1: first thing that pops in your man your mind. It's

863
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 1: like the black beauty stallion. It's something like that when

864
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 1: you especially when you look at are largely urban masses

865
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:31,239
Speaker 1: that we have. So I think you get a very

866
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:35,280
Speaker 1: different opinion when you have people that are in rural communities,

867
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: that are that are not associated with urbanization, and you

868
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 1: get this expanding urban um, you know, population, and they

869
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 1: they don't know the difference. They don't know where their

870
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,720
Speaker 1: food comes from. They don't know that, you know, their shoes,

871
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: their leather and stuff was once a leaving, living, breathing animal.

872
00:55:56,000 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: And so they're very very much separated from where origins

873
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: of their food and their fiber and everything they have.

874
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: They're very separated from that. And so you know the

875
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 1: thought of oh my gosh, this hamburger I'm eating was

876
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 1: once that really pretty cow over there, Oh my gosh,

877
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: you know, or that people actually raise animals and and

878
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 1: every fall sell their steers off so that you can

879
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:25,200
Speaker 1: eat your steak and your prime rib and you know

880
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: whatnot I think people are very separated from that, and

881
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:32,320
Speaker 1: so likewise, I think that's where we get this issue

882
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:37,719
Speaker 1: of managing horses. They're very separated from that because they

883
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: look at horses and to them, every horse is you know, secretariat,

884
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 1: it's black beauty, it's it's this majestic animal. And yet

885
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: they don't realize that those animals do consume a lot

886
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: of a lot of food, they do consume a lot

887
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 1: of water. They don't they don't necessarily put those two

888
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 1: things together are in that there is a huge responsibility

889
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:08,320
Speaker 1: in keeping those animals healthy and at a level where

890
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:12,879
Speaker 1: they're not damaging the landscape. Carl, when you look at

891
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 1: it from the wildlife angle, what is the how does

892
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 1: native wildlife get like? How is native wild they've affected

893
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: by wild horses? Well, there's a how our native wildlife

894
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: species affected by wild horses. Yeah, there's a number of

895
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 1: answers to that question. My mind, to be honest, is

896
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 1: still on on what you asked to Lanny, and I

897
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: think she's making some good points about you know, the

898
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 1: perception of the different perceptions of people with respect animals,

899
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:45,439
Speaker 1: and a lack of awareness around where food and leather

900
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: come from, et cetera. But I would say, with respect

901
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: to horses, before I go to your question about wildlife,

902
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: just thinking about how how cultural this issue really is,

903
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 1: because you know, I think you could put it to

904
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:02,200
Speaker 1: a room full of hunters, Um, how comfortable are they

905
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 1: with shooting, eating um and elk, a deer, slaughtering beef

906
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:13,960
Speaker 1: cattle versus horses? Are they? Do they put all those

907
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: in the same category or not? Because I think here

908
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 1: in America, um, even in a rural landscape, horses are

909
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: not typically a species that we we think of as food.

910
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: You know, it's not part of our menu. No, they're

911
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:30,360
Speaker 1: in the group with cats and labs and and in

912
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 1: in this country. But that's very different than what you

913
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: might get overseas. Right, there's plenty of cultures where consuming

914
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 1: horse meat is totally normal. And if you were to

915
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: ask somebody, you know, what's the first thing they think

916
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: of when they think of a horse, they there are

917
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 1: plenty of people who would say food. You know, Having

918
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: had a chance to spend some time in Northwest China,

919
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: where there's a very strong um community of Um, a

920
00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 1: Muslim group called the Weakers up in Shin John Province

921
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: in the northwest near the border with Mongolia. We were

922
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,320
Speaker 1: teamly had horse um served to us at meals when

923
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: we were doing field work there for some of my research.

924
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,440
Speaker 1: So this is such an interesting cultural issue, and I

925
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 1: would say you could think about it from the same

926
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 1: standpoint of if you were to ask a Hindu what

927
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: they think of when they think of a cow, how

928
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,720
Speaker 1: different that is from what an American would say when

929
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 1: they think of a cow. There's just so much steeped

930
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: in culture here. You know, where in Hindu culture, Hindu religion,

931
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: the animals venerated. It's it's considered sinful too, even toy

932
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:40,760
Speaker 1: with the idea of slaughtering a cow, compared to here

933
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: in America. So none of that is rooted in ecology

934
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 1: at all. Right to your point, all of these animals

935
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:51,640
Speaker 1: are capable of of reproducing. UM historically would have had

936
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: predator prey dynamics controlling horses. UM. We had a cast,

937
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:01,280
Speaker 1: a whole whole host of p editors historically that would

938
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 1: have been eating horses during the place to scene that

939
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 1: are gone now. UM. But with respect to your question

940
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: about some of the implications, I guess for starters, it's

941
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: just you could look at the impact that horses have

942
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 1: on the landscape in terms of soil compaction, in terms

943
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 1: of the amount of forage that they consume. We've touched

944
01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 1: on that a little bit UM. But then there are

945
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 1: a couple of other interesting, UM a little bit more

946
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 1: complex interactions. So one would be, you know, we're talking

947
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 1: about um landscapes. You know, given the list of states

948
01:00:35,080 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: we've touched on Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah,

949
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 1: relatively dry places. Water is oftentimes a limiting factor. Horses

950
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: are very effective at capitalizing on a water resource and

951
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: excluding native wildlife from being able to access that water supply.

952
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: So you'll have horses that will drive away the indigenous wildlife.

953
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 1: So typically we be talking about prong horn, big horn,

954
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:07,320
Speaker 1: mule deer, even elk in some cases can be displaced

955
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 1: by wild slash feral horses UM. And then another really

956
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 1: interesting consideration here is what horses represent in terms of

957
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 1: a prey base that has the potential two elevate the

958
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: density of predators on the landscape, which has the potential

959
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: to have implications for other native prey species. So, for example,

960
01:01:35,680 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 1: if you think about a landscape where you've got I

961
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:40,960
Speaker 1: need to have it, I'll spill it out for you

962
01:01:41,080 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 1: before before I do, I want to I want to

963
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,440
Speaker 1: point out I had a chance, you know, recently, to

964
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: talk about this issue with the Big Horn biologists from

965
01:01:48,840 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 1: the state of New Mexico, guy named Eric Rominger, and

966
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:54,720
Speaker 1: he pointed me to a couple of papers because we

967
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: were we were brainstorming about a recent New York Times

968
01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:01,800
Speaker 1: article that we both had read that had us both

969
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: kind of steaming a little bit. And this issue of

970
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: apparent competition is something that was totally overlooked in that article.

971
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 1: And the reason this, this pattern that arises in ecology

972
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 1: is called apparent competition is because on its surface, it

973
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: looks like two species might be competing with one another,

974
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 1: but in fact, the dynamics that are being observed are

975
01:02:27,560 --> 01:02:31,440
Speaker 1: mediated by a predator. Okay, so I'll spell this out

976
01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 1: so it makes a little bit more sense. Imagine a system,

977
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 1: a very simple system, where all you have for predator

978
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:42,960
Speaker 1: prey interactions are mule deer and mountain lions. The mountain

979
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:47,960
Speaker 1: lion population is going to depend on the availability of prey,

980
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 1: which in this case is exclusively mule dear. So if

981
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 1: the mountain lion population manages to drive the mule deer

982
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: numbers down, ultimately the mule deer here it's going to

983
01:02:57,320 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: be able to support fewer mountain lions. It's the mountain

984
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:02,400
Speaker 1: lion number they're going to decline. Yielder numbers would then

985
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 1: potentially rebound. This is where you get those classic predator

986
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:09,800
Speaker 1: praise cycles. Links and snowshoe hair is being like classic

987
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: famous like seven years, the seven year, the seven year

988
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: yep excurring cycle of elevated snowshoe hair is followed by

989
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: elevated links. Claps rise, claps rise, exactly. So, now imagine

990
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 1: adding another praise species into the equation, and imagine that

991
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: that second praise species is relatively superior at evading predation

992
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:39,760
Speaker 1: compared to the mule deer. Would you mind if we talk?

993
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the New York Times article we're

994
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: talking about. I would love to talk about the New

995
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 1: York Times because you are talking about right, Like, don't

996
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:47,840
Speaker 1: you think you should talk about it before we talk

997
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: about it? Yeah? Yeah, we can talk about a little bit.

998
01:03:49,880 --> 01:03:52,960
Speaker 1: And Tilanni and i um offered up offered up a

999
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: you know, to to provide a rebuttal let me say

1000
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: what he says, though, go ahead, because this is the guy.

1001
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:02,840
Speaker 1: Like in all fairness, we tried to get the writer,

1002
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: the gentleman by the name of Dave Phillips. We tried

1003
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:09,120
Speaker 1: to get the writer to come on the podcast to

1004
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: talk about his book about wild horses called wild Horse Country. Um.

1005
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: And I read the book and its entirety, and it

1006
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:24,560
Speaker 1: he's of the mindset that that the that the twelve

1007
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: thousand year absence of horses and the fact that they

1008
01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:32,600
Speaker 1: were reintroduced by humans is sort of a little bit

1009
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,280
Speaker 1: putting words his mouth, but it proves to be kind

1010
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 1: of inconsequential, and that we should regard wild horses as

1011
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:42,760
Speaker 1: an as a sort of native wildlife or they kind

1012
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: of like have an established a sort of honorary status

1013
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: as native wildlife. And he goes on to say how

1014
01:04:49,800 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 1: we have way too many of them now on the

1015
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:58,439
Speaker 1: landscape and that it's untenable that they would be put

1016
01:04:58,480 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: to human use. Um, it's untenable that they will be

1017
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,080
Speaker 1: rounded up and sent to slaughter or used for human

1018
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 1: food or used for dog food. That's just that's not

1019
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:13,280
Speaker 1: a good it's not a realistic solution. And he goes

1020
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:15,400
Speaker 1: on to say that what ought to be going on

1021
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:20,240
Speaker 1: is we need a bunch more mountain lions to kill

1022
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: wild horses. And if we allowed this to play out

1023
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 1: and no one hunted mountain lions anymore, that we would

1024
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:30,959
Speaker 1: uh not entirely take care of the problem. We would

1025
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 1: lick a good bunch of it if we just had

1026
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 1: more mountain lions. And this, when I read it was like, um,

1027
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:42,000
Speaker 1: almost maddening, And that's why I wanted to have him

1028
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:45,560
Speaker 1: on to discuss his perspective and my perspective on it.

1029
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:50,480
Speaker 1: But I felt that it overlooked a handful of things. Um,

1030
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 1: he throws out how many mountain lions are killed in

1031
01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 1: the American West and if they each killed three horses,

1032
01:05:56,640 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: but he doesn't give any acknowledgement towards the fact that

1033
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:04,160
Speaker 1: the distribute and of those lions is not overlapped over

1034
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 1: the distribution of horses, and a handful of other things.

1035
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 1: I'll let you take it from there, but I just

1036
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 1: wanted to establish, like, what the um, what the argument was.

1037
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: I mean, the title, the title of the article is

1038
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 1: let mountain lions eat horses, And there's a few quotable

1039
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 1: quotes that I think would kind of further cement in

1040
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:29,480
Speaker 1: the listener's mind what we're talking about. So direct quote

1041
01:06:29,480 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 1: from the often just as a listener knows he agreed

1042
01:06:32,080 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: to do the podcast with us but couldn't make it.

1043
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 1: We couldn't like come and do it in person. Still

1044
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 1: stands Yeah, like I still love to have would Yeah,

1045
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:45,440
Speaker 1: it would be a good conversation. So one of the

1046
01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:48,520
Speaker 1: things says it isn't that there are too many horses,

1047
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: is that there aren't enough mountain lions. That is one

1048
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 1: thing he says. He also says because the Bureau Bureau

1049
01:06:55,920 --> 01:06:58,480
Speaker 1: of Land Management has always seen the horses as livestock,

1050
01:06:58,560 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 1: not wildlife. It has never tried understand the mustang's place

1051
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:04,840
Speaker 1: in the western ecosystem or tried to take advantage of

1052
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:08,400
Speaker 1: the ancient relationship between the horse and its main predator,

1053
01:07:08,680 --> 01:07:13,480
Speaker 1: the mountain lion. Okay. And one of the reasons I

1054
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: have a problem with that is because if you look

1055
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 1: at the time period when the horses that we all

1056
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:26,080
Speaker 1: could agree were absolutely wild, native indigenous horses towards the

1057
01:07:26,160 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 1: end of the place to scene, when they were still

1058
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:31,160
Speaker 1: here being hunted by humans. They're also being hunted by

1059
01:07:31,200 --> 01:07:34,960
Speaker 1: a cast of other species that were far better equipped

1060
01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:38,360
Speaker 1: to take down a horse than the mountain lion. The

1061
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:42,440
Speaker 1: mountain lion would have been like the tenth baddest predator

1062
01:07:43,200 --> 01:07:45,600
Speaker 1: in the place to see landscape. So you're talking about

1063
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:52,360
Speaker 1: the American lion, mountain lion, laned lion, like the African lion,

1064
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 1: except give it another twenty five percent body weight. It's

1065
01:07:55,720 --> 01:08:01,840
Speaker 1: estimated the American lion waged somewhere between ninety fifty pounds.

1066
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 1: You're talking about variety of saber tooth cats being on

1067
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 1: the landscape significantly larger in the six nine hundred pound range.

1068
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:16,160
Speaker 1: Talking about short faced bears, notorious for their their long legs.

1069
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:19,120
Speaker 1: It's thought that they had potentially a gait that would

1070
01:08:19,120 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 1: have equipped them to run down horses. Talking about dire wolves, which,

1071
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:27,639
Speaker 1: based on their jaw anatomy, had crushing power that far

1072
01:08:27,720 --> 01:08:31,200
Speaker 1: exceeds the wolves of the modern era. So you're talking

1073
01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 1: about a whole list of species. American cheetah. Yeah, we

1074
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:38,280
Speaker 1: can keep going, man, but you know this quote, and

1075
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:40,640
Speaker 1: your horse was not the size of horse that we

1076
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:43,640
Speaker 1: have today. It was a much smaller animal. It was

1077
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:47,000
Speaker 1: probably five to six hundred, maybe seven hundred pounds, so

1078
01:08:47,040 --> 01:08:50,680
Speaker 1: it was a much smaller animal. So to refer to

1079
01:08:51,200 --> 01:08:54,439
Speaker 1: the main predator, the main the main predator in this

1080
01:08:54,560 --> 01:09:00,000
Speaker 1: ancient relationship to be the mountain lion is just factually inaccurate.

1081
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 1: It And you know, we could go on, but I

1082
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:05,479
Speaker 1: want to get back to this topic of apparent competition. Okay,

1083
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:07,120
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna bring you back to the system where

1084
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:11,559
Speaker 1: you have mule deer mountain lions, and then let's let's

1085
01:09:11,600 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 1: add in horses to the equation. One thing that the

1086
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:18,400
Speaker 1: author of this piece got absolutely right is that mountain

1087
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: lions will kill horses. That is well documented. Mountain lions

1088
01:09:24,600 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 1: will potentially kill enough horses to boost their own numbers,

1089
01:09:32,400 --> 01:09:36,320
Speaker 1: which has the potential then to drive other indigenous prey

1090
01:09:36,400 --> 01:09:41,439
Speaker 1: species potentially the point of extirpation or extinction through this

1091
01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:44,400
Speaker 1: process of a parent competition. And again it's called apparent

1092
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 1: competition because it looks like in this case the horses

1093
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: and the mule deer are competing with each other. You

1094
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 1: see horses show up, mule deer numbers go down. But

1095
01:09:54,120 --> 01:09:57,280
Speaker 1: in fact it's not competition for resources between those species.

1096
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:03,280
Speaker 1: It's this predator mediated apparent competition where the collection of

1097
01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 1: all that prey supports a higher abundance of mountain lions

1098
01:10:07,640 --> 01:10:11,639
Speaker 1: in the system, which then disproportionately targets the mule deer,

1099
01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:15,480
Speaker 1: in this case, driving them down in numbers, potentially to extinction.

1100
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:19,880
Speaker 1: Because the apparent competition would be just a competition for resources. Well,

1101
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:24,120
Speaker 1: so competition would be the term for that would be

1102
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:26,960
Speaker 1: competition whether there's a limitation and safe forage or a

1103
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:30,479
Speaker 1: limitation in water. And of course i've already I've already

1104
01:10:30,479 --> 01:10:33,519
Speaker 1: talked about the the ability of horses to exclude other

1105
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 1: species from accessing water. So none of these patterns exists

1106
01:10:37,080 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. But one of the pieces of this

1107
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:47,880
Speaker 1: this article UM the author talks about um this kind

1108
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:50,720
Speaker 1: of predator prey balance being a boon not just for

1109
01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:55,160
Speaker 1: the wild horse program, but for the entire western ecosystem.

1110
01:10:55,200 --> 01:10:58,960
Speaker 1: He says, if herds have exhausted the land, everything else suffers.

