WEBVTT - Ep. 126: Wild Horses 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.760 This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:17.680 severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:29.639 You can't predict anything, be honest. I um ordered, but 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:36.479 have not received a little kitty compound bow m for 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:41.520 my eight year old and I can't decide. I didn't 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.840 have one of those when I was eight. I can't 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.879 decide Carl would be interested. Get your perspective on this. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.920 I can't decide if it's like, um right, should he 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.680 be shooting like a stickbow to learn or should he 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:57.480 just like jump in because this is how it works 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.160 with a site pin in a comp um like are 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:07.720 you are you wasting time messing around learning fundamentals with 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:12.000 a traditional bow? Like? Are you just like messing around 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:13.640 in order to get to the real thing? Or is 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.959 it better just to be like, this is where it's leaded, 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.440 this is where it's heading, So just do this now, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.000 learn how to shoot a compound and a pin and 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.560 eight years of age? I got. I got one major issue. 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.800 You said, I'm taking for granted the fact that this 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.680 is where it's headed. I feel that that's where it's headed. Okay, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.760 well you could you could line up archery and hunting 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.800 in general, just me like, no, we're not on the 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.960 same page that like a compound with a pianist where 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.320 it's headed. Yeah, I just mean that when like in 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.600 four years, five years, when he's ready to hunt with 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.280 his bow, I just feel like we'll have landed at 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.880 a compound with pins and we will not have landed 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.800 at a traditional bow. Just basing it on, like who 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.320 is what is old man shoots to be weird that 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.120 he would be a purest like that he would develop 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.519 a purest sensibility in defiance of his old man right 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.919 at the age of twelve. So I'm just jumping him 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.040 into I just bought him a You're like bank fishing 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:26.200 with nightcrawlers, and he's casting upstream to rising fish only 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:32.200 with the in fact, doesn't like his father, but at 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:37.200 twelve he's still gonna like me not. I think you could. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.359 You could also, I'm sure secure the right equipment for 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.240 him to be dabbling with a variety of different options. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.919 It's almost like a good analogy would be the dad 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.440 who's helping his son or daughter learned to bat from 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.959 either side of the plate from an early age. What's 0:02:57.960 --> 0:02:59.680 your take on it? Do protel his kids are still 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.200 shooting m but was made out of PBC. But trad 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.960 bow is made out of traad ball out of PBC. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:13.799 Is that oxymoronic? Uh? No? Um? I think, yeah, give 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.200 him both and then let him choose, you know, let 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.720 him play with dabbling both and you know, if he's like, man, 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.000 this one's more fun than you know, let him shoot archery, 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:24.639 because I don't think that really the important thing is 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.280 that he really needs to be developing archery skills, you know, 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:30.840 at the age from eight to twelve. But more important 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.080 things that hopefully at twelve he still likes to shoot 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.960 a bow. Oh see, how yelled at him already? You 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.680 yell at him? How like? What? What like his stance? 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.200 Why yelled him? When I catch him shooting from a 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:48.520 seated position, I take all the fun out of it 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.119 except for my little girl. And I'm like, oh, s heart, 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.520 whatever you want classic. I know it's really bad, but 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.360 he seems to be receptive to it is from what 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.480 I see. Yeah's to like about it, like, you know, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.720 but even when you're like kind of hammering on him 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.800 about technique, he's not. He's not like but it was 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.400 the boat away and it's like mildly dangerous and definitely destructive, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.279 and so it's like they love it. So you're sending 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.600 a thing going really fast across the yard and it 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.360 can like break something. Was not like we just had 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.040 the I think I was telling you this. That was 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.279 my oldest who's six now. She just had and I 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.599 wasn't even there to witness it, but my wife was 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.680 saying that. She just picked up the boat. And up 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.520 until now, it's still been like left hand hold the boat, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.000 the string towards you, right hand, you know, put the 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.679 arrow on that, you know, kind of explain everything every 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.880 single shot, and for the first time, she just they 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.440 just pulled their bows down and she's out there all 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.800 on her own final, you know, flinging them. But they 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.040 still have way more enjoyment than both the six year 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.000 old and the four yield together. They get more enjoyment 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.920 out of they eat shoot once or twice, and it's 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.480 long as there's an arrow sticking in the target, whether 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.440 it's the turkey that's there or the deer or whatever. 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:06.920 The bulls go down and then they have this like 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.479 this big imaginary play of you know, sneaking up to 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.720 it and talking about who killed it and how it 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:14.520 died and what they're gonna do with it, And that 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.320 goes on for fifteen minutes and they finally loop back 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.880 around to taking another shot. They like that part of it. Yeah, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.960 just that the playtime around. You know, what happens after 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.800 there's an arrow stuck in that thing? Ye know, I'd 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.480 be like, oh, gut shot. I'm gonna lay out a 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.559 little bit about what we're going to be talking about 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:39.360 here and just give a kind of brief overview of 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:44.000 the deep history of the feral horse wild horse issue 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.679 here in the US. And this story, like, this story 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.800 can go back as deep as you want, because horses, 0:05:54.120 --> 0:06:00.520 you know, evolved here on our continent many any millions 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.000 of years ago. So the funny thing about it is 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.240 like if you look at continental drift, like at that time, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.839 our continent wasn't even where it is now on Earth. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:11.599 So it gets to be this sort of like really 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.520 weird question of where it happened. But so like this 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.640 land mass that we now know was configured differently and 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.960 in a different position at one point in time, and 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.520 at that point in time, we had horses, right, and 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:28.080 and horses seemed developed here and spread into Eurasia and 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.520 then the horses were around here for a long time. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.359 They used to be like a four toad horse, and 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.040 it became a one toad horse. And at the time 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:40.320 that human beings first arrived in the New World, you know, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.919 fourteen fifteen, perhaps twenty thousand years ago, they would have 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.480 come here and found a type of horse, along with 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:53.640 all sorts of other places scene megafauna that went extinct 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.920 around the time of the end of the last Ice Age. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.680 And so starting around thirteen and years ago, there's no 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.719 horses here in North America. They're gone. No horses in 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.320 South America. No horses in North America. We'll get into 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.120 later like what might have happened to them, but they 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.040 just weren't here. And then we enter into this long period, 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:21.160 this you know, basically thirteen thousand year period where we 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:27.880 have a horseless continent. Then we get into the early 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:34.480 hundreds and the Spanish you know, start coming over into 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.800 the New World messing around on in Mexico, and they 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.920 bring horses with them. They bring a domesticated form of 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.520 the horse with them. And it's around the late fifteen 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:52.720 forties that the Spanish start bringing some horses up into 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:57.120 what's now the US. Up into the real Grand region, 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.960 you know, around Santa Fe, New Mexico, up around Taos, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.280 New Mexico. They show up with horses. And there's this 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.760 like long period of time where you have domestic horses 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:14.240 owned by the Spaniards and sort of managed by Pueblo 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.240 tribes and Native American groups for the Spanish who are 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.640 like living among and working with the Spanish, up until 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.960 this thing that happens called the Pueblo Revolt. And we'll 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:24.640 talk about the Pueblo Revolt in a minute, but you 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:30.720 gotta understand, like how how much time passes between the 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:36.200 arrival of the Spanish with horses and the later distribution 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.960 of those horses up into the central parts of the 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:45.160 continent through trade paths developed by Native American tribes from 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.160 the date when the Spanish showed up up until the 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.080 Pueblo Revolt, when horses really started to move north. Um, 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.680 that time span is about as long is what separates 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.840 us now from Custer's death at the Battle of the 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.120 Little Big Horn. So horses for a long long time 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.840 we're confined down to the American Southwest. But during the 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:13.719 Pueblo Revolt, a lot of the Pueblo Indians rose up 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.000 and in a very you know, violent outbreak and retaliation 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.320 for even worse violent outbreaks committed against them, drove the 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.760 Spanish back out of the US, and they made off 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.839 with hundreds of horses. And the Spanish had always had 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.840 these prohibitions like Indians weren't allowed to ride horses. Indians 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.840 weren't allowed to own horses, but they had learned how 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.640 to breed and handle them. And once they booted the 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.679 Spanish out and stilled all these hundreds of horses, it 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.600 was like, you know, you took the cap off the bottle, right, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.240 and all of a sudden, these horses started getting traded 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:52.320 in in various northward directions. They were traded up the 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.439 west side of the Rockies, they were traded up through 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.880 the Great Plains. Uh. And it happened fast man. So 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.920 the Pueblo Revolt is eighty. By the seventeen thirties, horses 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.839 were up in the hands of Plains tribes up along 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.720 the Missouri River. By the seventeen seventies, tribes up in 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:16.839 the Canadian Plains had horses the principle like forms of distribution. 