1111
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:01,800
Speaker 1: Native wildflowers and lizards, stage grass, and butterflies, as well

1112
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: as ranchers who rely on the same range and hunters

1113
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:07,559
Speaker 1: who want to see thriving populations of deer and bighorn sheep.

1114
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,679
Speaker 1: So if we would just stop killing mountain lions, those

1115
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: mountain lions would take care of the horses, and we

1116
01:11:14,120 --> 01:11:17,880
Speaker 1: would have quote thriving populations of deer and bighorn sheep.

1117
01:11:18,880 --> 01:11:21,960
Speaker 1: The reality is, if we would stop hunting mountain lions,

1118
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:26,960
Speaker 1: and if we had numbers of feral horses wild horses

1119
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:31,400
Speaker 1: on the landscape that supported an increased abundance of mountain lions,

1120
01:11:31,520 --> 01:11:34,599
Speaker 1: that would not be a boon for big horn sheep,

1121
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:40,639
Speaker 1: mule deer, pronghorn because it would likely support a larger

1122
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:46,120
Speaker 1: population those predators. A couple of other drawbacks of the argument.

1123
01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:50,720
Speaker 1: We have somewhere around thirty thousand mountain lions in the

1124
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:54,960
Speaker 1: Western United States today. Every year somewhere between thousand of

1125
01:11:54,960 --> 01:11:58,720
Speaker 1: those are shot. Let's say you leave those ones in

1126
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:03,519
Speaker 1: the system, you then have let's say thirty two thousand,

1127
01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:06,240
Speaker 1: five hundred, or thirty three thousand mountain lions instead of

1128
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 1: thirty thousand. We're talking about a situation where, based on

1129
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 1: the BLMS most recent estimates, where it's seventy three thousand horses,

1130
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:22,080
Speaker 1: which is about three times the appropriate management level that

1131
01:12:22,160 --> 01:12:27,280
Speaker 1: the BLM has estimated for its lands. And if you're

1132
01:12:27,280 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 1: thinking about a territorial predator whose distributionists you've already pointed

1133
01:12:31,800 --> 01:12:35,160
Speaker 1: out Steve does not entirely overlap with where the horses are.

1134
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:39,040
Speaker 1: The landscape of the West does not even have the

1135
01:12:39,040 --> 01:12:41,240
Speaker 1: ability to support a number of mountain lions that could

1136
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 1: begin to take a bite, so to speak, out of

1137
01:12:43,960 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 1: the horse population. Furthermore, we have examples of places on

1138
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:51,000
Speaker 1: the landscape where there is no lion hunting, including a

1139
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,280
Speaker 1: lot of our tribal lands, many of our reservations. Many

1140
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 1: of those tribes have no history in their culture of

1141
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:00,479
Speaker 1: hunting mountain lions, and they have a ton of horses,

1142
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:03,840
Speaker 1: and they have robust numbers of mountain lions killing a

1143
01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:06,600
Speaker 1: fair number of horses in those situations. We've got some

1144
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: examples in New Mexico where there are mountain lions specializing

1145
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: on killing horses. And again Eric Romiger, the Big Horn

1146
01:13:14,400 --> 01:13:17,920
Speaker 1: biologists for Game and Fish, pointed this out, Um, in

1147
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:21,559
Speaker 1: those situations, you still have horses eating themselves out of

1148
01:13:21,560 --> 01:13:24,400
Speaker 1: house at home. The lions are there killing them, but

1149
01:13:24,520 --> 01:13:28,400
Speaker 1: by no means are they sufficient source of predation to

1150
01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 1: maintain a healthy balance in the ecosystem. I just want

1151
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,120
Speaker 1: to point to California in particular, because can you tell

1152
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 1: me about mountain lion hunting in California real quick. They

1153
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:40,160
Speaker 1: banned it years ago. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly when

1154
01:13:40,160 --> 01:13:42,960
Speaker 1: they banned it was Ronald Reagan actually in nineteen seventy

1155
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:45,080
Speaker 1: two when he was the governor, he issued a moratorium

1156
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:47,600
Speaker 1: on all mountain lion hunting. And then it took and

1157
01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:51,680
Speaker 1: they kill about took eighteen years until California passed a

1158
01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:59,880
Speaker 1: band formally Proposition one seventeen and Reagan, Yeah, Reagan Night

1159
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:04,559
Speaker 1: seventy two moratorium. If contemporary politicians would all still compare

1160
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 1: themselves to Reagan, if that's a good question. Um. And

1161
01:14:10,479 --> 01:14:12,760
Speaker 1: so now they kill right around a hundred per year

1162
01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:17,080
Speaker 1: through depredation permits if their mountain lions causing trouble, which

1163
01:14:17,080 --> 01:14:18,760
Speaker 1: by the way, is about four times the number of

1164
01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:23,120
Speaker 1: depredation permits they issued prior to the moratorium. But about

1165
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:25,720
Speaker 1: a hundred lions killed a year in California, and these

1166
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:30,000
Speaker 1: are lions that are incompatible with people. Arguably they're the

1167
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: ones that are causing a problem for the most part.

1168
01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:34,240
Speaker 1: And that's out of a population of somewhere between four

1169
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:37,559
Speaker 1: and six thousand mountain lions in California. So we could

1170
01:14:37,560 --> 01:14:42,320
Speaker 1: take California as an example of a state where there

1171
01:14:42,400 --> 01:14:46,360
Speaker 1: is relatively low mountain lion hunting occurring. For US. They

1172
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:51,360
Speaker 1: got four to six thousand mountain lions. Those hundred, those

1173
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:55,479
Speaker 1: hundred to get killed are the ones that are killing livestyle. Yes,

1174
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:58,320
Speaker 1: a depredation permit is issued by the state to remove

1175
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:03,479
Speaker 1: an offending into djuwal lion state of California. So my

1176
01:15:03,560 --> 01:15:08,040
Speaker 1: question for the author of this article, Dave Phillips, taking

1177
01:15:08,080 --> 01:15:10,800
Speaker 1: California as a case study, I expect you to tell

1178
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:13,960
Speaker 1: me now that wild horse numbers in California are plummeting

1179
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:20,600
Speaker 1: because of all the lions. Maximum a mL maximum Appropriate

1180
01:15:20,680 --> 01:15:25,240
Speaker 1: management level for the state of California horses and burrows

1181
01:15:25,280 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 1: combined total estimated population for twenty seventeen ten thousand, approximately

1182
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:40,479
Speaker 1: fivefold the max a m L in a state where

1183
01:15:40,520 --> 01:15:42,800
Speaker 1: it is illegal to hunt mountain lions, just driving that

1184
01:15:42,880 --> 01:15:49,880
Speaker 1: nail deeper deeper. And this this pattern of apparent competition.

1185
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:53,439
Speaker 1: We're going to post a few pretty cool papers that

1186
01:15:53,520 --> 01:15:55,519
Speaker 1: spelled this out, but some examples I can give you.

1187
01:15:55,840 --> 01:16:00,920
Speaker 1: One is the woodland caribou Southern British Columbia, northern Idaho.

1188
01:16:02,680 --> 01:16:07,519
Speaker 1: Diminishing numbers of woodland cariboo like like two well, not

1189
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:10,840
Speaker 1: quite that not well, maybe on the U S side,

1190
01:16:11,560 --> 01:16:15,440
Speaker 1: but yeah, so's southern BC, Northern Idaho UM very imperiled

1191
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 1: populations of woodland Cariboo. A couple of things that are

1192
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:22,080
Speaker 1: happening in that landscape. One is you have quite a

1193
01:16:22,080 --> 01:16:26,880
Speaker 1: bit of of timber harvest occurring, which is boosting early

1194
01:16:26,920 --> 01:16:32,639
Speaker 1: successional vegetation availability, which is forage for moose and white

1195
01:16:32,640 --> 01:16:38,400
Speaker 1: tailed deer. It also um reduces the amount of lichen available,

1196
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:40,759
Speaker 1: which is the primary food source for the woodland Cariboo.

1197
01:16:41,560 --> 01:16:44,639
Speaker 1: So you're changing the habitat such that it benefits an

1198
01:16:44,640 --> 01:16:49,759
Speaker 1: expansion of moose and white tailed deer into woodland Cariboo habitat,

1199
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:54,760
Speaker 1: which in turn boosts the numbers of wolves because they're

1200
01:16:54,760 --> 01:16:56,960
Speaker 1: eating the moose and the white tailed deer, but they're

1201
01:16:57,000 --> 01:17:00,320
Speaker 1: also eating the woodland cariboo. So you talk about a

1202
01:17:00,320 --> 01:17:04,320
Speaker 1: system which historically was a few wolves and some woodland cariboo.

1203
01:17:04,800 --> 01:17:07,400
Speaker 1: Now it's woodland Cariboo, moose, white tailed deer, and a

1204
01:17:07,400 --> 01:17:12,280
Speaker 1: bunch of wolves wolves killing a ton more woodland cariboo.

1205
01:17:12,800 --> 01:17:16,879
Speaker 1: So there's a great paper where, through a very controlled study,

1206
01:17:17,240 --> 01:17:20,320
Speaker 1: these researchers went in and rather than doing the standard thing,

1207
01:17:20,360 --> 01:17:22,519
Speaker 1: which is to kill the wolves, a lot of which

1208
01:17:22,520 --> 01:17:26,000
Speaker 1: has happened in in the interest of protecting woodland cariboo,

1209
01:17:26,880 --> 01:17:33,040
Speaker 1: they issued very generous numbers of moose tags and reduced

1210
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:37,320
Speaker 1: the moose population dramatically, and the wolves followed that decline,

1211
01:17:37,920 --> 01:17:41,680
Speaker 1: and the vital rates like survivorship of adult females in

1212
01:17:41,680 --> 01:17:45,920
Speaker 1: the woodland caribou went up because you reduced the main

1213
01:17:46,160 --> 01:17:48,000
Speaker 1: thing that the wolves are going in there to kill.

1214
01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:54,120
Speaker 1: Predator mediated apparent competition is the term. So this is

1215
01:17:54,200 --> 01:18:02,479
Speaker 1: like pretty complex stuff, and it's really relevant to the

1216
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:06,320
Speaker 1: discussion about the implications of having another prey species on

1217
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:10,519
Speaker 1: the landscape, especially pray species that's not being subjected to

1218
01:18:11,600 --> 01:18:14,720
Speaker 1: um sufficient sources of mortality, that it's numbers are being

1219
01:18:14,800 --> 01:18:19,519
Speaker 1: kept at a level that is um sustainable for the

1220
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:22,080
Speaker 1: habitat over the long term, I think is a pretty

1221
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:25,360
Speaker 1: objective thing to say, but it's just totally glossed over.

1222
01:18:25,600 --> 01:18:29,000
Speaker 1: And this idea of just leaving the mountain lions alone

1223
01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 1: and you're going to have you know, it's going to

1224
01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:34,439
Speaker 1: be a boon for everybody who loves deer and big

1225
01:18:34,479 --> 01:18:40,840
Speaker 1: horn sheep is absurd and one of the most ironic things.

1226
01:18:40,880 --> 01:18:44,519
Speaker 1: As I was doing some research into This was one

1227
01:18:44,560 --> 01:18:47,920
Speaker 1: of the papers that the author of this piece points to.

1228
01:18:48,960 --> 01:18:55,400
Speaker 1: Um talks about a system where you had heavy predation

1229
01:18:55,760 --> 01:19:01,000
Speaker 1: by mountain lions on horse heard that was being studied

1230
01:19:01,720 --> 01:19:03,559
Speaker 1: and towards the end of the study, and we'll post

1231
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:07,080
Speaker 1: this paper as well. Towards the end of the study,

1232
01:19:07,439 --> 01:19:09,840
Speaker 1: the researchers and I want to I want to turn

1233
01:19:09,880 --> 01:19:12,040
Speaker 1: to the page here so I can give you the

1234
01:19:12,040 --> 01:19:15,559
Speaker 1: the great quote. This is in the discussion section of

1235
01:19:15,560 --> 01:19:20,600
Speaker 1: this paper. They say, at the end, we do not

1236
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:23,120
Speaker 1: know why numbers of lions declined towards the end of

1237
01:19:23,160 --> 01:19:26,439
Speaker 1: our study, after the lions had been eating all these horses.

1238
01:19:27,160 --> 01:19:29,280
Speaker 1: We do not know why numbers of lions declined towards

1239
01:19:29,280 --> 01:19:31,559
Speaker 1: the end of our study. Hunting pressure was low to

1240
01:19:31,600 --> 01:19:36,599
Speaker 1: non existent. The migrant mule deer population which winters in

1241
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:40,519
Speaker 1: the study area, decreased by over the course of our study,

1242
01:19:40,680 --> 01:19:46,880
Speaker 1: from an estimated five animals to less than three, and

1243
01:19:46,920 --> 01:19:51,160
Speaker 1: they just kind of leave it at that. So you

1244
01:19:51,280 --> 01:19:53,840
Speaker 1: certainly cannot point to causation here, But that kind of

1245
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:58,719
Speaker 1: a pattern suggests the possibility. In one of the papers

1246
01:19:58,720 --> 01:20:01,559
Speaker 1: that this guy point points to in his op ed

1247
01:20:01,760 --> 01:20:07,160
Speaker 1: in The New York Times, that the horses may have

1248
01:20:07,240 --> 01:20:11,839
Speaker 1: been supporting a more robust predator base that was driving

1249
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,680
Speaker 1: down the mule deer herd right before their eyes. And

1250
01:20:14,720 --> 01:20:18,040
Speaker 1: they didn't connect that in this paper. But there's evidence

1251
01:20:18,040 --> 01:20:20,040
Speaker 1: here to suggest that even in one of the papers

1252
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:23,840
Speaker 1: he's talking about, you witnessed a decline from five hundred

1253
01:20:23,920 --> 01:20:26,120
Speaker 1: mule deer to three hundred mule deer in ten years,

1254
01:20:26,120 --> 01:20:29,599
Speaker 1: and this migratory herd, and it's possible that the horses

1255
01:20:29,720 --> 01:20:34,360
Speaker 1: were a causal factor for that mule deer decline. So

1256
01:20:35,080 --> 01:20:40,120
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy too, you know, throw out ideas like, man,

1257
01:20:40,160 --> 01:20:42,920
Speaker 1: if we would just stop punting mountain lions, it would

1258
01:20:42,920 --> 01:20:47,800
Speaker 1: take care of the wild slash feral horse issue. But

1259
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:50,800
Speaker 1: without really digging into the science, you're doing a disservice.

1260
01:20:50,880 --> 01:20:54,040
Speaker 1: And I have to say, I mean, I I generally

1261
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:58,160
Speaker 1: admire the work of The New York Times as a

1262
01:20:58,160 --> 01:21:01,800
Speaker 1: a periodical. You know, I have read it and admired

1263
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:07,520
Speaker 1: that publication for my entire adult life. They have correspondence

1264
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:13,080
Speaker 1: around the world, reporting from some of the most dangerous

1265
01:21:13,280 --> 01:21:15,920
Speaker 1: I mean, among many other services, reporting from some of

1266
01:21:15,920 --> 01:21:19,320
Speaker 1: the most dangerous hotspots and bringing news to people that

1267
01:21:19,360 --> 01:21:21,240
Speaker 1: you would otherwise not be able to get me. And

1268
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:23,760
Speaker 1: I admire and appreciate that there's a there's a tremendous

1269
01:21:23,800 --> 01:21:27,799
Speaker 1: service being provided through the American people. Yes, and I

1270
01:21:27,880 --> 01:21:35,040
Speaker 1: absolutely I mean I'm critiquing this piece because this is

1271
01:21:35,080 --> 01:21:37,679
Speaker 1: an area where you know, I and my colleagues, our

1272
01:21:37,680 --> 01:21:39,559
Speaker 1: minds and our hearts are in this kind of work

1273
01:21:40,080 --> 01:21:42,000
Speaker 1: and these kind of conversations dan and day out, and

1274
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:46,840
Speaker 1: to try to make an inch of gain around these concepts,

1275
01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:52,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's such a politically sensitive and divisive issue

1276
01:21:52,360 --> 01:21:58,400
Speaker 1: as managing wild slash feral special status equines. We haven't

1277
01:21:58,439 --> 01:22:03,280
Speaker 1: thrown that term out yet, we have not, but I

1278
01:22:03,360 --> 01:22:09,000
Speaker 1: feel like something like this article being published and read

1279
01:22:09,040 --> 01:22:13,920
Speaker 1: by however many millions of readers around the country, it

1280
01:22:14,000 --> 01:22:21,280
Speaker 1: does a disservice to the really complex, difficult work, and

1281
01:22:21,720 --> 01:22:24,479
Speaker 1: it feels like steps in the wrong direction. So it's

1282
01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:26,760
Speaker 1: not very often that the New York Times or or

1283
01:22:26,840 --> 01:22:33,400
Speaker 1: nationally syndicated media are talking about these concepts, and then

1284
01:22:33,400 --> 01:22:38,360
Speaker 1: to have them published something that feels like, um, a

1285
01:22:38,400 --> 01:22:41,320
Speaker 1: step in the wrong direction is is pretty frustrating. There's

1286
01:22:41,360 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 1: another thing that I would want to ask the writer about,

1287
01:22:44,360 --> 01:22:47,320
Speaker 1: and that's this idea that if we didn't kill X

1288
01:22:47,520 --> 01:22:51,240
Speaker 1: number of mountain lions, that you would just automatically mean

1289
01:22:51,280 --> 01:22:55,320
Speaker 1: that you'd have that many more. Meaning if Wisconsin, who

1290
01:22:55,400 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 1: kills some years fifty thousand turkeys in the year, you'd say, like, oh,

1291
01:22:59,560 --> 01:23:01,640
Speaker 1: so it was sconsin didn't have a turkey hunt, we

1292
01:23:01,680 --> 01:23:05,519
Speaker 1: would have fifty thousand more turkeys in Wisconsin, when in fact,

1293
01:23:05,680 --> 01:23:11,960
Speaker 1: you'd probably wind up having somewhere around how many you

1294
01:23:12,040 --> 01:23:16,120
Speaker 1: have even despite the fact that you killed that that

1295
01:23:16,320 --> 01:23:19,880
Speaker 1: is very likely to be a product of competition, and

1296
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:24,160
Speaker 1: that would be intrust species competition, competition among individuals. We

1297
01:23:24,200 --> 01:23:27,880
Speaker 1: all know mountain lions are very territorial um not tolerant

1298
01:23:28,000 --> 01:23:33,360
Speaker 1: of other individuals intruding into their territory. They are very

1299
01:23:33,400 --> 01:23:38,280
Speaker 1: capable of killing one another and maintaining a density on

1300
01:23:38,360 --> 01:23:43,040
Speaker 1: the landscape on their own through that direct competition interest

1301
01:23:43,080 --> 01:23:47,280
Speaker 1: specific competition. So yeah, you're not just gonna stop hunting them,

1302
01:23:47,280 --> 01:23:50,639
Speaker 1: and have you know mountain lions suddenly deciding that their

1303
01:23:50,680 --> 01:23:54,960
Speaker 1: home range can overlap with five other con specifics, They're

1304
01:23:54,960 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: going to kill the weaker competitors in their landscape. So,

1305
01:24:03,040 --> 01:24:07,719
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, it's a flawed argument. When

1306
01:24:09,320 --> 01:24:14,920
Speaker 1: the Navajo do you say, Navajo Navajo? Navajo Navajo. The

1307
01:24:15,040 --> 01:24:19,599
Speaker 1: horses that the Navajo were proposing to hunt are not

1308
01:24:20,080 --> 01:24:25,760
Speaker 1: federally recognized wild horses, or are they? They're not protected

1309
01:24:28,200 --> 01:24:32,880
Speaker 1: sovereign nation, right, any any tribal group of free ranging

1310
01:24:32,920 --> 01:24:39,679
Speaker 1: horses are not protected unless they are within a certain area.

1311
01:24:40,120 --> 01:24:42,559
Speaker 1: And we do have some areas on our on our

1312
01:24:42,640 --> 01:24:46,680
Speaker 1: national forest where we have an adjacent wild horse in

1313
01:24:46,720 --> 01:24:50,360
Speaker 1: boro territory to tribal lands, so we have we have

1314
01:24:50,400 --> 01:24:54,640
Speaker 1: a few of those, but not very many, but not

1315
01:24:54,760 --> 01:24:57,559
Speaker 1: on that certainly not on the Navajo reservation. So even

1316
01:24:57,560 --> 01:25:02,960
Speaker 1: in a situation where you have a a not fairly protected,

1317
01:25:03,080 --> 01:25:10,760
Speaker 1: not federally protected population of wild horses, free ranging horses, Okay, yeah,

1318
01:25:10,920 --> 01:25:13,559
Speaker 1: they're free ranging horses in that case. They're free ranging

1319
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:17,440
Speaker 1: horses in that case, but not not federally recognized wild horses.

1320
01:25:17,560 --> 01:25:20,240
Speaker 1: And you have land managers who feel like they should

1321
01:25:20,320 --> 01:25:25,840
Speaker 1: do some kind of coal or reduce the numbers mechanically

1322
01:25:26,439 --> 01:25:32,000
Speaker 1: mm hmm in service of while they've habitat and grazing habitat,

1323
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:37,960
Speaker 1: and they're not able to execute on that wish because

1324
01:25:38,040 --> 01:25:45,559
Speaker 1: of public sentiment and in the federally recognized areas we're

1325
01:25:45,600 --> 01:25:51,839
Speaker 1: not able to do any kind of lethal coaling unless

1326
01:25:53,200 --> 01:25:56,160
Speaker 1: we do how we can do lethal only if and

1327
01:25:56,240 --> 01:25:58,760
Speaker 1: it's in the act, if it is a horse that

1328
01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:06,240
Speaker 1: is disease, is lame, is sick. You know there um

1329
01:26:06,400 --> 01:26:10,400
Speaker 1: has a wound that would that cannot be repaired so

1330
01:26:10,439 --> 01:26:16,080
Speaker 1: that it's too the to to maintain the the health

1331
01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:19,200
Speaker 1: of that animal. So if that animal, its quality of

1332
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:23,519
Speaker 1: life is so bad, then we can use lethal methods

1333
01:26:23,760 --> 01:26:28,080
Speaker 1: to humanely destroy that animal. And that is in the Act.

1334
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:32,320
Speaker 1: But that's not going to solve for the bigger problem.

1335
01:26:32,360 --> 01:26:35,840
Speaker 1: And if we take all of the excess horses and

1336
01:26:35,920 --> 01:26:40,719
Speaker 1: send them to live somewhere else on private grazing lands

1337
01:26:40,760 --> 01:26:43,519
Speaker 1: and pay those landowners money in order to allow the

1338
01:26:43,560 --> 01:26:48,400
Speaker 1: excess horses like and everyone regards that as being not

1339
01:26:48,520 --> 01:26:55,040
Speaker 1: sustainable because of budgetary constraints, what in the end winds

1340
01:26:55,120 --> 01:26:58,479
Speaker 1: up happening, Well, right now, what a lot of what's

1341
01:26:58,479 --> 01:27:03,240
Speaker 1: happening to unwanted horses. So regardless in private ownership, if

1342
01:27:03,280 --> 01:27:07,240
Speaker 1: someone has an unwanted horse, unfortunately, a lot of times

1343
01:27:07,320 --> 01:27:12,480
Speaker 1: um because there is no there's no means for disposal

1344
01:27:12,560 --> 01:27:16,840
Speaker 1: other than euthanasia, humane euthanasia, which is generally done with

1345
01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:22,560
Speaker 1: a barbiturate overdose then renders that carc is unusable. Um.

1346
01:27:22,600 --> 01:27:25,280
Speaker 1: Private owners will sell this horse and it goes into

1347
01:27:25,320 --> 01:27:29,360
Speaker 1: slaughter channels and it either goes to Canada or Mexico.

1348
01:27:30,600 --> 01:27:33,479
Speaker 1: And so they go down to Mexico and there are

1349
01:27:33,520 --> 01:27:36,640
Speaker 1: there are laws for transporting in the United States. But

1350
01:27:36,720 --> 01:27:39,760
Speaker 1: once it hits the border, you know, everything changes because

1351
01:27:39,800 --> 01:27:42,040
Speaker 1: they closed all the slaughter facilities in the US. In

1352
01:27:42,080 --> 01:27:45,759
Speaker 1: the US, yes, um, you in Texas and one in Illinois, right, Yeah,

1353
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:48,800
Speaker 1: there were up until night are two thousand six and

1354
01:27:49,120 --> 01:27:53,400
Speaker 1: officially closed two thousand seven. So so those people private

1355
01:27:53,400 --> 01:27:58,200
Speaker 1: ownership horses, UM, some go in that channel. Probably a

1356
01:27:58,280 --> 01:27:59,920
Speaker 1: lot of them just get turned out on the lands

1357
01:28:00,040 --> 01:28:03,840
Speaker 1: escape and because tribal lands are massive and there's not

1358
01:28:03,880 --> 01:28:07,400
Speaker 1: a lot of patrolling, um, they get turned out. And

1359
01:28:07,439 --> 01:28:10,040
Speaker 1: so it's it's plausible to think that that's where a

1360
01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:13,280
Speaker 1: large number of these free ranging horses on tribal lands.

1361
01:28:13,760 --> 01:28:17,320
Speaker 1: That's why those numbers are increasing. And so tribal land

1362
01:28:17,320 --> 01:28:20,160
Speaker 1: managers are really looking at this and they're trying to

1363
01:28:20,240 --> 01:28:23,439
Speaker 1: decide what can we do, what can we as tribal

1364
01:28:23,520 --> 01:28:25,960
Speaker 1: land managers, knowing that in a lot of times it's

1365
01:28:26,000 --> 01:28:29,000
Speaker 1: not something that's very palatable to the public because the

1366
01:28:29,040 --> 01:28:34,240
Speaker 1: public doesn't necessarily understand what the tribal land managers are

1367
01:28:34,240 --> 01:28:37,960
Speaker 1: trying to do. And yeah, what they're up against, you know,

1368
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:41,040
Speaker 1: not only I mean, they're you know, on any reservation.

1369
01:28:41,120 --> 01:28:45,559
Speaker 1: We're fighting massive poverty. We're fighting alcoholism and drug abuse

1370
01:28:45,680 --> 01:28:49,439
Speaker 1: and and missing parents and a lot of you know,

1371
01:28:49,520 --> 01:28:54,640
Speaker 1: just abuse in general. We have rising dog and cat populations,

1372
01:28:55,280 --> 01:28:56,960
Speaker 1: and so you look at all of this and then

1373
01:28:57,000 --> 01:28:59,240
Speaker 1: you say, well, you know, leave the horses alone. And

1374
01:28:59,280 --> 01:29:01,400
Speaker 1: a lot of the tribe land managers are like, look,

1375
01:29:01,439 --> 01:29:04,600
Speaker 1: it's it's just another symptom of what's going on in

1376
01:29:04,680 --> 01:29:08,759
Speaker 1: tribal communities, and we have got to stop something somewhere.

1377
01:29:09,640 --> 01:29:12,559
Speaker 1: And so you know, you look at, okay, let more

1378
01:29:12,600 --> 01:29:15,880
Speaker 1: mountain lions, um, you know, let more mountain lions live.

1379
01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:18,400
Speaker 1: And and I know Carl and I said this, and

1380
01:29:18,400 --> 01:29:20,640
Speaker 1: I go, well, you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I

1381
01:29:20,680 --> 01:29:24,360
Speaker 1: think we look at threshold levels and we say, okay,

1382
01:29:24,400 --> 01:29:27,519
Speaker 1: so are what is our threshold level for numbers of

1383
01:29:27,600 --> 01:29:33,720
Speaker 1: species and whatnot. And the minute any animal, regardless of

1384
01:29:33,760 --> 01:29:37,480
Speaker 1: what it is, but the minute any animal does negative

1385
01:29:38,120 --> 01:29:41,400
Speaker 1: has a negative impact to the two leggeds, and I'm

1386
01:29:41,439 --> 01:29:44,120
Speaker 1: always telling people that I talk in two legged and

1387
01:29:44,120 --> 01:29:47,799
Speaker 1: four legged terms. So if there is a negative impact

1388
01:29:47,880 --> 01:29:51,519
Speaker 1: on a two legged to the point that it is death,

1389
01:29:52,439 --> 01:29:55,360
Speaker 1: that's your threshold. Then people start saying, oh, you've got

1390
01:29:55,360 --> 01:29:58,920
Speaker 1: to do something about this. That's most people's tipping point.

1391
01:29:59,080 --> 01:30:03,880
Speaker 1: That's yeah, their threshold is when there, right. But but

1392
01:30:04,000 --> 01:30:06,439
Speaker 1: the masses in general, and especially when you look at

1393
01:30:06,520 --> 01:30:11,120
Speaker 1: urban communities, that's that's their tipping point. Is Okay, Now

1394
01:30:11,280 --> 01:30:15,559
Speaker 1: we have negative effect on humans because it's it's causing

1395
01:30:15,640 --> 01:30:19,719
Speaker 1: you know, a human a human death, or our pets. Right. Yeah. Also,

1396
01:30:19,800 --> 01:30:21,519
Speaker 1: the mountain lions are in the back y already eating

1397
01:30:21,479 --> 01:30:25,840
Speaker 1: the dogs, right right. So if you're out hiking, you're

1398
01:30:25,840 --> 01:30:30,200
Speaker 1: out enjoying nature, quote unquote enjoying nature, and a mountain

1399
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:33,920
Speaker 1: lion comes and takes your two year old, that's your threshold.

1400
01:30:35,040 --> 01:30:37,439
Speaker 1: You want all the mountain lions taken care of because

1401
01:30:38,479 --> 01:30:42,400
Speaker 1: it took your two year old. And the depletion of

1402
01:30:43,560 --> 01:30:48,679
Speaker 1: wildlife habitat and the depletion of like commercially viable grazing

1403
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:53,720
Speaker 1: landscapes does not match most people's threshold. There's also it

1404
01:30:53,760 --> 01:30:55,280
Speaker 1: seems to me an element when you look at the

1405
01:30:56,240 --> 01:31:01,240
Speaker 1: article we keep talking about that argues that if we

1406
01:31:01,240 --> 01:31:04,719
Speaker 1: weren't um, that if we didn't hunt mountain lions, we'd

1407
01:31:04,720 --> 01:31:07,880
Speaker 1: be licking part of the horse problem. It demonstrates the

1408
01:31:07,960 --> 01:31:11,360
Speaker 1: type of self loathing, like a type of human self

1409
01:31:11,439 --> 01:31:16,439
Speaker 1: loathing that I see from people now and then, which

1410
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:22,280
Speaker 1: is this idea that it's untenable that we would eat horses,

1411
01:31:23,760 --> 01:31:28,240
Speaker 1: but it's acceptable that a lion would do so, as

1412
01:31:28,280 --> 01:31:33,719
Speaker 1: though the horse, in his moment of death is thinking

1413
01:31:33,760 --> 01:31:38,439
Speaker 1: to himself, thank god, Um, I wasn't just shot by

1414
01:31:38,479 --> 01:31:41,760
Speaker 1: a rifle. I'm so much happier that I happen to

1415
01:31:41,800 --> 01:31:46,840
Speaker 1: have this thing gnawing on, gnawing me to death, as

1416
01:31:46,880 --> 01:31:50,480
Speaker 1: though the horse would find some level of of satisfaction

1417
01:31:52,040 --> 01:31:55,559
Speaker 1: or good feelings about that cause of death. Because why

1418
01:31:55,600 --> 01:31:58,840
Speaker 1: else would it be acceptable for someone to say, like, oh,

1419
01:31:58,880 --> 01:32:02,840
Speaker 1: that's not something we can do. Yeah, that's awful, but

1420
01:32:03,479 --> 01:32:06,000
Speaker 1: we should allow the lions to go do it for us,

1421
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:12,000
Speaker 1: because people think that's natural. But the problem you run

1422
01:32:12,000 --> 01:32:18,680
Speaker 1: into here is you even lose that argument. Yeah, it's

1423
01:32:18,760 --> 01:32:21,200
Speaker 1: kind of a nice piece because it's like a helpful

1424
01:32:21,240 --> 01:32:25,679
Speaker 1: piece because it demonstrates the trouble that we humans find

1425
01:32:25,720 --> 01:32:31,320
Speaker 1: ourselves in right um in situations when it comes to

1426
01:32:33,160 --> 01:32:39,800
Speaker 1: wildlife or in this case, not quite wildlife, and balancing

1427
01:32:39,840 --> 01:32:44,400
Speaker 1: out how are we going to be good people and

1428
01:32:44,439 --> 01:32:49,000
Speaker 1: at what expense when in reality we're all trying to

1429
01:32:49,040 --> 01:32:50,960
Speaker 1: do the same thing. We're all trying to take care

1430
01:32:50,960 --> 01:32:54,439
Speaker 1: of our mother, the earth that we live on. And

1431
01:32:54,479 --> 01:32:59,440
Speaker 1: we talk about that and whether it's excessive pollution, you know, trash,

1432
01:32:59,760 --> 01:33:02,320
Speaker 1: what there, it's too many animals, whether it's too many

1433
01:33:02,360 --> 01:33:06,559
Speaker 1: two leggeds, whether it's you know, junked cars, whether you know,

1434
01:33:06,640 --> 01:33:11,720
Speaker 1: it's it's getting our ecosystems, you know, our marine uh

1435
01:33:11,880 --> 01:33:14,720
Speaker 1: areas you know, full of garbage and stuff. We all

1436
01:33:14,720 --> 01:33:16,760
Speaker 1: talk about trying to take care of our mother and

1437
01:33:16,840 --> 01:33:18,719
Speaker 1: how we're going to do this in this one area,

1438
01:33:18,920 --> 01:33:22,960
Speaker 1: and we failed to see the big picture that it's

1439
01:33:23,000 --> 01:33:27,559
Speaker 1: all interconnected. And so yeah, there there might be you

1440
01:33:27,600 --> 01:33:30,360
Speaker 1: know some well like right now in California they've got

1441
01:33:30,479 --> 01:33:33,800
Speaker 1: you know, a chicken disease and a poultry disease going

1442
01:33:33,880 --> 01:33:36,800
Speaker 1: on in in uh in animals, and so they're having

1443
01:33:36,800 --> 01:33:38,800
Speaker 1: to take out this is the U s D a

1444
01:33:38,800 --> 01:33:42,679
Speaker 1: Animal Plant Health Inspection service, to prevent it from coming

1445
01:33:42,680 --> 01:33:48,080
Speaker 1: in and really devastating our avian species. So they're taking

1446
01:33:48,080 --> 01:33:53,160
Speaker 1: out domestic domestic poultry down in southern California. If we

1447
01:33:53,240 --> 01:33:57,280
Speaker 1: had something like that that happened with horses, oh my goodness,

1448
01:33:57,720 --> 01:34:00,760
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be terrible. People would be like,

1449
01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:03,080
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, how how could we have? You know,

1450
01:34:03,479 --> 01:34:07,280
Speaker 1: African horse sickness or Venezuelan equine and cephalitis that will

1451
01:34:07,360 --> 01:34:11,240
Speaker 1: kill horses and they're dying on the landscape. And guess

1452
01:34:11,280 --> 01:34:15,680
Speaker 1: what those are both? I mean, especially Venezuelan equine andcephalitis.