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.880 It seems that the Comanche Indians were very involved in 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.240 moving horses and in fact, once the horse came into 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.880 into being here, it really changed the way a lot 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:31.479 of the tribes functioned. So the Comanche, Lakota, the Cheyenne, 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.840 they all left their traditional homelands and moved onto the 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:43.400 plains to become nomadic bison hunters. Because of the introduction 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.160 of the horse, it changed everything. You could move more 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.800 material on a horse, you could keep a bigger lodge, 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.880 you could follow the herds through a buffalo herds throughout 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.360 the year, and it really changed everything. And it causes 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.640 major power division where these one these groups that had 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.400 once been kind of small, weak tribes became very powerful, 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.640 dominant tribes through the horse trade. And it said that 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.680 perhaps the Comanches through it, like through distribution channels that 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.679 they created, that they had funneled horses through their network 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.800 and and subsequent tribes along the trading path all the 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:22.640 way to French settlements east of the Mississippi. So horses 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.600 were just exploding out there and going everywhere. And it's 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.560 interesting to think, like, how how narrow this time window was. 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.839 Right that when Lewis and Clark show up on their transcontinental, 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.800 you know, journey out to the American West, they're encountering 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.040 groups of Indians that it only had horses for for 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.920 less than fifty years. We now look and we think 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:48.959 that this idea of the equestrian Native American bison hunter, right, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.160 so so that an Indian mounted on a horse out 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.040 chasing buffalo across the Great Plains. We tend to think 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.200 of that as this thing that had just occurred for 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.760 a long time. There's like the static thing that had 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.840 all always happened, and then it was interrupted by the 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.120 arrival of Europeans. But in fact there was a narrow blip, 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.040 you know, like that those cultures lasted about a hundred 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:15.880 years from the introduction of the horse up until the 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.080 military conquest of those tribes in the beginning of the 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.720 reservation systems. But it's just sort of like indelible images 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:27.880 burned into our cultural mind that these people were interacting 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.040 and using horses in their daily life for time immemorial, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.840 when in fact it wasn't that long. But horses just 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.920 exploded across the American West in these years. And there's 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:45.320 this estimate that even between the Arkansas River and the 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.600 Rio Grand at one time, you know, around the time 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.480 of when we were doing early European settlements on the 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:56.480 Great Plains that there was maybe two million horses wild 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:01.839 horses existing between those rivers. As you got more north right, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.720 the more severe winters, much harder for him, and far fewer. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.240 But on the southern plains there were probably so many 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.800 wild horses that it was probably like displacing native wildlife 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.720 even back then, even in the late seventeen in early 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:19.720 eighteen hundreds. What happened from there is that, you know, 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.160 over the course of Western settlement, those horseherds were just 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.040 reduced and reduced into reduced, like they weren't protected. People 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.560 could go out and round them up to sell them, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.079 they could round them up and use them for their 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.839 own personal use, and many, many, many of them were 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.560 rounded up by dudes called mustangers, who would go out 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.480 and just round a bunch up and put them in 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.800 a trailer and haul them off to a slaughter facility 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:45.800 and get some money for him, and they would go 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.560 into sausage and dog food and export markets. And that 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.240 line of work continued until it started to seem like 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.760 the wild horse was gonna vanish from the American landscape. 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.560 At the time we got down perhaps as few there's 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:06.200 twenty five thousand wild horses in the American West. And 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:10.439 then Congress came in and made what I regard as 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.880 a pretty big mistake where they came in and do 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:17.200 the Wild Horse, Burrow, Wild Horse and Borrow Protection Act, 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.000 which gives wild horses like a level of protection that's 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.080 greater than what we give things when we put them 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.200 on the Endangered Species Act. Because when things go on 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.160 the Endangered Species Act, imperiled species go on. There there's 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.440 a mechanism by which they come off once they recovered. 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.960 But the Wild Horse and Borrow Protection Act doesn't do that. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:41.440 It just says hands off, um, no, you know, not 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:46.280 doing lethal control on these, and it just it was 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.800 a mess. It created a mess. Even like in two 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:54.160 thousand seven there were twenty eight maybe an estimated point 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.680 five thousand wild horses in the American West. A decade later, 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.200 eighty three thousand, there is now far and away more 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:06.600 wild horses living in the American West. Then then we 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:12.560 can sustain um, it's having devastating impacts, devastating ecological impacts, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.640 devastating impacts a native wildlife. Where we're taking this feral 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.040 creature right, this feral horse, it was a domesticated animal 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.320 cut loose out in the landscape and it's wreaking havoc 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.840 on our native wildlife. Um So we're losing native wildlife 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.800 in the advancement of the interests of an introduced feral species. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.040 It's a mess. And since there's not lethal control right now, 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.680 people take some of these excess animals, not nearly all 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.120 of them and moving to these off range holding facilities 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.320 where you you lease private land and more lush grasslands 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.440 to the east. And they got forty four thousand of 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.840 these horses there living out their lives um at the 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:59.600 expense of American taxpayers and at the expense of a 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.000 minim will budget for managing wild horses in general, to 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.000 the point that half of the money designated for wild 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.600 horse work is being sucked up. And these off range 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:15.040 holding facilities total mess. So much of what I just 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.000 told you, you know, a lot of that's like has 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.120 a serious bit of personal spin thrown on it. And 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.560 you know that there's I'm revealing my opinion about the issue, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:27.440 But we're gonna talk to people who know a hell 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.520 of a lot more about it than I do, and 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.880 they might prove some places or show some places where 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.560 I was wrong or mistaken, but I wanted you have 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.960 that a little bit of background. And we're joined here 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.200 by a frequent guest on this show, Dr Carl Malcolm 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:47.560 and also Dr Tilani Francisco. So how how did you come, um, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:52.280 how did you come to get involved in the feral 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.520 horse issue? Yeah? I want to get answer that. Then 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:57.200 I want to talk about what term we're going to 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.880 use during this conversation. Yeah, I'm glad because is um. Yeah, 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:05.879 that's that's that's a lot of discussion. It does, it 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.400 really does. You're probably checking out that I said barr 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.760 barrel horses. Yes, we'll go ahead with the first question. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:12.960 How did you get involved in this? How did I 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.040 get involved in it? Well? And path? Yeah, so I 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.399 knew from the outset that I wanted to be a veterinarian. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.320 I mean from I think somewhere in junior high. I 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.920 mean I grew up around animals, grew up around horses, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.080 and so I've always had a desire to do that. Um, 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.240 my family owned lots of horses. Of course, we were 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.560 cattle people, So I grew up riding a horse. I 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.119 think I first got on a horse when I was 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.920 two weeks old. My dad said, so Yeah, I've had 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.439 a lifelong history of working horses and and life on 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.240 the rez, you know, free horse, free ranging horses on 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.200 the rez. When you needed a horse, you went out, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.880 you rounded horses up, you put them in a corral, 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.679 and then you proceeded to tame them. And you know, 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.159 so around I grew up around. I grew up around 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.040 you know, untamed horses, taming them and then riding them 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.320 out on the rez, and you know, and using them 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.719 for transportation. So I knew at an early age I 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.399 wanted to do something to help horses. So what right now, like, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:14.399 what is your what is your role right now and 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:20.439 working with wild horses horses? Yeah, we have to we 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.040 have to talk about what we're going to call them. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.359 So my position right now is I'm with the for 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.800 US for Service because they are part there are two 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:33.919 agencies that are entrusted with the the management of wild 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.560 horses and burrows as per the nineteen one Act, and 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.679 so the US Force Service and the Bureau of Land Management. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.720 I specifically work for the Southwestern region of the U. 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.919 S Force Service, which is Arizona, New Mexico, and our 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:53.560 grasslands in Texas and Oklahoma. And my primary duty My 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.199 actual job is the wild Horse and Borough coordinator, So 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.760 I am not employed as a veterinary medical officer, which 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.400 is a federal job, which I was before I came 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.840 to the Force Service. And you so you're working on 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.240 the horse issue on federal lands, just on for services, 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.880 just on for service lands. So when you say coordinators, 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.879 coordinator of activities across for a service lands. Yes, But 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.000 what's interesting to me is that I want to like 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.000 take them and back up in a second, is to 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:29.720 walk through kind of what we're talking about, but really quickly, Uh, 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:31.840 right now, what is the esset right now of how 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:37.360 many wild horses or feral horses live in the American West. So, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.160 you know, I really wish we had a good solid 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:45.520 number there. There are people that will say we're ninety thousand. 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.760 Some people have said no, We're closer to a million. 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.480 Some people yeah, and I'm like, I don't believe that. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.960 I know that in stretch well, and I think where 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.320 they get confused is that owned horses. So you go 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.040 back to the latest count by the World Animal Health Organization, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.960 they reported that North America, well United States, in two 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:16.080 thousand sixteen, the US had one point five million owned horses, 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.199 and so a million and a half horses in in 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.320 the United States, and some component of that could be 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.000 some of these wild or feral or unowned horses that 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.280 are free ranging. Because the reason I asked that it's 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.199 so because you've lived on the Navajo Nation and they 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.520 afford Apache, the White Mountain, Apache Reservation, the Mississippi Band 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:45.439 of Choctaws. The but I've read that that perhaps thirty 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:53.000 thousand wild horses are on the Navajo Nations. There's in 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.480 the American West, do they does it really have that 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.159 like that, that percentage of animals are found on that 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.960 land mass. That's what they say, In fact that their 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.320 latest one that I read was thirty eight thousand, and 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.240 then they gather between thirty yeah, yeah, and the Yakima, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.720 the Yakima Nation up in Washington. They think they may 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.720 have somewhere in the same, you know, like thousand. So 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.360 I mean, really, we don't know, to be honest with you, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:25.720 we don't know. I mean, you'll see all kinds of numbers. Yeah, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.000 you'll see all kinds of numbers thrown out out there, 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.280 and when it really comes down to it, we don't know. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.600 We don't know. We just know there's an awful lot. Okay, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.919 I want to talk about why that's a problem or 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.200 is it a problem? Well, it's an issue? What Yeah, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.600 it's an issue. Okay, So I want to talk about 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:49.360 why that's a problem slash issue. Um. But the next 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.920 thing I wanted to get into is breakdown for me 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.600 what people are signaling when they say feral horses and 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.920 what people are signaling when they say wild horses. Okay, 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:02.399 So I'm glad you asked that because a lot of 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.560 people throw the term wild horse out and they just 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.360 take it as a horse that's untamed that's come off 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:13.880 of the landscape, so and Mustang's wild horses. People will 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.120 use that term and not realize that the true wild 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:23.040 horse is a legal definition based on the nineteen seventy 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.600 one Act, and so a true wild horse is a 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.879 horse that is associated with either one of the US 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:35.560 Force Service wild Horse and Borough Territories that Congress established 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.680 in nineteen one, or it's a horse that has come 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.160 off of a Bureau of Land Management herd management area 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:48.359 that was established in nineteen seventy one. So it's a 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.639 legal term that is a horse that is associated with 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.280 one of those two types of properties. This is the 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:59.960 answer I expected. Yes, that's that's a that's a wild horse. 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:05.480 It has to be legally associated with a territory or 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.480 a herd management area, like an area where someone came 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.280 in and specified this is a place for wild horses 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:14.880 exist and can't exist. Yes, okay, so what is so 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.919 then talk about the feral horses. So a feral horse 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:26.800 is any horse that has once been in domestication, regardless 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.399 of how long back in time it was once domesticated. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.760 So it was once managed by two leggeds a particular horse, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:39.840 and not like a population any any whether it's a 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:45.960 population of horses, whether it's a single horse, so regardless, yes, 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:52.159 so regardless of how long ago it was that that 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:56.080 animal or that group of animals was once in domestication, 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.679 so it was once managed by two leggeds. So we 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:01.879 look like feral pigs, you know, and we know the 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:05.600 southeastern United States and all through like Texas and Florida 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.560 and Georgia and all the tons of feral pigs. Well 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.520 we know that we call them feral pigs because they 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.479 were not in the United States or they were not 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:20.160 native here. They were brought in by whomever. However, they 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:22.879 were left free and but but they had been brought 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:28.080 here as domesticated swine. Now they're free, they're roaming back 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:30.640 and and you know, some people say, well, yeah, they 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:33.239 look like Eurasian boors, and you know, and and so 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.880 they're they're obviously you know, I think that just shows 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:40.400 that they adapt back to their environment. In the case 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:44.240 of pigs, oh there are pigs. There are, and I'm 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:46.680 going to call them all feral pigs, but there are 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.800 pigs that were brought here that hadn't gone through a 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:56.440 domestication process, and that they were the ancestral wild pig. 0:24:57.080 --> 0:25:01.439 M because if you look at the domestic animals we 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:05.680 now know, like you take like a cow, okay, yeah, 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:10.320 the wild ancestral one is gone. The orcs doesn't exist anymore. 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:16.679 Or now people argue that the wild ancestral horse of 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:22.879 the Eurasian step no longer exists. We only have domesticated varieties. 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:27.720 But pigs are unusual because there still are the ancestral 0:25:27.840 --> 0:25:31.640 wild version of Sus scraffa is still running around out 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:34.160 there on his native range, and people have at times 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:39.960 captured them, not domesticated them, and brought those specific animals 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:42.960 in and cut them loose here where they promptly go 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:47.800 and find feral farm version running around in the wild 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:50.520 and and inner breed. But I think that that little 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:58.240 difference causes a lot of head scratching among wild pig enthusiasts, 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:02.360 of which I kind of count myself. But I think that, like, 0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:06.960 because they're not native here, and they all are here 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:10.960 from the result of some form of human introduction, we 0:26:11.000 --> 0:26:13.920 tend to refer to them as like when you're getting technical, 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:17.560 refer like feral picks, because they're all just dumped out. 0:26:19.760 --> 0:26:23.639 When I was talking about calling like the debate between 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:25.520 feral horses and wild horses, I didn't know that it 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:29.919 had I didn't know that there was a legal Can 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:32.359 I tell what I thought it was. I thought it 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:38.840 was a sort of statement of one's acceptance of this 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:45.840 animal as wildlife, no meaning. But but I do, okay, 0:26:45.840 --> 0:26:47.720 But I do want to walk through. I want to 0:26:47.720 --> 0:26:50.240 touch on the couple of things to bring people up speed, 0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:54.920 and you can jump in where you want. But um, 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:57.280 in this horse debate, there's some things that people love 0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:00.760 to point out, right. They love to point out that 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:07.320 it seemed that the horse evolved here million years ago, 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:12.200 right on we were we weren't here because of continental drift, 0:27:12.240 --> 0:27:15.160 but on this like moving hunk of land and how 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:18.479 its orientation has changed dramatically. But on this sort of 0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:21.720 moving hunk of land which now happens to sit where 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:28.280 it currently sits today, horses came about and emanated from 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:32.320 here and spread to Europe and or what is now Eurasia, 0:27:33.480 --> 0:27:36.320 and in that process they became a solo ped because 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:39.280 the first ones were bipeds, had like four that's like 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:43.040 