1453
01:34:15,680 --> 01:34:19,440
Speaker 1: That's a human health problem because it's spread through mosquitoes.

1454
01:34:19,960 --> 01:34:23,479
Speaker 1: So you know, mosquito bites, an infected horse that comes

1455
01:34:23,520 --> 01:34:26,160
Speaker 1: over bites a human. Guess what now, the humans got

1456
01:34:26,160 --> 01:34:30,479
Speaker 1: it high high death rates. There would be something very

1457
01:34:30,600 --> 01:34:33,000
Speaker 1: very different if we had something like that going on.

1458
01:34:33,040 --> 01:34:35,160
Speaker 1: But we don't tend to see that all of these

1459
01:34:35,160 --> 01:34:38,479
Speaker 1: things are interconnected. That the trash we have on the

1460
01:34:38,560 --> 01:34:42,320
Speaker 1: landscape is also decreasing the forage for the animals that

1461
01:34:42,400 --> 01:34:46,280
Speaker 1: want to want to live there, whether they're they're deer

1462
01:34:46,520 --> 01:34:50,800
Speaker 1: or elk or cattle. Um. I don't know how many

1463
01:34:50,800 --> 01:34:54,000
Speaker 1: times I've I've worked on cattle that have hardwater, are

1464
01:34:54,080 --> 01:34:58,280
Speaker 1: hardware disease because they're eating wire, and they're eating cans,

1465
01:34:58,439 --> 01:35:03,320
Speaker 1: and they pick up garbage because they're flouraging. Hardware disease.

1466
01:35:03,439 --> 01:35:06,640
Speaker 1: Hardware disease because what they do is they swallow the

1467
01:35:06,680 --> 01:35:09,719
Speaker 1: wire or the nail or whatever this piece of metal

1468
01:35:09,840 --> 01:35:12,840
Speaker 1: is because they're eating on it. It goes down and

1469
01:35:12,880 --> 01:35:15,080
Speaker 1: it punctures the room and and then it spreads and

1470
01:35:15,120 --> 01:35:19,960
Speaker 1: you get this massive infection and a paracarditis or endocarditis

1471
01:35:20,080 --> 01:35:22,920
Speaker 1: or you know wherever it's punctured. And so what we

1472
01:35:23,000 --> 01:35:25,240
Speaker 1: do a lot of times with livestock is we will,

1473
01:35:25,439 --> 01:35:27,559
Speaker 1: especially in dairy cattle, is will go ahead and put

1474
01:35:27,600 --> 01:35:30,479
Speaker 1: magnets into them, into their room and to try and

1475
01:35:30,520 --> 01:35:36,120
Speaker 1: attract that metal to keep it from migrating out. Hardware disease,

1476
01:35:36,160 --> 01:35:39,599
Speaker 1: hardware disease, it's just a common term in veterinary medicine,

1477
01:35:39,640 --> 01:35:42,600
Speaker 1: in large animal of that medicine. So you look at that,

1478
01:35:42,640 --> 01:35:44,200
Speaker 1: and you look at horses and I don't know how

1479
01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:47,719
Speaker 1: many times I've looked at horses that have stepped on glass,

1480
01:35:47,760 --> 01:35:51,200
Speaker 1: that has stepped on nails, and um, their foot becomes

1481
01:35:51,200 --> 01:35:54,120
Speaker 1: infected and there's no way to do anything with them

1482
01:35:54,120 --> 01:35:56,439
Speaker 1: because now this infection has gone all the way up

1483
01:35:56,520 --> 01:35:59,920
Speaker 1: into their tendon sheaths, and the most humane thing to

1484
01:36:00,120 --> 01:36:02,720
Speaker 1: do is to put them down because they've got this

1485
01:36:02,920 --> 01:36:06,360
Speaker 1: spreading infection because they stepped on something that a human

1486
01:36:06,439 --> 01:36:10,400
Speaker 1: left out there. Yeah, and that happens with you know,

1487
01:36:10,479 --> 01:36:13,879
Speaker 1: with the free ranging horses. So I think people forget

1488
01:36:14,520 --> 01:36:19,320
Speaker 1: that we as two leggeds, we're as just just as

1489
01:36:19,439 --> 01:36:21,600
Speaker 1: much a component of this, and we have to be

1490
01:36:21,680 --> 01:36:26,479
Speaker 1: responsible about the whole thing. So whether you hunt or fish,

1491
01:36:26,560 --> 01:36:28,880
Speaker 1: or whether you're you know, not a proponent of it,

1492
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:32,600
Speaker 1: or you are that realized that it's it's all interconnected.

1493
01:36:32,840 --> 01:36:37,240
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people lose that that sense.

1494
01:36:38,439 --> 01:36:40,400
Speaker 1: They live in their little vacuum in the in their

1495
01:36:40,479 --> 01:36:44,439
Speaker 1: little suburban house, and they watch Netflix and whatnot, and

1496
01:36:44,479 --> 01:36:48,719
Speaker 1: they're completely separated from all of that that the hamburger

1497
01:36:48,760 --> 01:36:51,599
Speaker 1: that they got at McDonald's or in an out burger

1498
01:36:52,240 --> 01:36:57,920
Speaker 1: was actually once a living, breathing bovine animal that had

1499
01:36:57,960 --> 01:37:00,160
Speaker 1: a life, that had a spirit that you know, its

1500
01:37:00,200 --> 01:37:02,680
Speaker 1: heart was beating, But now they're eating it in an

1501
01:37:02,680 --> 01:37:06,400
Speaker 1: out burger, and people have lost that connection writing in

1502
01:37:06,640 --> 01:37:12,200
Speaker 1: simultaneously writing in letters about saving the horses among wildlife managers,

1503
01:37:12,439 --> 01:37:18,920
Speaker 1: is there any serious talk that that the wild Horse

1504
01:37:19,000 --> 01:37:22,479
Speaker 1: and Borough Protection Act was a mistake and that we

1505
01:37:22,520 --> 01:37:26,280
Speaker 1: ought to revisit it and repeal it because it's ultimately damaging,

1506
01:37:27,520 --> 01:37:32,120
Speaker 1: because it's it's proven to be quite damaging too wild

1507
01:37:32,160 --> 01:37:36,639
Speaker 1: horses and wild horse habitat. No, I've not heard anything

1508
01:37:36,640 --> 01:37:40,280
Speaker 1: about repealing it, but I've I have heard discussions about

1509
01:37:40,320 --> 01:37:43,599
Speaker 1: how we need to really clarify more of what we

1510
01:37:44,040 --> 01:37:46,160
Speaker 1: what we are to do. We talk about in in

1511
01:37:46,200 --> 01:37:50,439
Speaker 1: the Act, it talks about appropriate management levels and so on.

1512
01:37:50,520 --> 01:37:54,960
Speaker 1: That appropriate management level or a mL for those territories

1513
01:37:56,439 --> 01:38:00,400
Speaker 1: is determined. It's a very scientific method of deter rmining

1514
01:38:00,680 --> 01:38:04,280
Speaker 1: how many animals can reside. It's it's far more than

1515
01:38:04,520 --> 01:38:07,800
Speaker 1: carrying capacity, because we we throw that term around a well,

1516
01:38:07,840 --> 01:38:11,160
Speaker 1: carrying capacity of this plot of land or this this

1517
01:38:11,240 --> 01:38:15,240
Speaker 1: area of land is x y z well, so it's

1518
01:38:15,320 --> 01:38:18,720
Speaker 1: far more than that because it does look at the entirety,

1519
01:38:18,880 --> 01:38:22,559
Speaker 1: the the whole usage of that area. Yeah, not just

1520
01:38:22,600 --> 01:38:24,559
Speaker 1: like how many horses can you cram on it, but

1521
01:38:24,600 --> 01:38:26,439
Speaker 1: how many horses can you put on it and still

1522
01:38:26,479 --> 01:38:30,519
Speaker 1: have room for you know, for everything, for the fin,

1523
01:38:30,880 --> 01:38:34,000
Speaker 1: the feather, the you know, the the animals that are

1524
01:38:34,040 --> 01:38:39,160
Speaker 1: being brought in by the permitees, whether they're cattle or sheep. Um,

1525
01:38:39,160 --> 01:38:42,880
Speaker 1: certainly all of the you know, the native wildlife, the fish,

1526
01:38:42,960 --> 01:38:46,200
Speaker 1: I mean almost hesitate to say this, but you know

1527
01:38:46,320 --> 01:38:51,800
Speaker 1: a little mouse, you know that in about that little

1528
01:38:51,800 --> 01:38:56,599
Speaker 1: mouse that. Yeah, and so all of those they all

1529
01:38:56,720 --> 01:39:00,040
Speaker 1: have a right to live there, they all need to

1530
01:39:00,240 --> 01:39:03,799
Speaker 1: exist there. And so we've got to look at Okay,

1531
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:07,040
Speaker 1: what do we do so that we can have that.

1532
01:39:08,080 --> 01:39:10,479
Speaker 1: And some people talk about, well, all the different tools

1533
01:39:10,479 --> 01:39:13,080
Speaker 1: that are in the toolbox, and and a lot of

1534
01:39:13,120 --> 01:39:15,960
Speaker 1: people will say, well, you know we can't have this tool. Well,

1535
01:39:15,960 --> 01:39:19,479
Speaker 1: we can't use that tool. Whether it's immuno contraception, whether

1536
01:39:19,560 --> 01:39:24,960
Speaker 1: it's the big s, whether it's you know something, Yeah,

1537
01:39:25,280 --> 01:39:30,920
Speaker 1: it's the contraceptive thing. Legitimate. Yes, it really does work

1538
01:39:31,680 --> 01:39:36,240
Speaker 1: in populations where you can already have them under control,

1539
01:39:36,280 --> 01:39:41,240
Speaker 1: where you've already got manageable population levels. Immuno contraception, I'm

1540
01:39:41,240 --> 01:39:43,920
Speaker 1: certified in it, I believe in it. Whether it's I

1541
01:39:43,960 --> 01:39:48,240
Speaker 1: love going to conduct actually stops ovulation where p ZP

1542
01:39:48,600 --> 01:39:51,240
Speaker 1: depending on the different levels. And that's the other thing

1543
01:39:51,240 --> 01:39:54,200
Speaker 1: in science, Um, you look at people, you know, say, well,

1544
01:39:54,240 --> 01:39:57,680
Speaker 1: PCPs the way to go and and hs US, you know,

1545
01:39:57,720 --> 01:40:01,160
Speaker 1: has the patent on the hundred microgram um dosage of

1546
01:40:01,240 --> 01:40:03,639
Speaker 1: p z P. But then you look at different adge

1547
01:40:03,640 --> 01:40:05,800
Speaker 1: events and I mean, there's there's so many different things

1548
01:40:05,800 --> 01:40:07,560
Speaker 1: that I explain it to people. I said, p z

1549
01:40:07,680 --> 01:40:10,240
Speaker 1: P is not just p z P. It's kind of

1550
01:40:10,240 --> 01:40:12,639
Speaker 1: like an apple is not just an apple. You've got

1551
01:40:12,680 --> 01:40:14,920
Speaker 1: all these different varieties of apples. And that's kind of

1552
01:40:14,920 --> 01:40:17,080
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with with p ZP right now, is

1553
01:40:17,120 --> 01:40:20,800
Speaker 1: that we have different varieties of it. And so it's

1554
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:24,120
Speaker 1: usage and the response and and what you see in

1555
01:40:24,200 --> 01:40:29,560
Speaker 1: literature varies because you've got different concentrations and different adjuvants

1556
01:40:29,640 --> 01:40:33,440
Speaker 1: being used. So what is the animal rights perspective on

1557
01:40:33,240 --> 01:40:36,080
Speaker 1: on using contraceptives on horses? Because you'd be like, if

1558
01:40:36,120 --> 01:40:42,120
Speaker 1: you imagine if someone proposed that we would go and

1559
01:40:42,160 --> 01:40:51,000
Speaker 1: inject without consent forcibly inject humans with contraceptives, people would

1560
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:53,240
Speaker 1: be I R. So if you have this idea that

1561
01:40:53,439 --> 01:40:55,800
Speaker 1: this is this untouchable thing that should be allowed to

1562
01:40:55,800 --> 01:40:57,880
Speaker 1: live its life, and then we have no right to

1563
01:40:57,920 --> 01:41:00,519
Speaker 1: come in and manipulate it, Yet we're gonna come in

1564
01:41:00,760 --> 01:41:05,840
Speaker 1: and take away its sexual viability without asking it or

1565
01:41:05,880 --> 01:41:09,400
Speaker 1: consulting it. Um. I would think that some people would

1566
01:41:09,400 --> 01:41:11,960
Speaker 1: recognize that as a pretty offensive idea, but it seems

1567
01:41:12,000 --> 01:41:16,760
Speaker 1: to be embraced by people who resist the big gas. Yeah,

1568
01:41:16,960 --> 01:41:20,880
Speaker 1: hs US owns the patent on the hundred microgram p

1569
01:41:21,080 --> 01:41:25,320
Speaker 1: z P. I mean Society, United States. Yes, yeah, and

1570
01:41:25,400 --> 01:41:28,080
Speaker 1: so and and they, you know, they have had great

1571
01:41:28,120 --> 01:41:32,960
Speaker 1: success in certain areas the Spring Spring Mountain or Spring

1572
01:41:33,000 --> 01:41:37,040
Speaker 1: Basin m h m A up in Colorado. Um, they're

1573
01:41:37,080 --> 01:41:40,479
Speaker 1: you know, they're having great success there. But it's much smaller.

1574
01:41:40,520 --> 01:41:43,479
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sixty eight animals, so it's and you've

1575
01:41:43,479 --> 01:41:46,760
Speaker 1: got somebody who lives in amongst them. The animals have

1576
01:41:46,880 --> 01:41:51,320
Speaker 1: become acclimated to that that person, so, you know, very

1577
01:41:51,320 --> 01:41:55,240
Speaker 1: special circumstances. It's a very different circumstance the prior mountain horses.

1578
01:41:55,600 --> 01:41:58,880
Speaker 1: There again, you've got more acclamation to the humans and

1579
01:41:59,000 --> 01:42:01,920
Speaker 1: people that are going in and doing the darting. So

1580
01:42:01,960 --> 01:42:05,519
Speaker 1: in situations like that, it's very successful and I'm I'm

1581
01:42:05,640 --> 01:42:09,120
Speaker 1: very much in supportive those kinds of things. But you

1582
01:42:09,200 --> 01:42:16,720
Speaker 1: look at larger, larger landscapes, larger populations, it may not

1583
01:42:16,800 --> 01:42:19,840
Speaker 1: be that easy. You've got some i mean, the average

1584
01:42:20,000 --> 01:42:23,639
Speaker 1: i'd say, and and this is certainly not scientifically proven,

1585
01:42:23,640 --> 01:42:26,479
Speaker 1: but a lot of people will you know, um, and

1586
01:42:26,640 --> 01:42:29,439
Speaker 1: I can't pull the papers that Carl's got, But you

1587
01:42:29,479 --> 01:42:32,760
Speaker 1: look at like the flight zone of these free ranging horses,

1588
01:42:33,720 --> 01:42:40,160
Speaker 1: and it far is much farther than the darting range

1589
01:42:40,320 --> 01:42:43,280
Speaker 1: of a dart of a you know, once you see dart.

1590
01:42:44,040 --> 01:42:46,720
Speaker 1: So you're looking at courses that when they see a

1591
01:42:46,800 --> 01:42:49,960
Speaker 1: human at a quarter mile, they're like, hell, no, I'm gone.

1592
01:42:50,479 --> 01:42:53,160
Speaker 1: There's kind of some irony here that, like, the horses

1593
01:42:53,200 --> 01:43:03,120
Speaker 1: that are actually treatable are less wild than the horses

1594
01:43:03,160 --> 01:43:07,280
Speaker 1: that are untreatable. Right, this flight distance being the distance

1595
01:43:07,280 --> 01:43:10,320
Speaker 1: at which they're gonna flee from your presence. So this

1596
01:43:10,360 --> 01:43:13,680
Speaker 1: example in Colorado, you know that we're talking wild the

1597
01:43:13,800 --> 01:43:17,479
Speaker 1: legal definition, but in terms of wildness like flightiness, if

1598
01:43:17,479 --> 01:43:20,800
Speaker 1: they're kind of tame wild horses, then there's the chance

1599
01:43:20,800 --> 01:43:24,760
Speaker 1: of applying a contraceptive program that's more effective than if

1600
01:43:24,800 --> 01:43:28,160
Speaker 1: they're wilder wild horses. So it's almost like the more

1601
01:43:28,200 --> 01:43:31,200
Speaker 1: their wildness is compromised, the more that's a viable option,

1602
01:43:31,479 --> 01:43:34,880
Speaker 1: which strikes me as ironic. Wild horses, it's like an

1603
01:43:34,880 --> 01:43:41,599
Speaker 1: irony rich it is not iron rich, but irony rich environment. Yes,

1604
01:43:42,360 --> 01:43:44,080
Speaker 1: another piece of it that we haven't touched on in

1605
01:43:44,160 --> 01:43:46,600
Speaker 1: terms of workable solutions. I'm glad. I'm glad that the

1606
01:43:46,680 --> 01:43:48,720
Speaker 1: contraception topic came up. Could you talk a little bit

1607
01:43:48,760 --> 01:43:51,599
Speaker 1: about adoptions. I don't think we've spent any time on

1608
01:43:51,600 --> 01:43:55,120
Speaker 1: that yet. So a lot of people want, you know,

1609
01:43:55,200 --> 01:43:58,040
Speaker 1: any of these horses that are removed, they want them

1610
01:43:58,080 --> 01:44:01,759
Speaker 1: to be adopted out. And as per the nineteen seventy

1611
01:44:01,760 --> 01:44:03,840
Speaker 1: one Act, it said that any horse that was over

1612
01:44:03,920 --> 01:44:07,439
Speaker 1: ten years of age was considered probably not adoptable. So

1613
01:44:07,479 --> 01:44:11,400
Speaker 1: you can sell those horses because the older horse gets,

1614
01:44:11,439 --> 01:44:14,120
Speaker 1: just like a human, the harder it is to change

1615
01:44:14,160 --> 01:44:19,880
Speaker 1: their behavior. So so horses that are that are taken

1616
01:44:19,920 --> 01:44:22,479
Speaker 1: off the ranges or that that are no longer free

1617
01:44:22,560 --> 01:44:27,040
Speaker 1: ranging horses and they're over ten years of age, they're sold. Now.

1618
01:44:27,080 --> 01:44:30,559
Speaker 1: Anybody that's under and especially the younger animals, they go

1619
01:44:30,600 --> 01:44:36,679
Speaker 1: into adoption, and so adoption is a hundred dollars. Sorry,

1620
01:44:36,720 --> 01:44:39,200
Speaker 1: the over ten year olds, they're taken off the range,

1621
01:44:39,280 --> 01:44:41,559
Speaker 1: they go to where we pay to have them graze

1622
01:44:41,640 --> 01:44:44,519
Speaker 1: on private land. They can go that way, or they

1623
01:44:44,520 --> 01:44:49,120
Speaker 1: can be sold outright, and we cannot sell knowingly to

1624
01:44:49,439 --> 01:44:53,439
Speaker 1: a slaughter buyer, because they those people do exist, you know,

1625
01:44:53,479 --> 01:44:56,759
Speaker 1: because they make their living by taking horses to either Canada.

1626
01:44:56,920 --> 01:45:00,360
Speaker 1: Max Yeah, Dave phillips Um, the guy that a wild

1627
01:45:00,360 --> 01:45:02,519
Speaker 1: horse country. He spends quite a bit of time talking

1628
01:45:02,560 --> 01:45:07,960
Speaker 1: about the illegal trade, right of at times or people

1629
01:45:07,960 --> 01:45:09,840
Speaker 1: have said like, oh, no, I have an interest and

1630
01:45:09,920 --> 01:45:12,800
Speaker 1: I'll find a place for them, when in fact they're

1631
01:45:12,800 --> 01:45:15,320
Speaker 1: getting them and selling them into slaughter, right. And so

1632
01:45:15,479 --> 01:45:18,200
Speaker 1: part of what the Act does to um to protect

1633
01:45:18,240 --> 01:45:20,360
Speaker 1: those animals is that we are not able to sell

1634
01:45:20,360 --> 01:45:24,280
Speaker 1: more than four horses to any one individual, and that

1635
01:45:24,360 --> 01:45:28,559
Speaker 1: kind of helps decreased you know, because people realize, you know,

1636
01:45:28,640 --> 01:45:30,800
Speaker 1: if somebody's coming in saying, yeah, I want to buy

1637
01:45:30,800 --> 01:45:34,559
Speaker 1: six animals, that's a that's a big flag. We go, yeah,

1638
01:45:34,640 --> 01:45:37,479
Speaker 1: probably not going to sell to those that person, because

1639
01:45:37,479 --> 01:45:41,360
Speaker 1: we we pretty much know. So we do have, at

1640
01:45:41,400 --> 01:45:43,960
Speaker 1: least on the Carson National Forest in New Mexico, we

1641
01:45:44,000 --> 01:45:47,639
Speaker 1: have a very successful adoption program um for the horses

1642
01:45:47,680 --> 01:45:50,599
Speaker 1: that we take off of two of our wild horse

1643
01:45:50,640 --> 01:45:53,960
Speaker 1: and borrow territories on the Carson National Forest, and we've

1644
01:45:54,000 --> 01:45:57,880
Speaker 1: been very successful in finding forever homes with those animals.

1645
01:45:58,720 --> 01:46:02,680
Speaker 1: When you adopt, there is a mandatory one year inspection

1646
01:46:02,960 --> 01:46:05,639
Speaker 1: before you can get your bill of sale for that horse,

1647
01:46:05,960 --> 01:46:08,600
Speaker 1: Before that horse truly belongs to you, we have to

1648
01:46:08,640 --> 01:46:10,920
Speaker 1: go back out and do an inspection, make sure that

1649
01:46:10,960 --> 01:46:13,519
Speaker 1: you are instill that you still own the horse, that

1650
01:46:13,560 --> 01:46:16,360
Speaker 1: you still are in possession of that horse, and that

1651
01:46:16,479 --> 01:46:19,799
Speaker 1: its quality of life is good, that it hasn't gotten

1652
01:46:19,800 --> 01:46:21,880
Speaker 1: a pin a key body score of like a two

1653
01:46:22,160 --> 01:46:25,320
Speaker 1: or a one, and and that it's you know, it's

1654
01:46:25,320 --> 01:46:29,280
Speaker 1: being treated humanely and everything. Because we have that responsibility

1655
01:46:29,840 --> 01:46:33,160
Speaker 1: um as for the ACT and the BLM does the

1656
01:46:33,200 --> 01:46:36,280
Speaker 1: same thing. So it's a hundred dollars. So how many

1657
01:46:36,600 --> 01:46:38,759
Speaker 1: like off the cars in National Force, how many horses

1658
01:46:38,760 --> 01:46:41,719
Speaker 1: have come off there and gone into adoption since two

1659
01:46:41,720 --> 01:46:46,920
Speaker 1: thousand four? Um, we've had five hundred. Shoot, Sean just

1660
01:46:46,960 --> 01:46:49,920
Speaker 1: gave me this number. I think it was five seven animals.

1661
01:46:51,080 --> 01:46:54,800
Speaker 1: And right now we're still way. We're about five or

1662
01:46:54,840 --> 01:46:58,040
Speaker 1: six times over our a m L five or six times.

1663
01:47:00,280 --> 01:47:02,320
Speaker 1: And that's so what does that number for the AM

1664
01:47:02,439 --> 01:47:04,920
Speaker 1: for the and the a m L. Is that that

1665
01:47:04,960 --> 01:47:08,280
Speaker 1: portion of carson asma for us right for for um

1666
01:47:08,320 --> 01:47:12,679
Speaker 1: for one of the territories. Um, we're looking at about

1667
01:47:12,800 --> 01:47:18,040
Speaker 1: five hundred seventy one, or it was almost five hundred animals,

1668
01:47:18,160 --> 01:47:20,479
Speaker 1: right around five animals, and you feel like you should

1669
01:47:20,520 --> 01:47:25,080
Speaker 1: have about a hundred. I was reading that into like,

1670
01:47:25,240 --> 01:47:27,240
Speaker 1: that's the high range of the A m L. Because

1671
01:47:27,280 --> 01:47:29,439
Speaker 1: A m L s are given in a range so

1672
01:47:29,479 --> 01:47:35,480
Speaker 1: that it allows for fluctuations based on drought and forage availability,

1673
01:47:35,560 --> 01:47:38,479
Speaker 1: and so you'll always have a lower range in the

1674
01:47:38,560 --> 01:47:41,960
Speaker 1: A m L and then a higher upper range. And

1675
01:47:42,200 --> 01:47:46,519
Speaker 1: we are at exceeding our higher upper range five or

1676
01:47:46,560 --> 01:47:50,280
Speaker 1: six times. I was reading about the ways that wild

1677
01:47:50,280 --> 01:47:53,920
Speaker 1: horse numbers can explode when conditions are good, that in

1678
01:47:53,960 --> 01:47:57,240
Speaker 1: two thousand seven there was an estimated twenty eight point

1679
01:47:57,320 --> 01:48:02,760
Speaker 1: five thousand, while the horses in the American West ten

1680
01:48:02,840 --> 01:48:08,599
Speaker 1: years later in an estimated eighty three thousand. Right, because

1681
01:48:08,640 --> 01:48:11,920
Speaker 1: it's given that in any given year, we we say

1682
01:48:11,920 --> 01:48:16,400
Speaker 1: that our reproductive rate is and so you look at

1683
01:48:16,479 --> 01:48:21,559
Speaker 1: in five years that population is a greater than it

1684
01:48:21,680 --> 01:48:24,640
Speaker 1: was five years previous. So if you just take the

1685
01:48:24,640 --> 01:48:28,400
Speaker 1: Carson National Forest part of it, is there enough demand?

1686
01:48:29,400 --> 01:48:34,760
Speaker 1: Are people waiting in line to adopt one of these horses? No? No,

1687
01:48:35,000 --> 01:48:37,240
Speaker 1: I mean we don't have four hundred people saying like

1688
01:48:37,280 --> 01:48:41,080
Speaker 1: go get Me one, and the BLM actually had some

1689
01:48:41,160 --> 01:48:46,120
Speaker 1: numbers published from their databases UM looking back to the

1690
01:48:46,200 --> 01:48:50,599
Speaker 1: number of adoptions UM, so they had nine thousand, seven

1691
01:48:50,680 --> 01:48:54,760
Speaker 1: hundred adoptions nationally. Ten years later in two thousand five

1692
01:48:54,760 --> 01:48:58,479
Speaker 1: it was down from d to fifty seven hundred. Then

1693
01:48:58,479 --> 01:49:00,400
Speaker 1: from two thousand five to twenty six teen it went

1694
01:49:00,439 --> 01:49:08,280
Speaker 1: down from to and twelve. So I've heard talking maybe

1695
01:49:08,280 --> 01:49:10,519
Speaker 1: you could confirm it to Lonni. But the idea of

1696
01:49:10,960 --> 01:49:14,639
Speaker 1: the adoption market being saturated over time, like the people

1697
01:49:14,640 --> 01:49:17,320
Speaker 1: who wanted to adopt a horse have adopted a horse,

1698
01:49:18,040 --> 01:49:20,800
Speaker 1: and so the ratio of them that during these round

1699
01:49:20,880 --> 01:49:22,920
Speaker 1: ups when they go out and capture to try to

1700
01:49:22,960 --> 01:49:25,840
Speaker 1: reduce the population on the landscape closer to a m

1701
01:49:25,960 --> 01:49:29,080
Speaker 1: L rather than those being adopted, they're going more and

1702
01:49:28,920 --> 01:49:32,639
Speaker 1: more and more to the holding facilities. So a downward

1703
01:49:32,640 --> 01:49:36,720
Speaker 1: trend in adoption. Meanwhile an upward trend in the population

1704
01:49:36,880 --> 01:49:39,720
Speaker 1: both in in holding facilities and on the landscape, to

1705
01:49:39,720 --> 01:49:42,480
Speaker 1: the point where there's forty four thousand and holding facilities

1706
01:49:43,040 --> 01:49:47,120
Speaker 1: forty six thousand as of two thousand seventeen. Yeah, and

1707
01:49:47,120 --> 01:49:50,200
Speaker 1: and to your point about the population growth again, looking

1708
01:49:50,200 --> 01:49:53,759
Speaker 1: at the BLM, numbers which are readily available online. Between

1709
01:49:55,720 --> 01:50:00,599
Speaker 1: eighteen there was at increase on range, so not including

1710
01:50:00,600 --> 01:50:03,360
Speaker 1: the ones that are being held at the facilities, and

1711
01:50:03,400 --> 01:50:06,880
Speaker 1: that bumping population was from an estimated seventy two thousand,

1712
01:50:06,960 --> 01:50:13,120
Speaker 1: six hundred seventy four up to fifty one and the

1713
01:50:13,200 --> 01:50:17,200
Speaker 1: a m L the max a m L is twenty

1714
01:50:17,280 --> 01:50:21,320
Speaker 1: six thousand, six ninety so the max mL is basically

1715
01:50:21,360 --> 01:50:26,240
Speaker 1: being exceeded by about in order of three man. It

1716
01:50:26,280 --> 01:50:30,519
Speaker 1: seems like an insurmountable problem. Have you heard the argument,

1717
01:50:30,720 --> 01:50:34,400
Speaker 1: You're you're shaking your head, have you heard the argument?

1718
01:50:34,560 --> 01:50:36,799
Speaker 1: Years ago, I was working on a story about magazine

1719
01:50:36,840 --> 01:50:39,639
Speaker 1: story about livestock theft and and that led me into

1720
01:50:39,720 --> 01:50:42,479
Speaker 1: some other conversations with people in the livestock world and

1721
01:50:42,520 --> 01:50:45,440
Speaker 1: a in a in a stock detective guy who investigates

1722
01:50:45,479 --> 01:50:51,680
Speaker 1: livestock theft. I was talking about the un the unanticipated

1723
01:50:51,760 --> 01:50:57,240
Speaker 1: consequences of when we closed the horse slaughter facilities in

1724
01:50:57,320 --> 01:51:01,120
Speaker 1: the US, where when you had horror slaughter facilities in

1725
01:51:01,160 --> 01:51:06,560
Speaker 1: the US and people could sell unwanted horses to slaughter facilities,

1726
01:51:07,200 --> 01:51:14,360
Speaker 1: it created an outlet for unwanted horses. And he felt

1727
01:51:14,400 --> 01:51:16,720
Speaker 1: that once you remove that outlet, even though you could

1728
01:51:16,720 --> 01:51:21,000
Speaker 1: still sell into Canada Mexico, which was much less convenient

1729
01:51:21,040 --> 01:51:24,600
Speaker 1: and far more expensive and less profitable for operators that

1730
01:51:25,000 --> 01:51:30,040
Speaker 1: without that outlet, he saw he and his colleagues saw

1731
01:51:30,080 --> 01:51:35,360
Speaker 1: a dramatic increase in horse abuse and neglect, and a

1732
01:51:35,439 --> 01:51:41,599
Speaker 1: dramatic increase in feral horses on the landscape, because suddenly

1733
01:51:41,840 --> 01:51:45,519
Speaker 1: it used to be that all horses had some monetary value,

1734
01:51:46,240 --> 01:51:49,880
Speaker 1: and it went to being that most horses. Now there

1735
01:51:49,960 --> 01:51:53,600
Speaker 1: was no value for unwanted horses. And he felt it

1736
01:51:53,680 --> 01:51:57,760
Speaker 1: was like one of these great like I said, unanticipated

1737
01:51:57,880 --> 01:52:02,640
Speaker 1: or unforeseen consequences of an action, where supposedly, in an

1738
01:52:02,680 --> 01:52:08,840
Speaker 1: act to eliminate horse suffering, you open the floodgates of

1739
01:52:08,920 --> 01:52:12,200
Speaker 1: horse suffering by creating a problem. He said, we used

1740
01:52:12,200 --> 01:52:16,000
Speaker 1: to get phone calls because someone's horse had been stolen.