four toes, there's a one toe. And then then then 0:27:43.080 --> 0:27:48.800 they existed here in a recognizable form up until the 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.360 place to see hola scene transition. So they existed here 0:27:52.359 --> 0:27:56.840 in some kind of recognizable form up until around thirteen 0:27:56.880 --> 0:28:04.800 thousand years ago. And it's it's reasonable to assume that 0:28:06.040 --> 0:28:16.080 human hunters once hunted the native North American horse, that 0:28:16.080 --> 0:28:21.240 that there was a overlap of horses existence here in 0:28:21.320 --> 0:28:27.080 human existence here. But then for twelve thousand years thousand 0:28:27.160 --> 0:28:32.160 years roughly, there were no horses here. Are you? Are 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:35.399 you cool with everything I'm saying so far? Yea, no 0:28:35.560 --> 0:28:39.720 horses here. The Spanish show up and they bring with 0:28:39.800 --> 0:28:45.280 them some horses. Yeah, because the Vikings probably didn't probably 0:28:45.320 --> 0:28:48.080 didn't care. Yeah, they probably didn't carry their horses, and 0:28:48.200 --> 0:28:53.200 the Spanish introduce a different form of horse here, and 0:28:53.640 --> 0:28:59.400 these horses um were established in the American Southwest and 0:28:59.440 --> 0:29:05.840 in Mexico, co. And eventually they were through trade networks 0:29:06.000 --> 0:29:12.040 spread northward and by around I think by around the 0:29:12.280 --> 0:29:16.720 seventeen seventies, horses had spread all the way up into 0:29:16.720 --> 0:29:21.760 the Canadian planes. And so some people choose to look 0:29:21.800 --> 0:29:27.600 at this as being a continuum and that horses and 0:29:27.800 --> 0:29:33.000 some by some definition, horses could count as wildlife that 0:29:33.160 --> 0:29:36.720 just happened to be gone for twelve thousand years, but 0:29:36.760 --> 0:29:42.320 now they're back on there in their rightful home. Some 0:29:42.360 --> 0:29:44.479 people look at horses the same way to look at 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:48.120 wild pigs, and they say, nope, not from here. It's 0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:51.719 a different kind. They were brought here by humans and 0:29:51.760 --> 0:29:57.040 their feral livestock. When I say feral horse, I am 0:29:57.120 --> 0:29:59.920 signifying my belief. I feel that all I am signifying 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:04.040 I believe that they should be treated like feral livestock. Well, 0:30:04.080 --> 0:30:07.600 I think people say a wild horse, they're sort of 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:11.960 signifying a belief that it's wildlife. That was what I 0:30:11.960 --> 0:30:13.840 thought up until the moment that you just told me 0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:18.280 that there's an actual definition of a wild horse. Yeah, no, 0:30:18.760 --> 0:30:21.280 the the wild horse. Like I said, it's a it's 0:30:21.320 --> 0:30:24.360 a legal definition. And those are the animals that are 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:29.440 associated with those territories or him as herd management areas. 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:32.560 Is it fair to say right now that we have 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:37.400 vastly well, let's not put that word there. Is it 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:40.200 fair to say right now that we have let's say, 0:30:40.280 --> 0:30:47.640 way or just too many, too many wild horses, feral 0:30:47.680 --> 0:30:51.800 horses there and the Yeah, there are there are people 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:55.920 that would say, yes, we have too many horses. And 0:30:55.920 --> 0:30:58.240 then there will people there will be people that say, 0:30:58.360 --> 0:31:00.720 we don't have too many horses. We have too many 0:31:00.840 --> 0:31:04.720 people with livestock, sheep and goats and cattle that are 0:31:04.840 --> 0:31:09.080 using the same area. So so and that, you know, 0:31:09.160 --> 0:31:12.280 and that's where the disagreement comes in. Um, we have 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:15.640 groups that are on either side, you know that say, 0:31:15.720 --> 0:31:17.440 and then there's people that say, you know what, we 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:21.480 can all co exist and and really what we deal 0:31:21.520 --> 0:31:23.520 with in the Forest Service and in the Bureau of 0:31:23.560 --> 0:31:28.760 Land Management are just those managed territories that we by 0:31:28.800 --> 0:31:33.560 mandate Congress told us thou shalt you will manage these 0:31:33.640 --> 0:31:39.560 territories so that we can have thriving ecological balance that 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:43.960 horses can be on the landscape with the lives of 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.520 the wildlife. And in those areas where we have a 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:50.680 lot you know, permitted lands, a lot of land allotments 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:53.960 where people can come in for certain periods of time 0:31:54.000 --> 0:31:59.000 throughout the year, um and and graze their livestock, because 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:02.640 that is part of America West as well, you know 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:07.800 land um, people raising their cattle and their sheep. UM. 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:10.800 So we have to allow for all of that, and 0:32:11.000 --> 0:32:15.800 one doesn't take precedence over the other. And on those 0:32:15.960 --> 0:32:20.600 specified lands, we can't say that the horses are more 0:32:20.640 --> 0:32:23.040 important than the cattle. If there is a you know, 0:32:23.360 --> 0:32:27.600 a part of allotment that is there, what it says 0:32:27.760 --> 0:32:32.760 is you first and foremost have to manage that piece 0:32:32.800 --> 0:32:37.000 of land so that it can grow enough forage and 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:41.480 brows and everything to allow four horses, for cattle, for 0:32:41.680 --> 0:32:45.240 wildlife and for everybody to be there. Okay, but where 0:32:45.240 --> 0:32:51.720 in this equation, um, you mentioned the conflicts between livestock 0:32:51.800 --> 0:32:56.720 grazers and feral horses. But when you rank all that out, 0:32:56.720 --> 0:33:00.320 where does the needs of native wildlife fit in? It's cool, 0:33:01.360 --> 0:33:05.320 they're they're yes, they all have to be there on 0:33:05.400 --> 0:33:09.600 those particular lands. On those lands, yes, on the wild 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:12.600 horse territories and on the h M A S. How 0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:15.040 do you what is the difference if you talk about 0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:19.680 the legal difference between a legally designated wild horse an 0:33:19.720 --> 0:33:24.440 illegally regarded feral horse. You know, let me ask this first. 0:33:24.600 --> 0:33:26.680 That doesn't make it won't make sense yet. Can you 0:33:26.720 --> 0:33:31.480 explain what happened when the Wild Horse and Borough Protection 0:33:31.560 --> 0:33:37.680 Act came in in the seventies. Can you explain like 0:33:37.800 --> 0:33:40.320 what was going on prior, like how did we manage 0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:43.560 and control wild horse numbers before that? And what happened 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:47.280 after that happened? Well, I think the biggest thing that 0:33:47.400 --> 0:33:51.120 happened was, um, people, you know, horses were just out 0:33:51.120 --> 0:33:53.840 on the landscape. Like I mentioned on my reservation, if 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:56.880 we needed a horse, you would go out. You you 0:33:56.920 --> 0:33:59.400 knew that there were areas, you know, on these vast 0:33:59.480 --> 0:34:04.120 landscape where horse bands were at and so you knew, hey, 0:34:04.120 --> 0:34:06.040 we're going to round up horses and we're going to 0:34:06.160 --> 0:34:09.000 see which ones we can use, which ones maybe are 0:34:09.040 --> 0:34:14.160 not usable, and we would tame those horses. We would 0:34:14.280 --> 0:34:18.920 you know, in quote domesticate them, um, when in reality 0:34:18.960 --> 0:34:21.520 they probably somewhere like I said, some ancestor of that 0:34:21.600 --> 0:34:28.080 horse had been domesticated. But so I mean indisputably right. So, um, 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:29.879 if you had if you had to trace it back 0:34:33.239 --> 0:34:37.640 however long ago it was, it was in domestication. So 0:34:37.719 --> 0:34:41.759 what had happened really was that throughout like the thirties, forties, 0:34:42.200 --> 0:34:46.600 fifties and and really I guess it was really like 0:34:46.640 --> 0:34:48.480 in the fifties and sixties. So you know when you 0:34:48.480 --> 0:34:52.680 have the dust bowl back in the thirties and stuff, Um, 0:34:52.840 --> 0:34:55.680 animals were starving, you know. It was we'd go through 0:34:55.680 --> 0:34:57.759 these droughts like we have this year where you just 0:34:57.840 --> 0:35:01.360 have you know, massive die offs and stuff, and people 0:35:01.400 --> 0:35:03.520 will say, well, that's mother nature and all of that. 0:35:04.239 --> 0:35:10.200 Well what would happen is ranchers people that we're making 0:35:10.239 --> 0:35:13.160 money or whatever. Um, they would go up and they 0:35:13.200 --> 0:35:17.960 would round up horses, sometimes by not all that humane methods, 0:35:18.000 --> 0:35:20.080 you know. I mean I've seen pictures I've never seen 0:35:20.120 --> 0:35:25.040 it personally where people would, um, you know, very inhumanely 0:35:26.080 --> 0:35:30.120 rope these horses and drag them and um, I mean 0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:32.960 it was pretty barbaric the way some of the methods 0:35:33.080 --> 0:35:36.160 that people used for what purpose? While were they rounding 0:35:36.200 --> 0:35:39.600 them up, then there mustangers, right, they were mustangers, and 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:43.320 they would take them to dogfood plants, you know, and 0:35:43.320 --> 0:35:45.719 and so the methods, and you have to remember that 0:35:45.880 --> 0:35:50.880 back in that time, the mentality or the paradigm was 0:35:50.960 --> 0:35:54.759 animals don't have feelings, animals don't understand pain, so it 0:35:54.840 --> 0:35:59.160 doesn't really matter. So very different paradigm than where we 0:35:59.200 --> 0:36:02.520 are at today, where we recognize that, you know, humane 0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:06.160 methods are necessary, low stress. Stress has a huge effect 0:36:06.160 --> 0:36:11.239 on animals. But you know, to to I guess a 0:36:11.280 --> 0:36:14.400 little bit to that defense people didn't know any better. 0:36:15.480 --> 0:36:17.200 I know you weren't there to. I know you weren't 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:20.200 like there to witness all parts of this like personally. 0:36:20.200 --> 0:36:24.040 But was it perceived that horses were handling the way 0:36:24.080 --> 0:36:27.960 that one wouldn't handle cattle, Like would would a mustang 0:36:28.040 --> 0:36:33.120 er be more aggressive, more cruel, if you will, with 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:36.480 when rounding up wild horses, that would be standard handling 0:36:36.520 --> 0:36:39.560 practice for cattle. No, I think they handled them all 0:36:39.600 --> 0:36:42.000 the same. I think that you know, and and being 0:36:42.040 --> 0:36:45.319 around cattle and stuff. I think I think people just 0:36:45.840 --> 0:36:49.239 look at horses. I mean, let's face it, you look 0:36:49.239 --> 0:36:51.520 at a horse and you just kind of oh, you know, 0:36:51.520 --> 0:36:54.040 and you want to think that every horse is like Secretariat, 0:36:54.800 --> 0:36:57.719 you know, and they're gentle and and every horse is 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:00.000 black beauty, and you know, and I grew up, I mean, 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:03.000 I you know, justin Morgan had a horse, and I 0:37:03.080 --> 0:37:05.800 read all of my friend Flicka, and so we all 0:37:05.840 --> 0:37:09.000 want to believe that those horses are like that, that 0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:11.880 every horse is gentle, and every horse is you know, 0:37:12.080 --> 0:37:14.400 just wonderful. And and you see them out on the 0:37:14.480 --> 0:37:17.120 landscape and I'll tell you, I'm I'm you know the 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:19.480 same way. You see them running and you're like, God, 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:24.080 they're just beautiful. And yeah, I mean I agree, they're 0:37:24.160 --> 0:37:28.759 they're gorgeous, they're majestic, they're they're just beautiful animals. Yeah. 0:37:28.760 --> 0:37:33.080 Buddy Mines suggests that eye size and eyelash length have 0:37:33.200 --> 0:37:35.719 a lot to do with how we perceive animals. And 0:37:35.719 --> 0:37:38.319 they score very high in that way that tail and 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:40.600 you know, in a flowing Maine and and in the 0:37:40.640 --> 0:37:44.080 summertime when they're slick, you know, and and and you 0:37:44.120 --> 0:37:46.520 see them if you've got grass and stuff. I mean, 0:37:46.600 --> 0:37:49.719 they are they're a beautiful, just majestic animal. And and 0:37:49.760 --> 0:37:53.160 we equate that too, you know, looking at animals going 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:56.040 back then to you know, Kentucky where you've got race 0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:58.680 horses and and stuff, and and yeah, I mean there 0:37:58.760 --> 0:38:03.600 is a there's a romantic nature about them. And and 0:38:03.640 --> 0:38:07.840 then you look at UM. Well, you know how the 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:10.440 West would not have been one were it not for horses. 0:38:11.080 --> 0:38:13.359 You know. So coming from a native background where I 0:38:13.400 --> 0:38:16.560 came from, the horse was huge for us. That was 0:38:16.600 --> 0:38:20.120 our means of transportation. And I mean we're poeblos. We 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:23.239 were not horsemen like the Plains tribes you know that 0:38:23.360 --> 0:38:27.520 were very accomplished horse people. We had horses, but they 0:38:27.560 --> 0:38:30.160 were you know, they were they were pretty much, you know, 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:34.040 beast of burden they were. They were transporting, they were 0:38:34.040 --> 0:38:36.879 helping with you know, farming and stuff like that. They 0:38:37.400 --> 0:38:43.080 That's a really interesting perspective about UM thinking about our 0:38:43.120 --> 0:38:49.120 association of planes, tribes, the plane of the nomadic planes, tribes, 0:38:49.680 --> 0:38:53.719 and the horse. It's interesting me look at what a 0:38:53.840 --> 0:38:57.239 narrow window of time that was where when Lewis and 0:38:57.280 --> 0:39:04.560 Clark we're doing there transcontinental journey, they were encountering tribes 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:07.080 along in the Missouri that had probably had the horse 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:11.839 for only fifty years. And then that window and then 0:39:11.960 --> 0:39:14.800 with the beginning of the reservation system in the final 0:39:15.000 --> 0:39:19.520 like bloody conquest of the nomadic planes tribes. That window 0:39:19.719 --> 0:39:26.680 was year window of the equestrian right. The equestrian Native 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:31.680 American bison hunter was this finite thing. But it's like 0:39:31.800 --> 0:39:35.160 it's when people it's when people from like my culture, 0:39:35.160 --> 0:39:37.520 it's when we caught it and saw it, and so 0:39:37.600 --> 0:39:39.799 we hold in our heads. Is this like constant thing, 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:44.000 this idea of the mounted right, you know, when you 0:39:44.080 --> 0:39:50.800 had perhaps tens of thousands of years of human history 0:39:50.880 --> 0:39:54.960 absent the horse, but it seemed to just have this 0:39:55.080 --> 0:39:57.520 like it just seems it just still today like really 0:39:57.600 --> 0:40:02.040 captures you don't see that image, you know, the person 0:40:02.120 --> 0:40:05.319 with the bow and the flowing head dress on a horse. 0:40:05.320 --> 0:40:06.960 You don't see that image would be like, well that 0:40:07.040 --> 0:40:09.800 was just like this little thing that happened all of 0:40:09.840 --> 0:40:12.760 a sudden for a short period of time. It really 0:40:13.160 --> 0:40:16.960 it just it like seems to captivate people. Yeah, the 0:40:17.000 --> 0:40:19.719 idea of it. And I don't know if this is true, 0:40:19.719 --> 0:40:23.239 but I've even heard that there are that there are 0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:27.640 Native American creation myths that account for the horse as 0:40:27.640 --> 0:40:31.160 though it always existed. I don't know if that's true 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:33.279 or not, but I've heard people say that, Yeah, and 0:40:33.320 --> 0:40:36.480 you have horse societies, and in different tribes, you know, 0:40:36.520 --> 0:40:39.600 they have you know, horse societies. I've heard um different 0:40:40.360 --> 0:40:42.680 My my tribe doesn't have a horse society at the 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:45.279 Pueblo of Laguna, but I've heard other tribes that talk 0:40:45.360 --> 0:40:48.480 about they have, you know, a horse society or or 0:40:48.520 --> 0:40:51.719 a clan or something like that that goes back um 0:40:51.760 --> 0:40:54.520 that they believe the horse. Yeah, was very important that 0:40:54.920 --> 0:40:58.800 when Creator made all creations, he made he made horse. 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:05.359 Now they don't specify what type of horse Creator made, 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:08.560 but Creator made horse just as he made us. That's 0:41:08.600 --> 0:41:10.960 one thing I've heard people reference when people are talking, 0:41:11.000 --> 0:41:13.719 when when people are trying to express their opinion that 0:41:13.960 --> 0:41:18.359 the wild horse has a sort of legitimate claim as 0:41:18.480 --> 0:41:24.080 wildlife in this country, that they would sight oral legend 0:41:24.640 --> 0:41:30.520 from indigenous people's about deep relationships to the animals. So 0:41:32.360 --> 0:41:35.399 during this era, the round up era, when people could, 0:41:35.520 --> 0:41:37.479 like you said, like when you grew up, you catch 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:39.640 a horse if you wanted it, or you could go 0:41:39.640 --> 0:41:42.520 out and make it. Couldn't have been a ton of money, 0:41:42.560 --> 0:41:46.480 but some money rounding up horses and selling them into slaughter. 0:41:47.960 --> 0:41:51.520 That the animals were actually pushed to a point where 0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:54.960 people felt that they might vanish from the landscape, which 0:41:55.000 --> 0:41:56.880 is hard to believe when you see that. Some people 0:41:57.080 --> 0:42:01.200 estimate that, like around the time, you know, of the 0:42:01.280 --> 0:42:08.600 late ear, that there were maybe two million horses. I've 0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:12.680 heard between like the Arkansas and real Grand Rivers, So 0:42:13.840 --> 0:42:15.719 there were that many. But then there was a fear 0:42:15.719 --> 0:42:19.440 that we were gonna that people thought that the mustangers, 0:42:19.520 --> 0:42:22.920 the individuals out collecting up horses for their own purposes, 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:28.000 would eradicate the animal. Yeah, does that seem like something 0:42:28.000 --> 0:42:30.240 that we could have plausibly pulled off? I mean, did 0:42:30.320 --> 0:42:34.240 it seem like that, like that the resources that finite, 0:42:35.160 --> 0:42:37.919 you know, as two leggeds. I think we always think 0:42:37.960 --> 0:42:41.160 that we're the apex predator on the planet, and so 0:42:41.280 --> 0:42:44.520 I think that people probably thought, yeah, you know what 0:42:44.680 --> 0:42:49.120 we could potentially if if everybody went out there, which 0:42:49.160 --> 0:42:52.120 is why we have the Threatened Endangered Species Act, right, 0:42:52.239 --> 0:42:56.120 because we tend to look at one thing and you know, 0:42:56.160 --> 0:42:59.839 and and a lot of people will say whether it's evolution, 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:02.600 you know that things are changing and species die off 0:43:02.680 --> 0:43:05.799 and new species come in. Whatever. I mean, I don't 0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:09.440 know how that that whole you know, theory goes with. 0:43:09.560 --> 0:43:12.600 And everybody's got their own opinion of it, and it's 0:43:12.600 --> 0:43:15.040 some of it is very scientifically based and some of 0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:20.160 it is just opinion based. But um to think that 0:43:20.160 --> 0:43:24.719 that we would eradicate all horses. And that's where I 0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:28.400 think a lot of people lose track in in saying 0:43:28.440 --> 0:43:33.040 that the wild horse is a species within itself, you know, 0:43:33.120 --> 0:43:36.719 gena species, even though it's equis calibus. But and then 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:39.400 you look at you know, Thoroughbreds and standard Breds and 0:43:39.440 --> 0:43:43.120 Tennessee walkers, and you know the American Pinto and all 0:43:43.160 --> 0:43:47.240 the different known breeds of horses, that they are different 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:50.440 than the wild horse. So I think that's where a 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:52.759 lot of people get mixed up is because they think 0:43:53.200 --> 0:43:56.279 that that the wild horses they like to call them, 0:43:56.320 --> 0:44:00.480 and now you might know that that's not correct, but 0:44:00.640 --> 0:44:03.680 that a feral horse or a free roaming horse, because 0:44:03.680 --> 0:44:08.040 the Act does does call them wild free ranging or 0:44:08.040 --> 0:44:13.120 wild free roaming horses and burrows, so it indicated that 0:44:13.360 --> 0:44:17.600 they were wild because they were associated to that territory. 0:44:17.760 --> 0:44:20.760 They were free roaming, meaning that they were not held 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:24.120 in the confines of any fencing or they were not 0:44:24.239 --> 0:44:29.200 restricted just to that territory, but they should be associated 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:31.960 with that territory and as long as they were on 0:44:32.000 --> 0:44:35.840 that territory, they must thrive. There must be ecological balance, 0:44:35.920 --> 0:44:39.120 there must be genetic diversity, all of that. Well, the 0:44:39.160 --> 0:44:43.160 states in the America West, which states have what are 0:44:43.480 --> 0:44:52.680 legally recognized as wild horses. So we have wild horse 0:44:52.719 --> 0:45:00.200 and borough territories in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. I'm just 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:05.560 going up basically up the west. Um Utah, Nevada they 0:45:05.600 --> 0:45:09.520 probably have the most. Utah, Nevada by far have the most. 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:15.319 California and Oregon they all have it, and then Wyoming 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:21.359 and the prior mountains in Montana. So in those places, 0:45:22.160 --> 0:45:28.479 it's around these designated areas. Those are the places where 0:45:28.520 --> 0:45:32.480 horses have some level of federal protection. So if you're 0:45:32.520 --> 0:45:37.319 not in one of those states. Let's say you're in 0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:42.759 Kansas and you and there's a horse running around and 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:45.120 no one really knows who owns it, it's running around 0:45:45.160 --> 0:45:47.120 out in the woods or running around out on the plains, 0:45:48.120 --> 0:45:51.800 that horse would not be legally regarded as a wild horse. 0:45:52.120 --> 0:45:55.640 It would not be protected by the Wild Horse and 0:45:55.760 --> 0:45:59.240 Borrow Act. That would depend because we have the Bureau 0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:02.960 Plant Management has some long term holding pastures in the 0:46:03.040 --> 0:46:10.080 Midwest where there's abundant grass, so in uh Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, 0:46:10.200 --> 0:46:14.239 I mean not Nevada, Missouri, and um Nebraska, and some 0:46:14.440 --> 0:46:17.319 I think there's some in South Dakota, even where they 0:46:17.400 --> 0:46:22.040 pay ranchers or farm you know, landowners that have big 0:46:22.080 --> 0:46:24.760 plots of land that have abundant grass because it's prairie 0:46:24.760 --> 0:46:29.400 grass where those animals are taken and they live there 0:46:29.440 --> 0:46:32.840 the rest of their lives. Those animals are still protected 0:46:32.840 --> 0:46:35.600 because they're wild horses and burrows because they have been 0:46:35.680 --> 0:46:40.560 removed from a designated territory or h m A, which 0:46:40.800 --> 0:46:44.440 kind of points of the real mess right where we 0:46:44.640 --> 0:46:50.080 have what many would argue is a great overabundance of 0:46:50.120 --> 0:46:56.000 wild horses that have like exceeded carrying capacity of certain landscapes. 0:46:56.880 --> 0:47:01.360 But we can't do lethal control on the wild horses 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:05.040 because of the Wild Horse and Borrel Protection Act, So 0:47:05.080 --> 0:47:10.160 they need to be gathered up and sent to other 0:47:10.239 --> 0:47:14.560 places where the government leases grazing lands from private individuals 0:47:14.640 --> 0:47:19.080 to allow those horses to live out their life. And 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:22.040 we paid I think we've paid about a billion dollars 0:47:22.040 --> 0:47:25.400 to feed these horses, and it's projected that will probably 0:47:25.400 --> 0:47:29.759 pushing at some point into three billion dollars. Yeah, right now, 0:47:30.680 --> 0:47:34.000 right now, the latest UM that we're looking at is 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:38.879 it on average in long term holding five to seven 0:47:38.920 --> 0:47:44.759 dollars per horse. So yeah, for the lifetime of their 0:47:45.719 --> 0:47:48.360 it gets pretty expensive. Yeah, there's an estimate from the 0:47:48.360 --> 0:47:54.000 BLM that one unadopted horse can run about forty eight 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:57.520 thousand dollars to remain in a corral over its lifetime. 0:47:57.600 --> 0:48:00.720 To the American taxpayer forty eight thousand dollars per horse 0:48:00.960 --> 0:48:06.200 for its lifetime in captivity. That's a little horresponsive costing. 0:48:06.320 --> 0:48:08.280 That's where the horse has the potential to wind up costing. 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:11.120 And to your point about the proportion of the budget UM, 0:48:11.239 --> 0:48:13.440 we're at a point now where the investment in these 0:48:13.480 --> 0:48:16.960 kind of holding holding facilities and paying for pasture well 0:48:17.040 --> 0:48:20.560 exceeds almost two thirds of the budget for the total, 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:24.080 while horse and burrow program goes to off range care. 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:27.600 So I've got some numbers from the BLM that talked 0:48:27.600 --> 0:48:32.520 about umto wild horses and burrows in off range corrals 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:36.320 and pastures to the tune of forty nine million dollars 0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:41.319 UM for the twenty sixteen data. Looks like, did you 0:48:41.400 --> 0:48:47.840 follow what went on this past February when the Navajo 0:48:47.960 --> 0:48:52.919 Nation proposed that they were going to do a horse hunt. Yeah, 0:48:52.960 --> 0:48:56.640 we were having uh an All Voices Summit at New 0:48:56.680 --> 0:49:01.600 Mexico State University and that week that they put that out, Um, 0:49:01.640 --> 0:49:03.640 you know, we we were having this summit and it 0:49:03.680 --> 0:49:06.840 was we wanted everybody there. We wanted advocate groups, we 0:49:06.960 --> 0:49:12.120 wanted the pro slaughter groups, we wanted the ranchers, we 0:49:12.160 --> 0:49:14.760 wanted everybody there. And we got a lot of tribal 0:49:15.280 --> 0:49:19.160 because New Mexico has so many tribal nations. But the 0:49:19.400 --> 0:49:22.200 horse that they proposed is going to happen in Arizona, right, 0:49:22.440 --> 0:49:25.920 But Navajo Nation, you know, goes into Utah, Arizona, New 0:49:25.920 --> 0:49:29.520 Mexico and so on. Window Rock. Their headquarters is right 0:49:29.600 --> 0:49:32.239 on the state line Arizona, New Mexico state line. So 0:49:32.320 --> 0:49:36.200 we we had a lot of um Navajo Nation representatives 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:38.640 that are All Voices summit, and that was one thing 0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:41.600 we wanted them to talk about because we got there 0:49:41.640 --> 0:49:44.839 on Monday and they you know, they were talking about 0:49:44.840 --> 0:49:46.719 we're going to have this horse hunt. It was only 0:49:46.760 --> 0:49:50.640 for sixty animals, it was in a very remote area 0:49:50.800 --> 0:49:54.160 and they only wanted to to sell to tribal members. 0:49:54.200 --> 0:50:01.360 It was five dollars and um ahead, yeah, ten the tag. Yeah, 0:50:01.600 --> 0:50:04.920 and you're allowed a non branded, a non branded animal 0:50:05.320 --> 0:50:08.880 in this one specific location in a very small area 0:50:09.080 --> 0:50:11.600 of the Navajo Nation. And it was in response to 0:50:13.200 --> 0:50:17.440 a drought, correct, Like they figured that hard times are coming. 0:50:17.880 --> 0:50:20.000 Well yeah, and they knew and they knew that um 0:50:20.080 --> 0:50:22.480 years years before, they've had a hard time with their 0:50:22.600 --> 0:50:25.600 mule deer population in that area. And so they said, 0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:28.760 you know, we need to really look at this. And 0:50:28.760 --> 0:50:31.320 and when you look at a lot of tribal groups, 0:50:31.480 --> 0:50:35.000 they are I mean, we're very connected to the wildlife, 0:50:35.040 --> 0:50:37.440 to all the creature, you know, all the creatures that 0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:40.080 Creator made. And so they said, yeah, we need we 0:50:40.120 --> 0:50:42.920 need to really protect those deer. And so they were 0:50:43.040 --> 0:50:47.880 really working hard to try and increase the you know, 0:50:48.000 --> 0:50:51.040 the brows for for the deer. And so they said, 0:50:51.040 --> 0:50:52.640 we need to get we need to knock some of 0:50:52.640 --> 0:50:55.799 these horse numbers back. And so they've been fighting over it, 0:50:55.880 --> 0:50:57.600 you know, kind of you know, I know, it's it's 0:50:57.600 --> 0:51:01.040 a very difficult decision. And so I was surprised when 0:51:01.080 --> 0:51:03.120 I saw that come out, and I said, oh wow, 0:51:03.360 --> 0:51:07.160 I mean that's bold, that's really bold people right away. 0:51:07.200 --> 0:51:08.959 I can't tell how many people sent me a link 0:51:09.880 --> 0:51:15.880 two like links to the the basically the fish and 0:51:15.920 --> 0:51:20.320 game site for tribal agency, yeah for for for Navajo 0:51:20.360 --> 0:51:22.600 Game and fish. And they were like, the link didn't 0:51:22.680 --> 0:51:25.240 last long. It did not like I think it lasted 0:51:25.280 --> 0:51:29.680 over the weekend. But someone pointed out, some pointed out 0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:34.160 that the the you know, we have maybe forty thousand 0:51:35.560 --> 0:51:41.040 upwards horses on our reservation. They eat about thirty two 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:43.919 pounds of grass a day, ten gallons of water to day, 0:51:43.960 --> 0:51:46.719 and we just don't have the grass and water. Yeah. Yeah, 0:51:46.760 --> 0:51:51.680 anybody who's driven through southern Utah, northern Arizona, western New Mexico, 0:51:51.800 --> 0:51:55.120 you will see there is not a lot of vegetation. 