1741
01:52:16,560 --> 01:52:19,599
Speaker 1: Now we get phone calls because someone has a horse

1742
01:52:19,640 --> 01:52:23,800
Speaker 1: in their yard and they don't know where it came from.

1743
01:52:23,840 --> 01:52:26,400
Speaker 1: And he sites that shift in particular, and he talked

1744
01:52:26,400 --> 01:52:32,200
Speaker 1: about in California that shift and leading to new populations

1745
01:52:32,200 --> 01:52:35,080
Speaker 1: of wild horses and places where they didn't previously exist

1746
01:52:35,120 --> 01:52:38,240
Speaker 1: because people would simply load a stock trailer with unwanted

1747
01:52:38,280 --> 01:52:41,680
Speaker 1: horses and drive it out and open the gate. And

1748
01:52:41,760 --> 01:52:44,639
Speaker 1: that's that's where I was saying on especially on tribal lands.

1749
01:52:44,800 --> 01:52:48,439
Speaker 1: That's one of the theories that tribal land managers have

1750
01:52:48,840 --> 01:52:53,479
Speaker 1: of why we have so many free ranging horses on

1751
01:52:53,560 --> 01:52:57,640
Speaker 1: tribal lands is because in in the urban populations that

1752
01:52:57,720 --> 01:53:01,599
Speaker 1: are close to tribal lands, people will get a horse

1753
01:53:01,760 --> 01:53:03,680
Speaker 1: or a pony, you know, and they're, oh, I want

1754
01:53:03,680 --> 01:53:05,960
Speaker 1: to buy this from my daughter. She really wants this

1755
01:53:06,000 --> 01:53:08,599
Speaker 1: horse or whatnot, and it's so cool to have a horse.

1756
01:53:09,240 --> 01:53:12,439
Speaker 1: And then they realize that, you know, hey, is well

1757
01:53:12,520 --> 01:53:15,639
Speaker 1: this year good quality horse. Alfalfa is you know, fifteen

1758
01:53:15,640 --> 01:53:20,559
Speaker 1: dollars of bail and Timothy is upwards of bail. And

1759
01:53:20,600 --> 01:53:23,000
Speaker 1: that's really what your veterinarian tells you. You should be

1760
01:53:23,040 --> 01:53:26,160
Speaker 1: feeding your horse. And oh, by the way you put

1761
01:53:26,200 --> 01:53:28,360
Speaker 1: all that into him, what's going to come out the

1762
01:53:28,400 --> 01:53:30,479
Speaker 1: other end? And now I have to deal with all

1763
01:53:30,520 --> 01:53:34,759
Speaker 1: this poop and it becomes overwhelming and maybe not every

1764
01:53:34,800 --> 01:53:37,880
Speaker 1: horse is you know, black, beauty and um, and it's

1765
01:53:37,920 --> 01:53:40,559
Speaker 1: not as nice a horse is what they thought it was.

1766
01:53:40,840 --> 01:53:43,320
Speaker 1: Or the kid loses interest because now they'd rather be

1767
01:53:43,400 --> 01:53:47,559
Speaker 1: playing PlayStation as opposed to outside working with the horse,

1768
01:53:47,720 --> 01:53:50,640
Speaker 1: and you know, just a whole bunch of factors. So

1769
01:53:50,680 --> 01:53:53,120
Speaker 1: now there's this unwanted horse and they don't know what

1770
01:53:53,200 --> 01:53:55,160
Speaker 1: to do with it. Well, the most two main thing

1771
01:53:55,200 --> 01:53:57,519
Speaker 1: in their mind is let's take it out and put

1772
01:53:57,560 --> 01:54:01,120
Speaker 1: it on the landscape. Oh yeah, there's that tribal land

1773
01:54:01,120 --> 01:54:03,200
Speaker 1: out there, and the horse can run out there because

1774
01:54:03,200 --> 01:54:06,600
Speaker 1: there's plenty of grass, not realizing that a lot of

1775
01:54:06,600 --> 01:54:09,240
Speaker 1: that grass is non native grass that you know, doesn't

1776
01:54:09,240 --> 01:54:13,839
Speaker 1: have a high palatability factor and it may look lush,

1777
01:54:14,240 --> 01:54:16,200
Speaker 1: but even the cows won't eat it. The deer and

1778
01:54:16,240 --> 01:54:18,280
Speaker 1: the elk won't eat it, you know, the antelope aren't

1779
01:54:18,280 --> 01:54:21,439
Speaker 1: eating it. And so they put this horse out there thinking, oh,

1780
01:54:21,479 --> 01:54:23,200
Speaker 1: I'm doing a good thing because I'm gonna let it

1781
01:54:23,240 --> 01:54:27,759
Speaker 1: go out there and eat all that free grass. Starvation camp.

1782
01:54:28,920 --> 01:54:32,000
Speaker 1: The same stock detective talked about that too, that you

1783
01:54:32,040 --> 01:54:38,000
Speaker 1: could track incidences of wild horses in relation to alf

1784
01:54:38,040 --> 01:54:42,840
Speaker 1: alfa prices. Yeah, the more expensive feed got, the more

1785
01:54:42,840 --> 01:54:45,520
Speaker 1: wild horses around the landscape because people couldn't afford to

1786
01:54:45,560 --> 01:54:48,040
Speaker 1: take care of him. And have you seen the movie,

1787
01:54:48,360 --> 01:54:52,720
Speaker 1: the seventies movie Um The Electric Horseman with Robert Redford

1788
01:54:53,720 --> 01:54:55,760
Speaker 1: when he goes to cut his horse loose. What does

1789
01:54:55,800 --> 01:54:59,839
Speaker 1: he do? He drives out until he finds some horses

1790
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:03,520
Speaker 1: out on the horizon and turns his turns his loose.

1791
01:55:07,600 --> 01:55:12,480
Speaker 1: I don't you know, Carl, you got more? What more

1792
01:55:12,480 --> 01:55:14,560
Speaker 1: do you have? You I've been, I've been over here.

1793
01:55:14,920 --> 01:55:16,760
Speaker 1: It's like I can't even like do my job. I

1794
01:55:16,800 --> 01:55:19,760
Speaker 1: can't even do my job right now. I can't do

1795
01:55:19,840 --> 01:55:22,960
Speaker 1: my job right now of walking through this because I

1796
01:55:23,000 --> 01:55:29,640
Speaker 1: get it's like, I'm so baffled. I'm so baffled by

1797
01:55:31,880 --> 01:55:41,040
Speaker 1: the mindsets that are on display when we're talking about

1798
01:55:41,080 --> 01:55:44,640
Speaker 1: individuals who are taking steps that they think are improving,

1799
01:55:44,840 --> 01:55:49,680
Speaker 1: alleviating suffering, improving the world, that in fact are so

1800
01:55:49,840 --> 01:55:57,880
Speaker 1: obviously driving negatives that it makes it like it makes

1801
01:55:57,880 --> 01:56:01,080
Speaker 1: it difficult for me to carry on the conversation because

1802
01:56:01,080 --> 01:56:03,280
Speaker 1: I want to step out and just try to understand

1803
01:56:03,280 --> 01:56:05,720
Speaker 1: it better. Yeah. No, it's a it's a really tough

1804
01:56:06,120 --> 01:56:09,720
Speaker 1: position to be in. It's there's no there's no easy solution,

1805
01:56:09,760 --> 01:56:13,240
Speaker 1: and a lot of a lot of really good people

1806
01:56:13,440 --> 01:56:16,360
Speaker 1: who care a whole heck of a lot about the

1807
01:56:16,400 --> 01:56:19,960
Speaker 1: well being of horses and about the well being of

1808
01:56:20,760 --> 01:56:24,480
Speaker 1: range conditions and about the well being of rural economies

1809
01:56:24,520 --> 01:56:28,840
Speaker 1: that are dependent upon these systems. Have been banging their

1810
01:56:28,840 --> 01:56:30,880
Speaker 1: heads against the wall for years trying to come up

1811
01:56:30,880 --> 01:56:35,400
Speaker 1: with a solution. And um, there are very disparate competing

1812
01:56:35,960 --> 01:56:39,400
Speaker 1: value sets at play here. So UM, you know you

1813
01:56:39,560 --> 01:56:44,560
Speaker 1: you're coming at this from a relatively well informed standpoint

1814
01:56:44,760 --> 01:56:48,280
Speaker 1: on in terms of the ecological consequences. Um, I think

1815
01:56:48,320 --> 01:56:52,000
Speaker 1: a lot of people, frankly, are looking at it from

1816
01:56:52,000 --> 01:56:54,960
Speaker 1: a really simple lens. They like horses. They don't want

1817
01:56:54,960 --> 01:56:57,600
Speaker 1: anything bad to happen to the horses. They want the

1818
01:56:57,640 --> 01:56:59,920
Speaker 1: horses to be free. End of conversation, move on to

1819
01:57:00,040 --> 01:57:02,360
Speaker 1: something else. It's not something that I think a lot

1820
01:57:02,360 --> 01:57:06,360
Speaker 1: of people have put a ton of thought into. Necessarily,

1821
01:57:06,440 --> 01:57:08,440
Speaker 1: we don't want anything bad to happen to the horse.

1822
01:57:08,720 --> 01:57:12,880
Speaker 1: If it happened from a person Diana thirst getting killed

1823
01:57:12,880 --> 01:57:15,800
Speaker 1: by a line, that's all cool. Yeah, But we're at

1824
01:57:15,800 --> 01:57:17,839
Speaker 1: a point now, I mean, and and you know, I'm

1825
01:57:18,000 --> 01:57:19,840
Speaker 1: recognized I'm preaching to the choir here a little bit.

1826
01:57:19,880 --> 01:57:23,080
Speaker 1: But the distribution of species and habitats on the landscape

1827
01:57:23,120 --> 01:57:25,200
Speaker 1: on the face of the earth are are driven by

1828
01:57:25,240 --> 01:57:29,280
Speaker 1: our decisions. Like the places where we still have wildness

1829
01:57:29,320 --> 01:57:33,200
Speaker 1: and wildlife are there because humans have decided it to

1830
01:57:33,280 --> 01:57:36,480
Speaker 1: be so. And the places where we don't have those

1831
01:57:36,560 --> 01:57:38,840
Speaker 1: characteristics on the landscape are places we haven't made that

1832
01:57:38,920 --> 01:57:42,400
Speaker 1: a priority. So it comes down to what we value.

1833
01:57:43,040 --> 01:57:45,160
Speaker 1: And you know, this Act some of the language that

1834
01:57:45,200 --> 01:57:47,840
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about in the Act um. You've

1835
01:57:47,840 --> 01:57:54,360
Speaker 1: made a couple of comments, Steve about the um. The

1836
01:57:54,400 --> 01:57:58,440
Speaker 1: degree to which we attribute wildness to the species is

1837
01:57:58,480 --> 01:58:01,520
Speaker 1: it's something that that is rooted in science, is it's

1838
01:58:01,520 --> 01:58:05,360
Speaker 1: something that is rooted in reality. And really it doesn't

1839
01:58:05,360 --> 01:58:07,920
Speaker 1: matter because it's something that's rooted in the Law. The

1840
01:58:07,960 --> 01:58:10,320
Speaker 1: Wild and the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burrows

1841
01:58:10,400 --> 01:58:15,720
Speaker 1: Act states as the policy of Congress that wild free

1842
01:58:15,760 --> 01:58:19,640
Speaker 1: roaming horses and burrows shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment,

1843
01:58:19,720 --> 01:58:23,880
Speaker 1: or death. And to accomplish this there to be considered

1844
01:58:23,960 --> 01:58:27,720
Speaker 1: in the area where presently found as an integral part

1845
01:58:27,800 --> 01:58:31,840
Speaker 1: of the natural system of the public lands. That is

1846
01:58:31,960 --> 01:58:36,000
Speaker 1: federal law. So it's not the ecology of it doesn't

1847
01:58:36,000 --> 01:58:40,720
Speaker 1: even matter, right it it's a federal law by law

1848
01:58:41,080 --> 01:58:44,240
Speaker 1: there to be in the American psyche at that time,

1849
01:58:45,240 --> 01:58:49,000
Speaker 1: I think you know, probably these issues around inhumane treatment.

1850
01:58:49,040 --> 01:58:52,880
Speaker 1: We're driving this. It captured the minds of America leading

1851
01:58:52,920 --> 01:58:55,080
Speaker 1: up to the nineteen seventy one passage of the Act.

1852
01:58:55,840 --> 01:58:59,160
Speaker 1: And even if you read the language here, it's none

1853
01:58:59,160 --> 01:59:03,720
Speaker 1: of this is is science. Frankly, it's I'll read a

1854
01:59:03,720 --> 01:59:06,160
Speaker 1: little bit more of it to to get the point across.

1855
01:59:06,600 --> 01:59:09,720
Speaker 1: Congress finds and declares that wild free roaming horses and

1856
01:59:09,720 --> 01:59:13,280
Speaker 1: burrows are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit

1857
01:59:13,320 --> 01:59:15,880
Speaker 1: of the West, that they contribute to the diversity of

1858
01:59:15,920 --> 01:59:18,360
Speaker 1: life forms within the nation and enrich the lives of

1859
01:59:18,400 --> 01:59:21,520
Speaker 1: the American people, and that these horses and burrows are

1860
01:59:21,560 --> 01:59:24,960
Speaker 1: fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy

1861
01:59:25,000 --> 01:59:27,960
Speaker 1: of Congress that wild free roaming horses and burros shall

1862
01:59:28,040 --> 01:59:30,960
Speaker 1: be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death. And to

1863
01:59:31,000 --> 01:59:33,600
Speaker 1: accomplish this, they're to be considered in the area where

1864
01:59:33,600 --> 01:59:36,880
Speaker 1: presently found as an integral part of the natural system

1865
01:59:36,960 --> 01:59:43,160
Speaker 1: of the public lands. It's beautiful, eloquent language, has nothing

1866
01:59:43,160 --> 01:59:46,480
Speaker 1: to do with ecology. They've captured the spirit of the

1867
01:59:46,480 --> 01:59:51,520
Speaker 1: American West, you know, so when you're trying to manage that,

1868
01:59:51,840 --> 01:59:59,960
Speaker 1: gunfights also kind of capture that spirit, you know. When

1869
02:00:00,320 --> 02:00:03,920
Speaker 1: in in the movie Hidalgo, when Vigo Mortenson after he

1870
02:00:03,960 --> 02:00:08,200
Speaker 1: wins the Big Arabian you know, the the race, the

1871
02:00:08,480 --> 02:00:12,480
Speaker 1: Endurance Race over in South Saudi Arabia, and he comes

1872
02:00:12,520 --> 02:00:16,600
Speaker 1: back and he takes Hidalago back to Montana, and he

1873
02:00:16,920 --> 02:00:19,840
Speaker 1: lets him go and says, go be within. And the

1874
02:00:19,880 --> 02:00:22,600
Speaker 1: picture that you see, I mean, that's what people are

1875
02:00:22,640 --> 02:00:26,919
Speaker 1: looking at. And and yes, maybe there are were limited

1876
02:00:26,960 --> 02:00:29,960
Speaker 1: areas where you see things like that, and it's but

1877
02:00:30,040 --> 02:00:33,800
Speaker 1: it's very romantic, it's very touching. And I wish that

1878
02:00:33,880 --> 02:00:36,920
Speaker 1: they all looked that wonderful. I wish that the landscape

1879
02:00:37,040 --> 02:00:39,560
Speaker 1: all looks like that, but it doesn't. And so we

1880
02:00:39,640 --> 02:00:44,600
Speaker 1: have a responsibility two keep the land where it is,

1881
02:00:45,040 --> 02:00:48,560
Speaker 1: try to keep that land so that it can be productive,

1882
02:00:48,800 --> 02:00:52,640
Speaker 1: so they can be beautiful. It's difficult when you're in

1883
02:00:52,680 --> 02:00:58,760
Speaker 1: these very arid landscapes and there's you know, a caring

1884
02:00:58,760 --> 02:01:01,720
Speaker 1: capacity for a cow might be a thousand acres per cow.

1885
02:01:02,120 --> 02:01:04,760
Speaker 1: So the cows are going or the deer or the

1886
02:01:04,800 --> 02:01:07,120
Speaker 1: elk are going, you know, miles to find that one

1887
02:01:07,160 --> 02:01:09,960
Speaker 1: blade of grass or that one you know, um, a

1888
02:01:10,040 --> 02:01:13,320
Speaker 1: little bit of oak, which you know oak will kill

1889
02:01:13,320 --> 02:01:17,200
Speaker 1: a horse, but um, but you know, see, I think

1890
02:01:17,240 --> 02:01:21,880
Speaker 1: we we lose that sense because Hollywood has given us

1891
02:01:21,920 --> 02:01:27,080
Speaker 1: these images that that people see and and that's what

1892
02:01:27,280 --> 02:01:31,000
Speaker 1: they focus on. You know, they look at at Hidalgo

1893
02:01:31,080 --> 02:01:33,840
Speaker 1: and what great measures this mustang did and how he

1894
02:01:33,920 --> 02:01:37,720
Speaker 1: beat all the Arabian horses, you know, and everything that.