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.320 And then you throw in this drought that we've had. 0:51:58.480 --> 0:52:03.640 We've had what two rains last October? So what were 0:52:03.680 --> 0:52:06.680 the primary things that what were the primary pushbacks that 0:52:06.760 --> 0:52:10.719 caused them to cancel the hunt? Was it internal or external? 0:52:10.920 --> 0:52:13.920 What I was told was that it was to twofold, 0:52:14.080 --> 0:52:18.120 So they did have some um, some external um involvement 0:52:18.360 --> 0:52:21.719 um from non natives that you know. Of course, you 0:52:21.920 --> 0:52:25.000 came up and talked to the tribal council and presented 0:52:25.080 --> 0:52:28.520 their anti you can't do this, you can't do this. 0:52:29.080 --> 0:52:32.239 And then I've also been told um that that internally 0:52:32.280 --> 0:52:37.520 within the tribal um people, they said, Hey, the tribal 0:52:37.560 --> 0:52:40.840 council never never voted on this. This was not something 0:52:40.880 --> 0:52:44.080 that was taken to the tribal people and the people 0:52:44.120 --> 0:52:46.720 were allowed to vote on this. This was just something 0:52:46.760 --> 0:52:52.200 that was done arbitrarily. And so rather than having lawsuits, 0:52:52.280 --> 0:52:57.200 you know, for arbitrary and capricious decisions made by the 0:52:57.239 --> 0:53:01.400 Department of Natural Resources, Game and Fish, they just ceased it. 0:53:02.920 --> 0:53:04.279 They said, you know what, we're not We're not going 0:53:04.280 --> 0:53:15.440 to go there. And then in May, horses on the 0:53:15.520 --> 0:53:19.080 Navijole Reservation turn up dead around a dried up water hole. Yeah, 0:53:19.239 --> 0:53:23.680 very unfortunate up at Green Mountain. And that's we've it's 0:53:23.760 --> 0:53:25.680 and it's something that we fight with those of us 0:53:25.680 --> 0:53:28.440 that are out here where you have um dirt tanks 0:53:28.520 --> 0:53:31.640 like that, you know, natural catchments, whether they were man 0:53:31.640 --> 0:53:34.759 made or not. When when the water starts drying up, 0:53:34.880 --> 0:53:37.200 especially if you've had a lot of silk in that 0:53:37.520 --> 0:53:41.120 in that dirt tank, um, you know, kind of becomes 0:53:41.200 --> 0:53:43.680 kind of a bog. And we have you guys have 0:53:43.719 --> 0:53:45.400 probably heard about it. You know, we have quick sand 0:53:45.400 --> 0:53:50.600 out here, a lot of it, and and so expandable 0:53:50.680 --> 0:53:53.080 clays and stuff, and and so whether that was part 0:53:53.080 --> 0:53:55.279 of it or it was just these animals get in 0:53:55.280 --> 0:53:57.439 there and you get stuck down in that mud where 0:53:57.440 --> 0:54:00.759 that silt is at and and they're already you know, 0:54:01.440 --> 0:54:04.520 their health is already compromised because they're very skinny to 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:06.439 go in there in the first place. They there's nothing 0:54:06.480 --> 0:54:08.960 out there for them to eat, there's nothing for them 0:54:08.960 --> 0:54:12.680 to drink, and they find this little tiny bit and 0:54:12.840 --> 0:54:16.560 you know, nearly two animals getting in there, they're all 0:54:16.600 --> 0:54:19.600 competing for that little bit of moisture. They get stuck 0:54:19.600 --> 0:54:24.040 in the mire and it was a horrific scene. The 0:54:24.080 --> 0:54:30.120 pictures I saw it just how tragic, how tragic. So, 0:54:30.120 --> 0:54:32.279 so how are people balancing out? Like if you if 0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:36.239 you were looking at a similar situation with rabbits, a 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:41.319 situation with feral pigs, a situation with white tailed deer, 0:54:42.440 --> 0:54:45.840 people will be like, sure, this seems like this seems 0:54:45.880 --> 0:54:50.720 like a The reasonable thing here is that if there's demand, 0:54:51.040 --> 0:54:54.839 we would allow some hunting to occur. Yeah, and how 0:54:54.880 --> 0:54:56.640 did it be that they wounded up being that it's 0:54:56.680 --> 0:55:00.920 this like exceptional animal that we would rather watch die 0:55:00.920 --> 0:55:07.239 of thirst than feed some human desire. You know, I 0:55:07.880 --> 0:55:09.719 think it goes back to like I said, you know, 0:55:09.760 --> 0:55:13.560 we have this romantic notion of horses and everybody you 0:55:13.600 --> 0:55:16.520 think of horse when you say horse, and what's the 0:55:16.560 --> 0:55:18.799 first thing that pops in your man your mind. It's 0:55:18.840 --> 0:55:22.680 like the black beauty stallion. It's something like that when 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:28.400 you especially when you look at are largely urban masses 0:55:28.480 --> 0:55:31.239 that we have. So I think you get a very 0:55:31.280 --> 0:55:35.280 different opinion when you have people that are in rural communities, 0:55:35.360 --> 0:55:40.120 that are that are not associated with urbanization, and you 0:55:40.160 --> 0:55:45.960 get this expanding urban um, you know, population, and they 0:55:46.000 --> 0:55:48.279 they don't know the difference. They don't know where their 0:55:48.280 --> 0:55:51.720 food comes from. They don't know that, you know, their shoes, 0:55:51.800 --> 0:55:55.160 their leather and stuff was once a leaving, living, breathing animal. 0:55:56.000 --> 0:56:00.799 And so they're very very much separated from where origins 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:04.040 of their food and their fiber and everything they have. 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:08.840 They're very separated from that. And so you know the 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:12.120 thought of oh my gosh, this hamburger I'm eating was 0:56:12.200 --> 0:56:15.440 once that really pretty cow over there, Oh my gosh, 0:56:15.560 --> 0:56:19.520 you know, or that people actually raise animals and and 0:56:19.719 --> 0:56:22.560 every fall sell their steers off so that you can 0:56:22.600 --> 0:56:25.200 eat your steak and your prime rib and you know 0:56:25.719 --> 0:56:29.080 whatnot I think people are very separated from that, and 0:56:29.120 --> 0:56:32.320 so likewise, I think that's where we get this issue 0:56:32.800 --> 0:56:37.719 of managing horses. They're very separated from that because they 0:56:37.719 --> 0:56:43.920 look at horses and to them, every horse is you know, secretariat, 0:56:44.080 --> 0:56:48.680 it's black beauty, it's it's this majestic animal. And yet 0:56:48.800 --> 0:56:52.080 they don't realize that those animals do consume a lot 0:56:52.160 --> 0:56:55.000 of a lot of food, they do consume a lot 0:56:55.040 --> 0:56:59.279 of water. They don't they don't necessarily put those two 0:56:59.320 --> 0:57:03.080 things together are in that there is a huge responsibility 0:57:03.200 --> 0:57:08.320 in keeping those animals healthy and at a level where 0:57:08.360 --> 0:57:12.879 they're not damaging the landscape. Carl, when you look at 0:57:12.880 --> 0:57:17.800 it from the wildlife angle, what is the how does 0:57:17.920 --> 0:57:21.000 native wildlife get like? How is native wild they've affected 0:57:21.000 --> 0:57:25.360 by wild horses? Well, there's a how our native wildlife 0:57:25.360 --> 0:57:28.280 species affected by wild horses. Yeah, there's a number of 0:57:28.840 --> 0:57:32.080 answers to that question. My mind, to be honest, is 0:57:32.120 --> 0:57:34.320 still on on what you asked to Lanny, and I 0:57:34.320 --> 0:57:38.320 think she's making some good points about you know, the 0:57:38.360 --> 0:57:42.800 perception of the different perceptions of people with respect animals, 0:57:42.800 --> 0:57:45.439 and a lack of awareness around where food and leather 0:57:45.480 --> 0:57:47.160 come from, et cetera. But I would say, with respect 0:57:47.200 --> 0:57:50.520 to horses, before I go to your question about wildlife, 0:57:50.720 --> 0:57:55.560 just thinking about how how cultural this issue really is, 0:57:55.600 --> 0:57:57.640 because you know, I think you could put it to 0:57:57.920 --> 0:58:02.200 a room full of hunters, Um, how comfortable are they 0:58:02.320 --> 0:58:09.800 with shooting, eating um and elk, a deer, slaughtering beef 0:58:09.840 --> 0:58:13.960 cattle versus horses? Are they? Do they put all those 0:58:14.000 --> 0:58:16.400 in the same category or not? Because I think here 0:58:16.440 --> 0:58:21.880 in America, um, even in a rural landscape, horses are 0:58:21.920 --> 0:58:24.840 not typically a species that we we think of as food. 0:58:25.000 --> 0:58:27.280 You know, it's not part of our menu. No, they're 0:58:27.280 --> 0:58:30.360 in the group with cats and labs and and in 0:58:30.360 --> 0:58:32.400 in this country. But that's very different than what you 0:58:32.440 --> 0:58:36.120 might get overseas. Right, there's plenty of cultures where consuming 0:58:36.800 --> 0:58:39.760 horse meat is totally normal. And if you were to 0:58:39.800 --> 0:58:41.600 ask somebody, you know, what's the first thing they think 0:58:41.600 --> 0:58:43.240 of when they think of a horse, they there are 0:58:43.240 --> 0:58:46.120 plenty of people who would say food. You know, Having 0:58:46.160 --> 0:58:48.520 had a chance to spend some time in Northwest China, 0:58:48.600 --> 0:58:52.800 where there's a very strong um community of Um, a 0:58:52.920 --> 0:58:56.800 Muslim group called the Weakers up in Shin John Province 0:58:56.960 --> 0:58:59.880 in the northwest near the border with Mongolia. We were 0:59:00.000 --> 0:59:03.320 teamly had horse um served to us at meals when 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:05.280 we were doing field work there for some of my research. 0:59:06.000 --> 0:59:09.440 So this is such an interesting cultural issue, and I 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:11.640 would say you could think about it from the same 0:59:11.680 --> 0:59:15.400 standpoint of if you were to ask a Hindu what 0:59:15.440 --> 0:59:17.840 they think of when they think of a cow, how 0:59:17.880 --> 0:59:20.720 different that is from what an American would say when 0:59:20.720 --> 0:59:23.280 they think of a cow. There's just so much steeped 0:59:23.280 --> 0:59:28.160 in culture here. You know, where in Hindu culture, Hindu religion, 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:36.360 the animals venerated. It's it's considered sinful too, even toy 0:59:36.440 --> 0:59:40.760 with the idea of slaughtering a cow, compared to here 0:59:40.800 --> 0:59:43.680 in America. So none of that is rooted in ecology 0:59:43.760 --> 0:59:47.600 at all. Right to your point, all of these animals 0:59:47.640 --> 0:59:51.640 are capable of of reproducing. UM historically would have had 0:59:51.640 --> 0:59:57.120 predator prey dynamics controlling horses. UM. We had a cast, 0:59:57.200 --> 1:00:01.280 a whole whole host of p editors historically that would 1:00:01.280 --> 1:00:03.480 have been eating horses during the place to scene that 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:07.080 are gone now. UM. But with respect to your question 1:00:07.080 --> 1:00:10.960 about some of the implications, I guess for starters, it's 1:00:11.040 --> 1:00:14.480 just you could look at the impact that horses have 1:00:14.600 --> 1:00:19.200 on the landscape in terms of soil compaction, in terms 1:00:19.200 --> 1:00:21.560 of the amount of forage that they consume. We've touched 1:00:21.560 --> 1:00:23.760 on that a little bit UM. But then there are 1:00:23.760 --> 1:00:28.080 a couple of other interesting, UM a little bit more 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:30.640 complex interactions. So one would be, you know, we're talking 1:00:30.680 --> 1:00:35.080 about um landscapes. You know, given the list of states 1:00:35.080 --> 1:00:40.080 we've touched on Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, 1:00:40.120 --> 1:00:44.680 relatively dry places. Water is oftentimes a limiting factor. Horses 1:00:44.680 --> 1:00:49.680 are very effective at capitalizing on a water resource and 1:00:50.000 --> 1:00:53.960 excluding native wildlife from being able to access that water supply. 1:00:54.960 --> 1:00:59.360 So you'll have horses that will drive away the indigenous wildlife. 1:00:59.400 --> 1:01:03.120 So typically we be talking about prong horn, big horn, 1:01:03.640 --> 1:01:07.320 mule deer, even elk in some cases can be displaced 1:01:07.320 --> 1:01:13.280 by wild slash feral horses UM. And then another really 1:01:13.280 --> 1:01:18.840 interesting consideration here is what horses represent in terms of 1:01:18.840 --> 1:01:24.640 a prey base that has the potential two elevate the 1:01:24.720 --> 1:01:30.240 density of predators on the landscape, which has the potential 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:35.560 to have implications for other native prey species. So, for example, 1:01:35.680 --> 1:01:37.680 if you think about a landscape where you've got I 1:01:37.760 --> 1:01:40.960 need to have it, I'll spill it out for you 1:01:41.080 --> 1:01:43.200 before before I do, I want to I want to 1:01:43.200 --> 1:01:46.440 point out I had a chance, you know, recently, to 1:01:46.480 --> 1:01:48.840 talk about this issue with the Big Horn biologists from 1:01:48.840 --> 1:01:52.840 the state of New Mexico, guy named Eric Rominger, and 1:01:52.920 --> 1:01:54.720 he pointed me to a couple of papers because we 1:01:54.720 --> 1:01:58.240 were we were brainstorming about a recent New York Times 1:01:58.760 --> 1:02:01.800 article that we both had read that had us both 1:02:01.880 --> 1:02:04.520 kind of steaming a little bit. And this issue of 1:02:04.680 --> 1:02:08.680 apparent competition is something that was totally overlooked in that article. 1:02:09.280 --> 1:02:16.000 And the reason this, this pattern that arises in ecology 1:02:16.080 --> 1:02:19.680 is called apparent competition is because on its surface, it 1:02:19.720 --> 1:02:22.280 looks like two species might be competing with one another, 1:02:22.960 --> 1:02:27.200 but in fact, the dynamics that are being observed are 1:02:27.560 --> 1:02:31.440 mediated by a predator. Okay, so I'll spell this out 1:02:31.480 --> 1:02:34.080 so it makes a little bit more sense. Imagine a system, 1:02:34.120 --> 1:02:37.360 a very simple system, where all you have for predator 1:02:37.400 --> 1:02:42.960 prey interactions are mule deer and mountain lions. The mountain 1:02:43.000 --> 1:02:47.960 lion population is going to depend on the availability of prey, 1:02:48.000 --> 1:02:50.920 which in this case is exclusively mule dear. So if 1:02:50.920 --> 1:02:53.600 the mountain lion population manages to drive the mule deer 1:02:53.680 --> 1:02:57.280 numbers down, ultimately the mule deer here it's going to 1:02:57.320 --> 1:02:59.560 be able to support fewer mountain lions. It's the mountain 1:02:59.560 --> 1:03:02.400 lion number they're going to decline. Yielder numbers would then 1:03:02.440 --> 1:03:04.960 potentially rebound. This is where you get those classic predator 1:03:05.000 --> 1:03:09.800 praise cycles. Links and snowshoe hair is being like classic 1:03:09.920 --> 1:03:13.760 famous like seven years, the seven year, the seven year 1:03:14.560 --> 1:03:19.200 yep excurring cycle of elevated snowshoe hair is followed by 1:03:19.240 --> 1:03:23.480 elevated links. Claps rise, claps rise, exactly. So, now imagine 1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:29.280 adding another praise species into the equation, and imagine that 1:03:29.280 --> 1:03:37.040 that second praise species is relatively superior at evading predation 1:03:37.760 --> 1:03:39.760 compared to the mule deer. Would you mind if we talk? 1:03:39.960 --> 1:03:42.440 Can we talk about the New York Times article we're 1:03:42.440 --> 1:03:44.080 talking about. I would love to talk about the New 1:03:44.160 --> 1:03:46.400 York Times because you are talking about right, Like, don't 1:03:46.400 --> 1:03:47.840 you think you should talk about it before we talk 1:03:47.880 --> 1:03:49.840 about it? Yeah? Yeah, we can talk about a little bit. 1:03:49.880 --> 1:03:52.960 And Tilanni and i um offered up offered up a 1:03:53.320 --> 1:03:56.240 you know, to to provide a rebuttal let me say 1:03:56.240 --> 1:03:58.800 what he says, though, go ahead, because this is the guy. 1:03:58.840 --> 1:04:02.840 Like in all fairness, we tried to get the writer, 1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:06.160 the gentleman by the name of Dave Phillips. We tried 1:04:06.200 --> 1:04:09.120 to get the writer to come on the podcast to 1:04:09.240 --> 1:04:15.840 talk about his book about wild horses called wild Horse Country. Um. 1:04:15.920 --> 1:04:19.120 And I read the book and its entirety, and it 1:04:20.400 --> 1:04:24.560 he's of the mindset that that the that the twelve 1:04:24.600 --> 1:04:27.520 thousand year absence of horses and the fact that they 1:04:27.560 --> 1:04:32.600 were reintroduced by humans is sort of a little bit 1:04:32.600 --> 1:04:35.280 putting words his mouth, but it proves to be kind 1:04:35.320 --> 1:04:40.080 of inconsequential, and that we should regard wild horses as 1:04:40.120 --> 1:04:42.760 an as a sort of native wildlife or they kind 1:04:42.760 --> 1:04:45.360 of like have an established a sort of honorary status 1:04:45.400 --> 1:04:48.360 as native wildlife. And he goes on to say how 1:04:49.800 --> 1:04:53.280 we have way too many of them now on the 1:04:53.360 --> 1:04:58.439 landscape and that it's untenable that they would be put 1:04:58.480 --> 1:05:02.120 to human use. Um, it's untenable that they will be 1:05:02.240 --> 1:05:05.080 rounded up and sent to slaughter or used for human 1:05:05.120 --> 1:05:08.120 food or used for dog food. That's just that's not 1:05:08.320 --> 1:05:13.280 a good it's not a realistic solution. And he goes 1:05:13.320 --> 1:05:15.400 on to say that what ought to be going on 1:05:15.600 --> 1:05:20.240 is we need a bunch more mountain lions to kill 1:05:20.480 --> 1:05:23.560 wild horses. And if we allowed this to play out 1:05:23.600 --> 1:05:26.800 and no one hunted mountain lions anymore, that we would 1:05:27.320 --> 1:05:30.959 uh not entirely take care of the problem. We would 1:05:31.000 --> 1:05:33.760 lick a good bunch of it if we just had 1:05:33.760 --> 1:05:39.200 more mountain lions. And this, when I read it was like, um, 1:05:39.280 --> 1:05:42.000 almost maddening, And that's why I wanted to have him 1:05:42.000 --> 1:05:45.560 on to discuss his perspective and my perspective on it. 1:05:46.080 --> 1:05:50.480 But I felt that it overlooked a handful of things. Um, 1:05:50.480 --> 1:05:52.600 he throws out how many mountain lions are killed in 1:05:52.600 --> 1:05:56.160 the American West and if they each killed three horses, 1:05:56.640 --> 1:05:59.160 but he doesn't give any acknowledgement towards the fact that 1:05:59.200 --> 1:06:04.160 the distribute and of those lions is not overlapped over 1:06:04.360 --> 1:06:09.320 the distribution of horses, and a handful of other things. 1:06:09.360 --> 1:06:10.960 I'll let you take it from there, but I just 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:16.040 wanted to establish, like, what the um, what the argument was. 1:06:16.480 --> 1:06:18.200 I mean, the title, the title of the article is 1:06:18.320 --> 1:06:21.360 let mountain lions eat horses, And there's a few quotable 1:06:21.400 --> 1:06:26.120 quotes that I think would kind of further cement in 1:06:26.160 --> 1:06:29.480 the listener's mind what we're talking about. So direct quote 1:06:29.480 --> 1:06:32.080 from the often just as a listener knows he agreed 1:06:32.080 --> 1:06:35.600 to do the podcast with us but couldn't make it. 1:06:35.720 --> 1:06:38.880 We couldn't like come and do it in person. Still 1:06:38.960 --> 1:06:43.360 stands Yeah, like I still love to have would Yeah, 1:06:43.560 --> 1:06:45.440 it would be a good conversation. So one of the 1:06:45.480 --> 1:06:48.520 things says it isn't that there are too many horses, 1:06:48.680 --> 1:06:51.400 is that there aren't enough mountain lions. That is one 1:06:51.440 --> 1:06:55.920 thing he says. He also says because the Bureau Bureau 1:06:55.920 --> 1:06:58.480 of Land Management has always seen the horses as livestock, 1:06:58.560 --> 1:07:01.440 not wildlife. It has never tried understand the mustang's place 1:07:01.520 --> 1:07:04.840 in the western ecosystem or tried to take advantage of 1:07:04.880 --> 1:07:08.400 the ancient relationship between the horse and its main predator, 1:07:08.680 --> 1:07:13.480 the mountain lion. Okay. And one of the reasons I 1:07:13.560 --> 1:07:15.320 have a problem with that is because if you look 1:07:15.360 --> 1:07:20.400 at the time period when the horses that we all 1:07:20.520 --> 1:07:26.080 could agree were absolutely wild, native indigenous horses towards the 1:07:26.160 --> 1:07:28.160 end of the place to scene, when they were still 1:07:28.200 --> 1:07:31.160 here being hunted by humans. They're also being hunted by 1:07:31.200 --> 1:07:34.960 a cast of other species that were far better equipped 1:07:35.520 --> 1:07:38.360 to take down a horse than the mountain lion. The 1:07:38.400 --> 1:07:42.440 mountain lion would have been like the tenth baddest predator 1:07:43.200 --> 1:07:45.600 in the place to see landscape. So you're talking about 1:07:45.800 --> 1:07:52.360 the American lion, mountain lion, laned lion, like the African lion, 1:07:52.440 --> 1:07:55.600 except give it another twenty five percent body weight. It's 1:07:55.720 --> 1:08:01.840 estimated the American lion waged somewhere between ninety fifty pounds. 1:08:03.040 --> 1:08:06.360 You're talking about variety of saber tooth cats being on 1:08:06.400 --> 1:08:10.800 the landscape significantly larger in the six nine hundred pound range. 1:08:11.400 --> 1:08:16.160 Talking about short faced bears, notorious for their their long legs. 1:08:16.360 --> 1:08:19.120 It's thought that they had potentially a gait that would 1:08:19.120 --> 1:08:23.960 have equipped them to run down horses. Talking about dire wolves, which, 1:08:24.000 --> 1:08:27.639 based on their jaw anatomy, had crushing power that far 1:08:27.720 --> 1:08:31.200 exceeds the wolves of the modern era. So you're talking 1:08:31.240 --> 1:08:34.880 about a whole list of species. American cheetah. Yeah, we 1:08:35.200 --> 1:08:38.280 can keep going, man, but you know this quote, and 1:08:38.360 --> 1:08:40.640 your horse was not the size of horse that we 1:08:40.720 --> 1:08:43.640 have today. It was a much smaller animal. It was 1:08:43.680 --> 1:08:47.000 probably five to six hundred, maybe seven hundred pounds, so 1:08:47.040 --> 1:08:50.680 it was a much smaller animal. So to refer to 1:08:51.200 --> 1:08:54.439 the main predator, the main the main predator in this 1:08:54.560 --> 1:09:00.000 ancient relationship to be the mountain lion is just factually inaccurate. 1:09:00.040 --> 1:09:02.880 It And you know, we could go on, but I 1:09:02.920 --> 1:09:05.479 want to get back to this topic of apparent competition. Okay, 1:09:05.479 --> 1:09:07.120 So I'm gonna bring you back to the system where 1:09:07.120 --> 1:09:11.559 you have mule deer mountain lions, and then let's let's 1:09:11.600 --> 1:09:16.120 add in horses to the equation. One thing that the 1:09:16.120 --> 1:09:18.400 author of this piece got absolutely right is that mountain 1:09:18.439 --> 1:09:24.519 lions will kill horses. That is well documented. Mountain lions 1:09:24.600 --> 1:09:30.360 will potentially kill enough horses to boost their own numbers, 1:09:32.400 --> 1:09:36.320 which has the potential then to drive other indigenous prey 1:09:36.400 --> 1:09:41.439 species potentially the point of extirpation or extinction through this 1:09:41.520 --> 1:09:44.400 process of a parent competition. And again it's called apparent 1:09:44.439 --> 1:09:48.120 competition because it looks like in this case the horses 1:09:48.120 --> 1:09:50.360 and the mule deer are competing with each other. You 1:09:50.400 --> 1:09:54.040 see horses show up, mule deer numbers go down. But 1:09:54.120 --> 1:09:57.280 in fact it's not competition for resources between those species. 1:09:57.560 --> 1:10:03.280 It's this predator mediated apparent competition where the collection of 1:10:03.320 --> 1:10:07.639 all that prey supports a higher abundance of mountain lions 1:10:07.640 --> 1:10:11.639 in the system, which then disproportionately targets the mule deer, 1:10:11.640 --> 1:10:15.480 in this case, driving them down in numbers, potentially to extinction. 1:10:15.640 --> 1:10:19.880 Because the apparent competition would be just a competition for resources. Well, 1:10:20.000 --> 1:10:24.120 so competition would be the term for that would be 1:10:24.120 --> 1:10:26.960 competition whether there's a limitation and safe forage or a 1:10:27.000 --> 1:10:30.479 limitation in water. And of course i've already I've already 1:10:30.479 --> 1:10:33.519 talked about the the ability of horses to exclude other 1:10:33.640 --> 1:10:37.080 species from accessing water. So none of these patterns exists 1:10:37.080 --> 1:10:41.240 in a vacuum. But one of the pieces of this 1:10:41.240 --> 1:10:47.880 this article UM the author talks about um this kind 1:10:47.880 --> 1:10:50.720 of predator prey balance being a boon not just for 1:10:50.720 --> 1:10:55.160 the wild horse program, but for the entire western ecosystem. 1:10:55.200 --> 1:10:58.960 He says, if herds have exhausted the land, everything else suffers. 1:10:59.040 --> 1:11:01.800 Native wildflowers and lizards, stage grass, and butterflies, as well 1:11:01.840 --> 1:11:04.519 as ranchers who rely on the same range and hunters 1:11:04.520 --> 1:11:07.559 who want to see thriving populations of deer and bighorn sheep. 1:11:08.200 --> 1:11:11.679 So if we would just stop killing mountain lions, those 1:11:11.680 --> 1:11:14.080 mountain lions would take care of the horses, and we 1:11:14.120 --> 1:11:17.880 would have quote thriving populations of deer and bighorn sheep. 1:11:18.880 --> 1:11:21.960 The reality is, if we would stop hunting mountain lions, 1:11:23.160 --> 1:11:26.960 and if we had numbers of feral horses wild horses 1:11:27.000 --> 1:11:31.400 on the landscape that supported an increased abundance of mountain lions, 1:11:31.520 --> 1:11:34.599 that would not be a boon for big horn sheep, 1:11:35.920 --> 1:11:40.639 mule deer, pronghorn because it would likely support a larger 1:11:40.680 --> 1:11:46.120 population those predators. A couple of other drawbacks of the argument. 1:11:47.360 --> 1:11:50.720 We have somewhere around thirty thousand mountain lions in the 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:54.960 Western United States today. Every year somewhere between thousand of 1:11:54.960 --> 1:11:58.720 those are shot. Let's say you leave those ones in 1:11:58.720 --> 1:12:03.519 the system, you then have let's say thirty two thousand, 1:12:03.640 --> 1:12:06.240 five hundred, or thirty three thousand mountain lions instead of 1:12:06.400 --> 1:12:13.000 thirty thousand. We're talking about a situation where, based on 1:12:13.040 --> 1:12:17.280 the BLMS most recent estimates, where it's seventy three thousand horses, 1:12:17.320 --> 1:12:22.080 which is about three times the appropriate management level that 1:12:22.160 --> 1:12:27.280 the BLM has estimated for its lands. And if you're 1:12:27.280 --> 1:12:31.800 thinking about a territorial predator whose distributionists you've already pointed 1:12:31.800 --> 1:12:35.160 out Steve does not entirely overlap with where the horses are. 1:12:36.560 --> 1:12:39.040 The landscape of the West does not even have the 1:12:39.040 --> 1:12:41.240 ability to support a number of mountain lions that could 1:12:41.280 --> 1:12:43.960 begin to take a bite, so to speak, out of 1:12:43.960 --> 1:12:48.200 the horse population. Furthermore, we have examples of places on 1:12:48.240 --> 1:12:51.000 the landscape where there is no lion hunting, including a 1:12:51.000 --> 1:12:54.280 lot of our tribal lands, many of our reservations. Many 1:12:54.280 --> 1:12:58.080 of those tribes have no history in their culture of 1:12:58.160 --> 1:13:00.479 hunting mountain lions, and they have a ton of horses, 1:13:00.800 --> 1:13:03.840 and they have robust numbers of mountain lions killing a 1:13:03.840 --> 1:13:06.600 fair number of horses in those situations. We've got some 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:10.400 examples in New Mexico where there are mountain lions specializing 1:13:10.640 --> 1:13:14.360 on killing horses. And again Eric Romiger, the Big Horn 1:13:14.400 --> 1:13:17.920 biologists for Game and Fish, pointed this out, Um, in 1:13:17.960 --> 1:13:21.559 those situations, you still have horses eating themselves out of 1:13:21.560 --> 1:13:24.400 house at home. The lions are there killing them, but 1:13:24.520 --> 1:13:28.400 by no means are they sufficient source of predation to 1:13:28.479 --> 1:13:32.000 maintain a healthy balance in the ecosystem. I just want 1:13:32.000 --> 1:13:35.120 to point to California in particular, because can you tell 1:13:35.120 --> 1:13:38.000 me about mountain lion hunting in California real quick. They 1:13:38.120 --> 1:13:40.160 banned it years ago. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly when 1:13:40.160 --> 1:13:42.960 they banned it was Ronald Reagan actually in nineteen seventy 1:13:42.960 --> 1:13:45.080 two when he was the governor, he issued a moratorium 1:13:45.080 --> 1:13:47.600 on all mountain lion hunting. And then it took and 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:51.680 they kill about took eighteen years until California passed a 1:13:51.720 --> 1:13:59.880 band formally Proposition one seventeen and Reagan, Yeah, Reagan Night 1:14:00.000 --> 1:14:04.559 seventy two moratorium. If contemporary politicians would all still compare 1:14:04.600 --> 1:14:10.360 themselves to Reagan, if that's a good question. Um. And 1:14:10.479 --> 1:14:12.760 so now they kill right around a hundred per year 1:14:13.000 --> 1:14:17.080 through depredation permits if their mountain lions causing trouble, which 1:14:17.080 --> 1:14:18.760 by the way, is about four times the number of 1:14:18.800 --> 1:14:23.120 depredation permits they issued prior to the moratorium. But about 1:14:23.120 --> 1:14:25.720 a hundred lions killed a year in California, and these 1:14:25.760 --> 1:14:30.000 are lions that are incompatible with people. Arguably they're the 1:14:30.000 --> 1:14:31.760 ones that are causing a problem for the most part. 1:14:32.200 --> 1:14:34.240 And that's out of a population of somewhere between four 1:14:34.280 --> 1:14:37.559 and six thousand mountain lions in California. So we could 1:14:37.560 --> 1:14:42.320 take California as an example of a state where there 1:14:42.400 --> 1:14:46.360 is relatively low mountain lion hunting occurring. For US. They 1:14:46.400 --> 1:14:51.360 got four to six thousand mountain lions. Those hundred, those 1:14:51.439 --> 1:14:55.479 hundred to get killed are the ones that are killing livestyle. Yes, 1:14:55.520 --> 1:14:58.320 a depredation permit is issued by the state to remove 1:14:58.720 --> 1:15:03.479 an offending into djuwal lion state of California. So my 1:15:03.560 --> 1:15:08.040 question for the author of this article, Dave Phillips, taking 1:15:08.080 --> 1:15:10.800 California as a case study, I expect you to tell 1:15:10.840 --> 1:15:13.960 me now that wild horse numbers in California are plummeting 1:15:14.720 --> 1:15:20.600 because of all the lions. Maximum a mL maximum Appropriate 1:15:20.680 --> 1:15:25.240 management level for the state of California horses and burrows 1:15:25.280 --> 1:15:36.400 combined total estimated population for twenty seventeen ten thousand, approximately 1:15:36.920 --> 1:15:40.479 fivefold the max a m L in a state where 1:15:40.520 --> 1:15:42.800 it is illegal to hunt mountain lions, just driving that 1:15:42.880 --> 1:15:49.880 nail deeper deeper. And this this pattern of apparent competition. 