1895
02:01:38,160 --> 02:01:40,800
Speaker 1: You know, they see Vigo mortons and oh my gosh,

1896
02:01:40,840 --> 02:01:43,920
Speaker 1: that's what That's what people look at. That's what they

1897
02:01:43,920 --> 02:01:48,320
Speaker 1: associate to, and not the cruel reality that a lot

1898
02:01:48,360 --> 02:01:51,680
Speaker 1: of these horses are starving in and a hundred and

1899
02:01:51,800 --> 02:01:54,760
Speaker 1: nine two of them are dying of thirst and getting

1900
02:01:54,760 --> 02:01:58,240
Speaker 1: stuck in the mire on the Navajo Nation in Arizona,

1901
02:01:58,320 --> 02:02:01,280
Speaker 1: because there was nothing left for them to eat. That's

1902
02:02:01,320 --> 02:02:04,440
Speaker 1: a really good point, and I think that speaks to

1903
02:02:04,440 --> 02:02:06,560
Speaker 1: where we are right now in the conversation and what

1904
02:02:06,720 --> 02:02:10,000
Speaker 1: likely is ahead in the conversation. The more of those

1905
02:02:10,080 --> 02:02:13,840
Speaker 1: kind of instances you have, you can't possibly talk about

1906
02:02:13,880 --> 02:02:21,440
Speaker 1: the welfare of these horses when you have situations where

1907
02:02:21,880 --> 02:02:25,720
Speaker 1: they're dying by the hundreds due to a lack of

1908
02:02:25,760 --> 02:02:29,840
Speaker 1: resources on the landscape and we're not addressing it. You know,

1909
02:02:29,960 --> 02:02:35,240
Speaker 1: it's anybody who's willing to spend sixty seconds thinking about

1910
02:02:35,280 --> 02:02:41,840
Speaker 1: it will recognize that there's something in the system has

1911
02:02:41,880 --> 02:02:45,200
Speaker 1: to change. Right what is what is happening on the

1912
02:02:45,240 --> 02:02:48,920
Speaker 1: landscape right now is not sustainable. There are a whole

1913
02:02:48,920 --> 02:02:51,720
Speaker 1: host of negative consequences, whether you want to think about

1914
02:02:51,720 --> 02:02:54,080
Speaker 1: it from an ecological perspective and the other species on

1915
02:02:54,120 --> 02:02:57,680
Speaker 1: the landscape that are being detrimentally affected, or what they

1916
02:02:57,680 --> 02:03:01,440
Speaker 1: want to think about it from animal welfare perspective, what's

1917
02:03:01,440 --> 02:03:04,920
Speaker 1: happening right now is not optimal. I mean even you

1918
02:03:04,960 --> 02:03:08,240
Speaker 1: know these infographics that I've been printing off from the

1919
02:03:08,240 --> 02:03:10,840
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management, the the language that they use.

1920
02:03:11,680 --> 02:03:16,720
Speaker 1: You know, population population is going up, adoptions are going down.

1921
02:03:16,800 --> 02:03:20,400
Speaker 1: There's not There's not much here that is like a

1922
02:03:20,440 --> 02:03:25,080
Speaker 1: silver lining or a positive takeaway. It's basically recognition that

1923
02:03:25,120 --> 02:03:28,760
Speaker 1: we're in a really tough place right now, and um,

1924
02:03:30,120 --> 02:03:33,160
Speaker 1: there are difficult decisions ahead about what to do. You know,

1925
02:03:33,240 --> 02:03:36,680
Speaker 1: do we want to continue allowing our shared public lands

1926
02:03:36,760 --> 02:03:41,320
Speaker 1: to be dramatically impacted in some places and and the

1927
02:03:41,400 --> 02:03:45,720
Speaker 1: wildlife other than the horses um suffering and folks trying

1928
02:03:45,760 --> 02:03:51,120
Speaker 1: to produce livestock on those landscapes being negatively affected. At

1929
02:03:51,160 --> 02:03:55,840
Speaker 1: some point, something's got to change. My perspective on what

1930
02:03:55,960 --> 02:03:59,400
Speaker 1: has the change, I have like great clarity on it

1931
02:04:00,440 --> 02:04:07,480
Speaker 1: because I understand the argument that people give for why

1932
02:04:07,520 --> 02:04:10,480
Speaker 1: they want to recognize them as a form of wildlife.

1933
02:04:11,280 --> 02:04:14,920
Speaker 1: I understand it so well I could masquerade as someone

1934
02:04:15,000 --> 02:04:19,280
Speaker 1: who held that opinion and deliver it in a somewhat

1935
02:04:19,280 --> 02:04:23,840
Speaker 1: convincing way. So I understand it to that level. But

1936
02:04:23,920 --> 02:04:28,680
Speaker 1: I just like wholesale reject the idea. And I think

1937
02:04:28,760 --> 02:04:35,400
Speaker 1: that from my perspective, the primary, our primary objective when

1938
02:04:35,440 --> 02:04:41,200
Speaker 1: looking at land management should be towards the long term

1939
02:04:41,240 --> 02:04:51,000
Speaker 1: sustainability of native wildlife and anything that I shouldn't say

1940
02:04:51,000 --> 02:04:54,160
Speaker 1: anything that stands in the way, but many of the

1941
02:04:54,240 --> 02:04:56,200
Speaker 1: things that stand in the way of the long term

1942
02:04:56,360 --> 02:05:01,800
Speaker 1: sustainability of native wildlife would have to move side. And

1943
02:05:01,840 --> 02:05:05,760
Speaker 1: I think that it was a tragic mistake that we

1944
02:05:07,160 --> 02:05:11,680
Speaker 1: would go and enact a piece of legislation that so

1945
02:05:12,080 --> 02:05:18,840
Speaker 1: wholly tied the hands of future generations and addressing a

1946
02:05:18,880 --> 02:05:24,920
Speaker 1: problem that I feel should have been anticipated. It's it's

1947
02:05:24,960 --> 02:05:26,840
Speaker 1: just the mess, and it's on people's minds because we

1948
02:05:26,880 --> 02:05:29,120
Speaker 1: get emails constantly from people being like, dude, I don't

1949
02:05:29,160 --> 02:05:32,960
Speaker 1: understand the wild horse situation. You know, me like you

1950
02:05:33,040 --> 02:05:36,280
Speaker 1: got a couple of hours. Yeah. There's a great quote

1951
02:05:36,320 --> 02:05:40,680
Speaker 1: from Dave Phillips in this article that I've poked out

1952
02:05:40,680 --> 02:05:47,360
Speaker 1: a little bit today that I agree with wholeheartedly. Um,

1953
02:05:47,400 --> 02:05:49,960
Speaker 1: he says. Wild Horse advocacy groups have blasted the plans

1954
02:05:49,960 --> 02:05:52,560
Speaker 1: and are preparing for a legal fight. In all likelihood, though,

1955
02:05:53,280 --> 02:05:55,480
Speaker 1: none of these ideas will make it out of Washington,

1956
02:05:55,960 --> 02:05:59,879
Speaker 1: particularly unlikely as the slaughter option. No one in Congress

1957
02:06:00,000 --> 02:06:02,680
Speaker 1: wants to vote to turn an American symbol into sausage.

1958
02:06:04,280 --> 02:06:07,360
Speaker 1: That's from this Dave Phillips article, And I think that's right.

1959
02:06:07,400 --> 02:06:10,960
Speaker 1: You know, if you think about the political landscape, you

1960
02:06:11,000 --> 02:06:16,160
Speaker 1: put yourself in the shoes of an elected representative, you

1961
02:06:16,200 --> 02:06:18,240
Speaker 1: know who wants to have the proverbial blood on their

1962
02:06:18,240 --> 02:06:20,960
Speaker 1: hands to make that kind of a decision. You think

1963
02:06:20,960 --> 02:06:26,800
Speaker 1: about being on the campaign trail, and I guess the

1964
02:06:26,880 --> 02:06:33,840
Speaker 1: question would be, what what proportion of America shares your perspective? Steve,

1965
02:06:35,160 --> 02:06:43,520
Speaker 1: I can't answer that. Yeah, you yeah, I do. One

1966
02:06:43,560 --> 02:06:48,360
Speaker 1: guy and he agrees, I have no idea. Man, I

1967
02:06:48,400 --> 02:06:52,040
Speaker 1: have no idea. There's not a quick fix. And and

1968
02:06:52,080 --> 02:06:53,880
Speaker 1: what a lot of people are looking for is they

1969
02:06:53,880 --> 02:06:57,720
Speaker 1: want they want us to do a cookbook and get

1970
02:06:57,760 --> 02:07:00,400
Speaker 1: hand them a little three by five card that says,

1971
02:07:00,480 --> 02:07:03,640
Speaker 1: if you do steps one, two and three and four

1972
02:07:03,720 --> 02:07:07,320
Speaker 1: in this order, you will no longer have any issues. Yeah,

1973
02:07:07,320 --> 02:07:09,400
Speaker 1: there's not a quick fix, but there's not a slow fix.

1974
02:07:11,120 --> 02:07:14,600
Speaker 1: And and and a lot of it is driven by

1975
02:07:14,760 --> 02:07:17,920
Speaker 1: what he was saying, litigation. You know, we tie things

1976
02:07:18,040 --> 02:07:21,560
Speaker 1: up in courts of law with people that have probably

1977
02:07:21,600 --> 02:07:26,200
Speaker 1: never even smelled a horse. They have no idea, and

1978
02:07:26,240 --> 02:07:29,720
Speaker 1: they've never gone out to where these animals are living.

1979
02:07:32,080 --> 02:07:35,400
Speaker 1: They have no idea. And so those of us that

1980
02:07:35,520 --> 02:07:38,280
Speaker 1: live out here and and this is what we do,

1981
02:07:38,800 --> 02:07:41,480
Speaker 1: and this is our passion. I want to do what's

1982
02:07:41,560 --> 02:07:45,520
Speaker 1: best by the horses. And sometimes it's you know, the

1983
02:07:45,600 --> 02:07:47,840
Speaker 1: hardest thing for me as a veterinarian. And I tell

1984
02:07:47,880 --> 02:07:50,520
Speaker 1: people this all the time. I went to vet school

1985
02:07:50,800 --> 02:07:54,000
Speaker 1: to above all, do no harm, because that was huge.

1986
02:07:54,040 --> 02:07:59,560
Speaker 1: That was what we were taught. Above all, do no harm.

1987
02:07:59,600 --> 02:08:03,160
Speaker 1: But what are we doing right now by not having

1988
02:08:03,400 --> 02:08:05,800
Speaker 1: you know, in a lot of in a lot of cases,

1989
02:08:05,880 --> 02:08:10,720
Speaker 1: we are causing more harm. Maybe not to one individual

1990
02:08:10,920 --> 02:08:13,600
Speaker 1: when we look at you know, just that a single individual,

1991
02:08:14,000 --> 02:08:17,720
Speaker 1: but when we look at the landscape as a whole,

1992
02:08:18,160 --> 02:08:22,920
Speaker 1: to our entire planet. We are doing harm. And that's

1993
02:08:22,960 --> 02:08:27,480
Speaker 1: tough because it calls for some really tough decisions that

1994
02:08:27,560 --> 02:08:37,320
Speaker 1: people don't want to to face. And it's hard. Yeah, jeez.

1995
02:08:39,720 --> 02:08:42,080
Speaker 1: I ask just like in like a perfect world, if

1996
02:08:42,120 --> 02:08:45,360
Speaker 1: if you are now controller of the wild horse issue,

1997
02:08:45,520 --> 02:08:48,360
Speaker 1: you could legislate as you please give her the give

1998
02:08:48,360 --> 02:08:50,600
Speaker 1: her that you could be commander of the universe, man

1999
02:08:50,720 --> 02:08:54,160
Speaker 1: or of the universe, and you can point it gun

2000
02:08:54,160 --> 02:08:57,800
Speaker 1: to anybody and say, do as I wish, what would

2001
02:08:57,880 --> 02:09:00,440
Speaker 1: what would it look like? What would what would be

2002
02:09:00,480 --> 02:09:06,880
Speaker 1: a possible solution er? And I have to think about

2003
02:09:06,920 --> 02:09:09,919
Speaker 1: that because you know, as as a force service official,

2004
02:09:10,720 --> 02:09:13,400
Speaker 1: I have to go by what the what the federal

2005
02:09:13,520 --> 02:09:18,080
Speaker 1: law says. I appreciate, I appreciate that you feel that way. Yeah,

2006
02:09:18,120 --> 02:09:20,560
Speaker 1: I have to. I have to do what the law says,

2007
02:09:21,080 --> 02:09:23,840
Speaker 1: and so I have to protect those horses. I have

2008
02:09:23,960 --> 02:09:27,720
Speaker 1: to do what's right by those populations that are mandated

2009
02:09:28,280 --> 02:09:31,320
Speaker 1: in the law. And so I will do everything that

2010
02:09:31,400 --> 02:09:38,600
Speaker 1: I can to protect to maintain uh multiple use viability,

2011
02:09:38,640 --> 02:09:43,400
Speaker 1: to make sure that that forest is still able to survive,

2012
02:09:43,760 --> 02:09:46,360
Speaker 1: that the grass can still grow there, that the trees

2013
02:09:46,440 --> 02:09:50,360
Speaker 1: can still exist, that the little mouse can still exist.

2014
02:09:50,440 --> 02:09:54,040
Speaker 1: The horses that are there can exist, the the deer,

2015
02:09:54,120 --> 02:09:57,120
Speaker 1: the antelope, you know, everybody that is supposed to be there,

2016
02:09:57,800 --> 02:10:00,600
Speaker 1: even down to the earthworms and the rubs that are

2017
02:10:00,640 --> 02:10:03,880
Speaker 1: in the ground and sub level, that they all can

2018
02:10:03,960 --> 02:10:07,839
Speaker 1: be there. That's what I work on. What's your method

2019
02:10:08,200 --> 02:10:13,440
Speaker 1: of protection is what's kind of tricky and contested. That's

2020
02:10:13,440 --> 02:10:16,240
Speaker 1: what's tough. You know, we remove um. I'm all about

2021
02:10:16,280 --> 02:10:19,640
Speaker 1: trying to find as many homes for these animals. Um.

2022
02:10:19,680 --> 02:10:24,680
Speaker 1: I own one myself and and I have an adoption

2023
02:10:25,120 --> 02:10:29,520
Speaker 1: Momo Momo, my big old may Bay Mayor. She's she's

2024
02:10:29,560 --> 02:10:34,000
Speaker 1: she's gone through gentling. She's now in a trainer's hands

2025
02:10:34,080 --> 02:10:36,480
Speaker 1: and he's working with her. And and he's told me,

2026
02:10:36,520 --> 02:10:38,720
Speaker 1: he said, it'll be a while before you can write her.

2027
02:10:39,160 --> 02:10:41,880
Speaker 1: She's a tough one, you know. She's three probably going

2028
02:10:41,960 --> 02:10:45,360
Speaker 1: on four UM, and she came off the Modoc National Forest.

2029
02:10:46,040 --> 02:10:48,480
Speaker 1: But I'm not giving up hope. You know, I've had her.

2030
02:10:48,760 --> 02:10:51,920
Speaker 1: It'll be a year in September um and and she

2031
02:10:52,080 --> 02:10:58,160
Speaker 1: was a purchase because she was deemed unadoptable at the

2032
02:10:58,240 --> 02:11:01,840
Speaker 1: Devil's Garden facilities. So we've brought thirty six animals from

2033
02:11:01,880 --> 02:11:07,240
Speaker 1: California to our facility on the Carson National Forest. Um.

2034
02:11:07,400 --> 02:11:11,400
Speaker 1: One of the animals was in very poor health than

2035
02:11:11,520 --> 02:11:15,960
Speaker 1: we had to euthanize a guilding. Um. We have several

2036
02:11:16,000 --> 02:11:20,080
Speaker 1: mayors that we're using for our low stress baiting on

2037
02:11:20,120 --> 02:11:22,960
Speaker 1: the Carson National Forest where we use them as an

2038
02:11:23,000 --> 02:11:26,480
Speaker 1: attractant for other animals that come in a form of

2039
02:11:26,520 --> 02:11:30,880
Speaker 1: like Judas Horse kind of sort of yeah. Um, and

2040
02:11:30,920 --> 02:11:36,400
Speaker 1: then you know we we got everybody else a permanent home. Carl,

2041
02:11:37,240 --> 02:11:40,000
Speaker 1: can you entertain the commander of the universe? Are you

2042
02:11:40,040 --> 02:11:42,640
Speaker 1: not allowed to do that? I got a couple of

2043
02:11:42,680 --> 02:11:44,520
Speaker 1: things I want to say, but I'm not going I'm

2044
02:11:44,560 --> 02:11:46,160
Speaker 1: not going to command you can't do the commander. I'm

2045
02:11:46,160 --> 02:11:48,000
Speaker 1: not going to take the reins on what we do

2046
02:11:48,160 --> 02:11:51,120
Speaker 1: from here. I think Solani's points really well taken. I mean, ultimately,

2047
02:11:51,160 --> 02:11:55,520
Speaker 1: our job is to um execute the law. You know,

2048
02:11:55,600 --> 02:12:01,600
Speaker 1: what we're told by the American people the Congress as

2049
02:12:01,600 --> 02:12:04,240
Speaker 1: our legal mandate is what we're here to do. I

2050
02:12:04,280 --> 02:12:08,440
Speaker 1: think it's worth pointing out some of the ecological science

2051
02:12:08,480 --> 02:12:11,600
Speaker 1: around the issue so that folks who are involved in

2052
02:12:11,600 --> 02:12:14,200
Speaker 1: the democratic process can weigh in in a more informed

2053
02:12:14,840 --> 02:12:18,120
Speaker 1: manner um. But ultimately it's not up to us to

2054
02:12:18,120 --> 02:12:20,800
Speaker 1: be the controllers of the universe because we are in

2055
02:12:20,880 --> 02:12:24,160
Speaker 1: fact public servants. We work for the American people, so

2056
02:12:25,120 --> 02:12:28,760
Speaker 1: we do what we are told by all of you,

2057
02:12:29,280 --> 02:12:32,920
Speaker 1: our bosses. You all are the controllers of um our

2058
02:12:32,960 --> 02:12:39,640
Speaker 1: programs of work. So that's one of the um limitations

2059
02:12:39,960 --> 02:12:42,440
Speaker 1: and beauties of being a public servant, I suppose. But

2060
02:12:42,440 --> 02:12:43,640
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things I want to point

2061
02:12:43,640 --> 02:12:47,080
Speaker 1: out thinking about the ecology of horses, all right, going

2062
02:12:47,160 --> 02:12:52,880
Speaker 1: back to the place to see when we had not

2063
02:12:53,040 --> 02:12:55,840
Speaker 1: just wild horses, but like the wildest landscape that you

2064
02:12:55,840 --> 02:13:02,680
Speaker 1: could imagine clearly a prey species being haunted by a

2065
02:13:02,680 --> 02:13:08,120
Speaker 1: whole host of incredible carnivores that I've already described, saber

2066
02:13:08,200 --> 02:13:18,080
Speaker 1: tooth tigers, short faced bears, dire wolves, American lions, human beings.

2067
02:13:18,120 --> 02:13:21,680
Speaker 1: So it's a species that has evolved as a prey animal.

2068
02:13:23,560 --> 02:13:27,880
Speaker 1: And getting to your point, Steve, about this topic being

2069
02:13:27,920 --> 02:13:33,280
Speaker 1: one which is very irony rich. Another paper we're going

2070
02:13:33,320 --> 02:13:36,920
Speaker 1: to share recently came out that speaks to this debate

2071
02:13:37,080 --> 02:13:42,600
Speaker 1: about whether or not the coortinary megafonal extinctions were driven

2072
02:13:42,640 --> 02:13:45,120
Speaker 1: by more by climate or more by people. There's a

2073
02:13:45,160 --> 02:13:50,000
Speaker 1: really cool fresh science paper that came out um by

2074
02:13:50,120 --> 02:13:55,000
Speaker 1: Felicia Smith at All titled body sized downgrading of Mammals

2075
02:13:55,040 --> 02:13:58,880
Speaker 1: over the Late Coortinary. When all these huge species from

2076
02:13:58,920 --> 02:14:02,720
Speaker 1: around around globe we're just dropping off like flies. And

2077
02:14:02,760 --> 02:14:06,280
Speaker 1: here's a quote from the abstract. Although all habitable continents

2078
02:14:06,360 --> 02:14:10,040
Speaker 1: once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species are largely

2079
02:14:10,040 --> 02:14:14,360
Speaker 1: confined to Africa. This decline is coincident with the global

2080
02:14:14,400 --> 02:14:18,120
Speaker 1: expansion of hominins over the late coortinary. So they go

2081
02:14:18,200 --> 02:14:21,320
Speaker 1: through and and present a pretty compelling case for the

2082
02:14:21,400 --> 02:14:27,320
Speaker 1: likelihood of humans being the source of the extinction of

2083
02:14:27,480 --> 02:14:30,040
Speaker 1: all of these large mammals, not just in North America

2084
02:14:30,040 --> 02:14:32,400
Speaker 1: but around the globe. They kind of trace the expansion

2085
02:14:32,440 --> 02:14:36,240
Speaker 1: of humans and the concurrent elimination of all these big

2086
02:14:36,960 --> 02:14:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, giant ground sloth, wooly rhinoceros, sabretooth tiger. List

2087
02:14:41,840 --> 02:14:43,400
Speaker 1: goes on, Yeah, I want to can I can I

2088
02:14:43,560 --> 02:14:47,560
Speaker 1: expand that just real quick first, at least jump on it. So, Yeah,

2089
02:14:47,720 --> 02:14:50,200
Speaker 1: there's the thing put out by someone by the last

2090
02:14:50,240 --> 02:14:53,240
Speaker 1: name of Martin Uh and another guy, the blitz Creek

2091
02:14:53,360 --> 02:14:57,480
Speaker 1: hypothesis will be the idea that you see the large

2092
02:14:57,920 --> 02:15:05,080
Speaker 1: mammal extinctions occur with the arrival of man. And what's

2093
02:15:05,120 --> 02:15:08,000
Speaker 1: interesting is you go and look like people arrived in

2094
02:15:08,040 --> 02:15:12,680
Speaker 1: Australia forty or fifty thousand years ago on that continent.

2095
02:15:13,280 --> 02:15:19,080
Speaker 1: That's when you see the elimination of the large mega fauna.

2096
02:15:19,360 --> 02:15:22,280
Speaker 1: You see the elimination of the large mega faunta in Europe,

2097
02:15:22,360 --> 02:15:25,840
Speaker 1: which closely resembled the large mega fauna we had here,

2098
02:15:26,360 --> 02:15:31,680
Speaker 1: occur twenty thousand years earlier than it did here, contemporaneous

2099
02:15:31,680 --> 02:15:35,680
Speaker 1: with the arrival of modern man there. And then you

2100
02:15:35,720 --> 02:15:39,600
Speaker 1: see these last little holdout locations of large mega fauna,

2101
02:15:40,200 --> 02:15:43,560
Speaker 1: like on Wrangle Island in the Baring Sea, where a

2102
02:15:43,680 --> 02:15:47,520
Speaker 1: mammoth existed until four thousand years ago, and it doesn't

2103
02:15:47,560 --> 02:15:51,880
Speaker 1: seem that anyone showed up there till around four thousand

2104
02:15:52,000 --> 02:15:56,560
Speaker 1: years ago. It winds up being it makes it paints

2105
02:15:56,560 --> 02:16:00,480
Speaker 1: of there's a very compelling argument. It's not bulletproof, there's

2106
02:16:00,480 --> 02:16:02,400
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with it, but there's this really

2107
02:16:02,440 --> 02:16:06,839
Speaker 1: compelling argument that there's something about the arrival of humans

2108
02:16:07,360 --> 02:16:09,520
Speaker 1: that spells trouble for man. And of course you have

2109
02:16:09,640 --> 02:16:14,760
Speaker 1: the African exception. The African exception is that people had

2110
02:16:14,800 --> 02:16:19,600
Speaker 1: always existed on that landscape and a large mega fauna

2111
02:16:19,720 --> 02:16:24,400
Speaker 1: had learned strategies to coexist with humans, and it didn't

2112
02:16:24,440 --> 02:16:26,480
Speaker 1: work in places where all of a sudden people just

2113
02:16:26,560 --> 02:16:29,920
Speaker 1: show up and walk up to these things and jab

2114
02:16:30,000 --> 02:16:32,879
Speaker 1: them with a spear because the animals had not had

2115
02:16:32,879 --> 02:16:36,520
Speaker 1: a chance to learn how to coexist with humans. It's

2116
02:16:36,520 --> 02:16:39,959
Speaker 1: a really interesting idea, and you're gonna like this paper

2117
02:16:40,120 --> 02:16:43,080
Speaker 1: if you haven't already. Yeah, Okay. So they also talk

2118
02:16:43,160 --> 02:16:47,840
Speaker 1: about climate. They kind of the historical climatic cycles, and

2119
02:16:47,920 --> 02:16:49,840
Speaker 1: they point to the fact that there had been a

2120
02:16:49,920 --> 02:16:56,080
Speaker 1: number of these fairly similarly dramatic changes in climate historically

2121
02:16:56,160 --> 02:17:02,240
Speaker 1: prior to the expansion of hominence, where these giant animals

2122
02:17:02,280 --> 02:17:08,160
Speaker 1: persisted through those climate changes, like like twenty some glacial episodes. Right.

2123
02:17:09,240 --> 02:17:11,959
Speaker 1: So one of the interesting as a brief aside, one

2124
02:17:11,959 --> 02:17:15,600
Speaker 1: of the interesting predictions in this paper they talk about

2125
02:17:15,959 --> 02:17:19,320
Speaker 1: if we continue on the trajectory were on in terms

2126
02:17:19,320 --> 02:17:23,039
Speaker 1: of the loss of large mammals and looking at the

2127
02:17:23,080 --> 02:17:27,680
Speaker 1: species that are threatened with potential extinction on the horizon.

2128
02:17:28,240 --> 02:17:31,520
Speaker 1: You know, many of our largest mammals, as an example,

2129
02:17:31,600 --> 02:17:39,280
Speaker 1: Rhinoceros um African elephants, et cetera. The authors here say, thus,

2130
02:17:39,360 --> 02:17:41,800
Speaker 1: the largest mammal on Earth and a few hundred years

2131
02:17:41,840 --> 02:17:46,720
Speaker 1: may well be the domestic cow at about nine So

2132
02:17:48,800 --> 02:17:51,360
Speaker 1: the takeaway from this paper, though with regard to horses,

2133
02:17:52,440 --> 02:17:56,400
Speaker 1: is that this is a species which evolved as a

2134
02:17:56,440 --> 02:18:02,040
Speaker 1: prey species, including a human relationship to it as predators,

2135
02:18:02,360 --> 02:18:06,200
Speaker 1: likely to the point where we played a central role

2136
02:18:06,959 --> 02:18:12,320
Speaker 1: in the elimination of the original wild horses which we're

2137
02:18:12,360 --> 02:18:15,960
Speaker 1: now trying to resurrect, while also staying totally out of

2138
02:18:15,959 --> 02:18:19,440
Speaker 1: the equation in terms of any kind of population management

2139
02:18:20,240 --> 02:18:23,760
Speaker 1: to your point about it being irony rich. And then

2140
02:18:24,160 --> 02:18:28,200
Speaker 1: another paper that I want to share, also from Science UM,

2141
02:18:28,240 --> 02:18:34,080
Speaker 1: talks about the ancestry of domestic and Perswolski horses, and

2142
02:18:34,120 --> 02:18:37,960
Speaker 1: Perswolski horses were long thought to be the last remaining

2143
02:18:38,040 --> 02:18:44,480
Speaker 1: truly wild horse lineage UM and these researchers did a

2144
02:18:44,480 --> 02:18:50,400
Speaker 1: bunch of genetic analyzes and compared modern day Preswolski horses

2145
02:18:50,440 --> 02:18:54,160
Speaker 1: to various potential sources and essentially came to the conclusion

2146
02:18:54,200 --> 02:18:59,119
Speaker 1: that even the modern Perswolski horses are the direct descendants

2147
02:18:59,160 --> 02:19:05,400
Speaker 1: of horse is which were maintained for agricultural purposes about

2148
02:19:05,440 --> 02:19:12,280
Speaker 1: four thousand years ago um by bow tie people, and

2149
02:19:12,280 --> 02:19:15,680
Speaker 1: this was a very different relationship to horses. They talked

2150
02:19:15,680 --> 02:19:20,240
Speaker 1: about these archaeological sites where they found horse dung as

2151
02:19:20,240 --> 02:19:23,680
Speaker 1: well as evidence for pole axing, which would have been

2152
02:19:23,680 --> 02:19:27,920
Speaker 1: a way of dispatching horses, and they found evidence against

2153
02:19:28,200 --> 02:19:33,680
Speaker 1: selective body part transportation, suggesting controlled slaughter at settlements rather

2154
02:19:33,720 --> 02:19:38,600
Speaker 1: than hunting. Tools associated with leather, leather thong production, bit

2155
02:19:38,720 --> 02:19:44,520
Speaker 1: related dental pathologies and equine milk fats within ceramics support

2156
02:19:44,600 --> 02:19:49,480
Speaker 1: pastoral husbandry involving milking and harnessing. So these were people

2157
02:19:49,520 --> 02:19:56,600
Speaker 1: four thousand years ago living with the predecessors of the

2158
02:19:56,640 --> 02:19:58,720
Speaker 1: horses that have long thought to be the last wild

2159
02:19:58,720 --> 02:20:03,720
Speaker 1: horses in a situation where they're maintaining them for milking

2160
02:20:04,560 --> 02:20:07,880
Speaker 1: and also pole axing them for meat in their settlements

2161
02:20:08,040 --> 02:20:11,640
Speaker 1: as opposed to hunting forum. So a couple of takeaways

2162
02:20:11,640 --> 02:20:15,360
Speaker 1: would be just another example of the complexity of this

2163
02:20:15,440 --> 02:20:20,680
Speaker 1: relationship that we have to horses and the fact that

2164
02:20:20,920 --> 02:20:26,920
Speaker 1: four thousand years ago, the descendants the ancestors of the

2165
02:20:26,920 --> 02:20:31,240
Speaker 1: horses that we thought were the last wild horses domestic species.

2166
02:20:31,920 --> 02:20:34,959
Speaker 1: So let's say for a moment that we want to

2167
02:20:35,080 --> 02:20:41,080
Speaker 1: we want to treat these special status horses today as

2168
02:20:41,080 --> 02:20:45,080
Speaker 1: a wild species. To do so in the absence of

2169
02:20:45,240 --> 02:20:51,640
Speaker 1: any kind of meaningful predation, whether it's from a non

2170
02:20:51,720 --> 02:20:58,160
Speaker 1: human predator or a human predator, just seems like a

2171
02:20:58,240 --> 02:21:02,800
Speaker 1: recipe for more of what we've experienced thus far. And

2172
02:21:02,840 --> 02:21:07,240
Speaker 1: then the last point I would make is the horse

2173
02:21:08,160 --> 02:21:12,600
Speaker 1: issues are largely of an American public land issue. We've

2174
02:21:12,600 --> 02:21:15,680
Speaker 1: talked about the tribal lands issue, and we're talking about

2175
02:21:15,720 --> 02:21:18,680
Speaker 1: forest service and BLM management. We're talking about our shared

2176
02:21:18,720 --> 02:21:23,400
Speaker 1: American public lands. And to the point I made earlier

2177
02:21:23,400 --> 02:21:27,680
Speaker 1: about us Tailanni and I, you know, we're public servants.

2178
02:21:28,680 --> 02:21:32,360
Speaker 1: We do what the people want us to do as

2179
02:21:32,800 --> 02:21:39,360
Speaker 1: employees of the U. S D a forest service. The

2180
02:21:39,440 --> 02:21:43,360
Speaker 1: condition of our shared public lands and the work being

2181
02:21:43,400 --> 02:21:47,600
Speaker 1: done on those public lands, whatever is being prioritized or

2182
02:21:47,720 --> 02:21:52,400
Speaker 1: not prioritized to me, paints are very powerful and telling

2183
02:21:53,080 --> 02:21:59,240
Speaker 1: picture of the priorities and values and knowledge of the

2184
02:21:59,280 --> 02:22:07,560
Speaker 1: people of our country. Full stop, full stop. We're responding

2185
02:22:07,600 --> 02:22:13,279
Speaker 1: to what the people want, all right, You're honest, No,

2186
02:22:13,360 --> 02:22:26,039
Speaker 1: I can't. Dr Carl Malcolm and Dr Tilani Francisco, thank

2187
02:22:26,080 --> 02:22:28,600
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us and taking some time

2188
02:22:29,760 --> 02:22:37,280
Speaker 1: to talk about feral horses, and also the wild ones

2189
02:22:37,959 --> 02:22:40,600
Speaker 1: and the free ranging ones, and the free ranging ones,

2190
02:22:41,400 --> 02:22:49,600
Speaker 1: the special status ones, and the ones that one might

2191
02:22:49,720 --> 02:22:52,640
Speaker 1: argue we have a few too many of, so thanks

2192
02:22:52,640 --> 02:22:52,959
Speaker 1: again