1:15:50.960 --> 1:15:53.439 We're going to post a few pretty cool papers that 1:15:53.520 --> 1:15:55.519 spelled this out, but some examples I can give you. 1:15:55.840 --> 1:16:00.920 One is the woodland caribou Southern British Columbia, northern Idaho. 1:16:02.680 --> 1:16:07.519 Diminishing numbers of woodland cariboo like like two well, not 1:16:07.680 --> 1:16:10.840 quite that not well, maybe on the U S side, 1:16:11.560 --> 1:16:15.440 but yeah, so's southern BC, Northern Idaho UM very imperiled 1:16:15.479 --> 1:16:18.920 populations of woodland Cariboo. A couple of things that are 1:16:18.960 --> 1:16:22.080 happening in that landscape. One is you have quite a 1:16:22.080 --> 1:16:26.880 bit of of timber harvest occurring, which is boosting early 1:16:26.920 --> 1:16:32.639 successional vegetation availability, which is forage for moose and white 1:16:32.640 --> 1:16:38.400 tailed deer. It also um reduces the amount of lichen available, 1:16:38.400 --> 1:16:40.759 which is the primary food source for the woodland Cariboo. 1:16:41.560 --> 1:16:44.639 So you're changing the habitat such that it benefits an 1:16:44.640 --> 1:16:49.759 expansion of moose and white tailed deer into woodland Cariboo habitat, 1:16:50.800 --> 1:16:54.760 which in turn boosts the numbers of wolves because they're 1:16:54.760 --> 1:16:56.960 eating the moose and the white tailed deer, but they're 1:16:57.000 --> 1:17:00.320 also eating the woodland cariboo. So you talk about a 1:17:00.320 --> 1:17:04.320 system which historically was a few wolves and some woodland cariboo. 1:17:04.800 --> 1:17:07.400 Now it's woodland Cariboo, moose, white tailed deer, and a 1:17:07.400 --> 1:17:12.280 bunch of wolves wolves killing a ton more woodland cariboo. 1:17:12.800 --> 1:17:16.879 So there's a great paper where, through a very controlled study, 1:17:17.240 --> 1:17:20.320 these researchers went in and rather than doing the standard thing, 1:17:20.360 --> 1:17:22.519 which is to kill the wolves, a lot of which 1:17:22.520 --> 1:17:26.000 has happened in in the interest of protecting woodland cariboo, 1:17:26.880 --> 1:17:33.040 they issued very generous numbers of moose tags and reduced 1:17:33.040 --> 1:17:37.320 the moose population dramatically, and the wolves followed that decline, 1:17:37.920 --> 1:17:41.680 and the vital rates like survivorship of adult females in 1:17:41.680 --> 1:17:45.920 the woodland caribou went up because you reduced the main 1:17:46.160 --> 1:17:48.000 thing that the wolves are going in there to kill. 1:17:48.120 --> 1:17:54.120 Predator mediated apparent competition is the term. So this is 1:17:54.200 --> 1:18:02.479 like pretty complex stuff, and it's really relevant to the 1:18:02.560 --> 1:18:06.320 discussion about the implications of having another prey species on 1:18:06.360 --> 1:18:10.519 the landscape, especially pray species that's not being subjected to 1:18:11.600 --> 1:18:14.720 um sufficient sources of mortality, that it's numbers are being 1:18:14.800 --> 1:18:19.519 kept at a level that is um sustainable for the 1:18:19.520 --> 1:18:22.080 habitat over the long term, I think is a pretty 1:18:22.120 --> 1:18:25.360 objective thing to say, but it's just totally glossed over. 1:18:25.600 --> 1:18:29.000 And this idea of just leaving the mountain lions alone 1:18:29.280 --> 1:18:31.880 and you're going to have you know, it's going to 1:18:31.960 --> 1:18:34.439 be a boon for everybody who loves deer and big 1:18:34.479 --> 1:18:40.840 horn sheep is absurd and one of the most ironic things. 1:18:40.880 --> 1:18:44.519 As I was doing some research into This was one 1:18:44.560 --> 1:18:47.920 of the papers that the author of this piece points to. 1:18:48.960 --> 1:18:55.400 Um talks about a system where you had heavy predation 1:18:55.760 --> 1:19:01.000 by mountain lions on horse heard that was being studied 1:19:01.720 --> 1:19:03.559 and towards the end of the study, and we'll post 1:19:03.600 --> 1:19:07.080 this paper as well. Towards the end of the study, 1:19:07.439 --> 1:19:09.840 the researchers and I want to I want to turn 1:19:09.880 --> 1:19:12.040 to the page here so I can give you the 1:19:12.040 --> 1:19:15.559 the great quote. This is in the discussion section of 1:19:15.560 --> 1:19:20.600 this paper. They say, at the end, we do not 1:19:20.720 --> 1:19:23.120 know why numbers of lions declined towards the end of 1:19:23.160 --> 1:19:26.439 our study, after the lions had been eating all these horses. 1:19:27.160 --> 1:19:29.280 We do not know why numbers of lions declined towards 1:19:29.280 --> 1:19:31.559 the end of our study. Hunting pressure was low to 1:19:31.600 --> 1:19:36.599 non existent. The migrant mule deer population which winters in 1:19:36.640 --> 1:19:40.519 the study area, decreased by over the course of our study, 1:19:40.680 --> 1:19:46.880 from an estimated five animals to less than three, and 1:19:46.920 --> 1:19:51.160 they just kind of leave it at that. So you 1:19:51.280 --> 1:19:53.840 certainly cannot point to causation here, But that kind of 1:19:53.880 --> 1:19:58.719 a pattern suggests the possibility. In one of the papers 1:19:58.720 --> 1:20:01.559 that this guy point points to in his op ed 1:20:01.760 --> 1:20:07.160 in The New York Times, that the horses may have 1:20:07.240 --> 1:20:11.839 been supporting a more robust predator base that was driving 1:20:11.880 --> 1:20:14.680 down the mule deer herd right before their eyes. And 1:20:14.720 --> 1:20:18.040 they didn't connect that in this paper. But there's evidence 1:20:18.040 --> 1:20:20.040 here to suggest that even in one of the papers 1:20:20.080 --> 1:20:23.840 he's talking about, you witnessed a decline from five hundred 1:20:23.920 --> 1:20:26.120 mule deer to three hundred mule deer in ten years, 1:20:26.120 --> 1:20:29.599 and this migratory herd, and it's possible that the horses 1:20:29.720 --> 1:20:34.360 were a causal factor for that mule deer decline. So 1:20:35.080 --> 1:20:40.120 it's pretty easy too, you know, throw out ideas like, man, 1:20:40.160 --> 1:20:42.920 if we would just stop punting mountain lions, it would 1:20:42.920 --> 1:20:47.800 take care of the wild slash feral horse issue. But 1:20:47.880 --> 1:20:50.800 without really digging into the science, you're doing a disservice. 1:20:50.880 --> 1:20:54.040 And I have to say, I mean, I I generally 1:20:54.080 --> 1:20:58.160 admire the work of The New York Times as a 1:20:58.160 --> 1:21:01.800 a periodical. You know, I have read it and admired 1:21:03.000 --> 1:21:07.520 that publication for my entire adult life. They have correspondence 1:21:08.080 --> 1:21:13.080 around the world, reporting from some of the most dangerous 1:21:13.280 --> 1:21:15.920 I mean, among many other services, reporting from some of 1:21:15.920 --> 1:21:19.320 the most dangerous hotspots and bringing news to people that 1:21:19.360 --> 1:21:21.240 you would otherwise not be able to get me. And 1:21:21.280 --> 1:21:23.760 I admire and appreciate that there's a there's a tremendous 1:21:23.800 --> 1:21:27.799 service being provided through the American people. Yes, and I 1:21:27.880 --> 1:21:35.040 absolutely I mean I'm critiquing this piece because this is 1:21:35.080 --> 1:21:37.679 an area where you know, I and my colleagues, our 1:21:37.680 --> 1:21:39.559 minds and our hearts are in this kind of work 1:21:40.080 --> 1:21:42.000 and these kind of conversations dan and day out, and 1:21:42.320 --> 1:21:46.840 to try to make an inch of gain around these concepts, 1:21:47.160 --> 1:21:52.080 you know, it's such a politically sensitive and divisive issue 1:21:52.360 --> 1:21:58.400 as managing wild slash feral special status equines. We haven't 1:21:58.439 --> 1:22:03.280 thrown that term out yet, we have not, but I 1:22:03.360 --> 1:22:09.000 feel like something like this article being published and read 1:22:09.040 --> 1:22:13.920 by however many millions of readers around the country, it 1:22:14.000 --> 1:22:21.280 does a disservice to the really complex, difficult work, and 1:22:21.720 --> 1:22:24.479 it feels like steps in the wrong direction. So it's 1:22:24.520 --> 1:22:26.760 not very often that the New York Times or or 1:22:26.840 --> 1:22:33.400 nationally syndicated media are talking about these concepts, and then 1:22:33.400 --> 1:22:38.360 to have them published something that feels like, um, a 1:22:38.400 --> 1:22:41.320 step in the wrong direction is is pretty frustrating. There's 1:22:41.360 --> 1:22:44.320 another thing that I would want to ask the writer about, 1:22:44.360 --> 1:22:47.320 and that's this idea that if we didn't kill X 1:22:47.520 --> 1:22:51.240 number of mountain lions, that you would just automatically mean 1:22:51.280 --> 1:22:55.320 that you'd have that many more. Meaning if Wisconsin, who 1:22:55.400 --> 1:22:59.479 kills some years fifty thousand turkeys in the year, you'd say, like, oh, 1:22:59.560 --> 1:23:01.640 so it was sconsin didn't have a turkey hunt, we 1:23:01.680 --> 1:23:05.519 would have fifty thousand more turkeys in Wisconsin, when in fact, 1:23:05.680 --> 1:23:11.960 you'd probably wind up having somewhere around how many you 1:23:12.040 --> 1:23:16.120 have even despite the fact that you killed that that 1:23:16.320 --> 1:23:19.880 is very likely to be a product of competition, and 1:23:19.920 --> 1:23:24.160 that would be intrust species competition, competition among individuals. We 1:23:24.200 --> 1:23:27.880 all know mountain lions are very territorial um not tolerant 1:23:28.000 --> 1:23:33.360 of other individuals intruding into their territory. They are very 1:23:33.400 --> 1:23:38.280 capable of killing one another and maintaining a density on 1:23:38.360 --> 1:23:43.040 the landscape on their own through that direct competition interest 1:23:43.080 --> 1:23:47.280 specific competition. So yeah, you're not just gonna stop hunting them, 1:23:47.280 --> 1:23:50.639 and have you know mountain lions suddenly deciding that their 1:23:50.680 --> 1:23:54.960 home range can overlap with five other con specifics, They're 1:23:54.960 --> 1:24:00.400 going to kill the weaker competitors in their landscape. So, 1:24:03.040 --> 1:24:07.719 for a variety of reasons, it's a flawed argument. When 1:24:09.320 --> 1:24:14.920 the Navajo do you say, Navajo Navajo? Navajo Navajo. The 1:24:15.040 --> 1:24:19.599 horses that the Navajo were proposing to hunt are not 1:24:20.080 --> 1:24:25.760 federally recognized wild horses, or are they? They're not protected 1:24:28.200 --> 1:24:32.880 sovereign nation, right, any any tribal group of free ranging 1:24:32.920 --> 1:24:39.679 horses are not protected unless they are within a certain area. 1:24:40.120 --> 1:24:42.559 And we do have some areas on our on our 1:24:42.640 --> 1:24:46.680 national forest where we have an adjacent wild horse in 1:24:46.720 --> 1:24:50.360 boro territory to tribal lands, so we have we have 1:24:50.400 --> 1:24:54.640 a few of those, but not very many, but not 1:24:54.760 --> 1:24:57.559 on that certainly not on the Navajo reservation. So even 1:24:57.560 --> 1:25:02.960 in a situation where you have a a not fairly protected, 1:25:03.080 --> 1:25:10.760 not federally protected population of wild horses, free ranging horses, Okay, yeah, 1:25:10.920 --> 1:25:13.559 they're free ranging horses in that case. They're free ranging 1:25:13.600 --> 1:25:17.440 horses in that case, but not not federally recognized wild horses. 1:25:17.560 --> 1:25:20.240 And you have land managers who feel like they should 1:25:20.320 --> 1:25:25.840 do some kind of coal or reduce the numbers mechanically 1:25:26.439 --> 1:25:32.000 mm hmm in service of while they've habitat and grazing habitat, 1:25:32.840 --> 1:25:37.960 and they're not able to execute on that wish because 1:25:38.040 --> 1:25:45.559 of public sentiment and in the federally recognized areas we're 1:25:45.600 --> 1:25:51.839 not able to do any kind of lethal coaling unless 1:25:53.200 --> 1:25:56.160 we do how we can do lethal only if and 1:25:56.240 --> 1:25:58.760 it's in the act, if it is a horse that 1:25:59.040 --> 1:26:06.240 is disease, is lame, is sick. You know there um 1:26:06.400 --> 1:26:10.400 has a wound that would that cannot be repaired so 1:26:10.439 --> 1:26:16.080 that it's too the to to maintain the the health 1:26:16.120 --> 1:26:19.200 of that animal. So if that animal, its quality of 1:26:19.280 --> 1:26:23.519 life is so bad, then we can use lethal methods 1:26:23.760 --> 1:26:28.080 to humanely destroy that animal. And that is in the Act. 1:26:29.120 --> 1:26:32.320 But that's not going to solve for the bigger problem. 1:26:32.360 --> 1:26:35.840 And if we take all of the excess horses and 1:26:35.920 --> 1:26:40.719 send them to live somewhere else on private grazing lands 1:26:40.760 --> 1:26:43.519 and pay those landowners money in order to allow the 1:26:43.560 --> 1:26:48.400 excess horses like and everyone regards that as being not 1:26:48.520 --> 1:26:55.040 sustainable because of budgetary constraints, what in the end winds 1:26:55.120 --> 1:26:58.479 up happening, Well, right now, what a lot of what's 1:26:58.479 --> 1:27:03.240 happening to unwanted horses. So regardless in private ownership, if 1:27:03.280 --> 1:27:07.240 someone has an unwanted horse, unfortunately, a lot of times 1:27:07.320 --> 1:27:12.480 um because there is no there's no means for disposal 1:27:12.560 --> 1:27:16.840 other than euthanasia, humane euthanasia, which is generally done with 1:27:17.000 --> 1:27:22.560 a barbiturate overdose then renders that carc is unusable. Um. 1:27:22.600 --> 1:27:25.280 Private owners will sell this horse and it goes into 1:27:25.320 --> 1:27:29.360 slaughter channels and it either goes to Canada or Mexico. 1:27:30.600 --> 1:27:33.479 And so they go down to Mexico and there are 1:27:33.520 --> 1:27:36.640 there are laws for transporting in the United States. But 1:27:36.720 --> 1:27:39.760 once it hits the border, you know, everything changes because 1:27:39.800 --> 1:27:42.040 they closed all the slaughter facilities in the US. In 1:27:42.080 --> 1:27:45.759 the US, yes, um, you in Texas and one in Illinois, right, Yeah, 1:27:45.840 --> 1:27:48.800 there were up until night are two thousand six and 1:27:49.120 --> 1:27:53.400 officially closed two thousand seven. So so those people private 1:27:53.400 --> 1:27:58.200 ownership horses, UM, some go in that channel. Probably a 1:27:58.280 --> 1:27:59.920 lot of them just get turned out on the lands 1:28:00.040 --> 1:28:03.840 escape and because tribal lands are massive and there's not 1:28:03.880 --> 1:28:07.400 a lot of patrolling, um, they get turned out. And 1:28:07.439 --> 1:28:10.040 so it's it's plausible to think that that's where a 1:28:10.120 --> 1:28:13.280 large number of these free ranging horses on tribal lands. 1:28:13.760 --> 1:28:17.320 That's why those numbers are increasing. And so tribal land 1:28:17.320 --> 1:28:20.160 managers are really looking at this and they're trying to 1:28:20.240 --> 1:28:23.439 decide what can we do, what can we as tribal 1:28:23.520 --> 1:28:25.960 land managers, knowing that in a lot of times it's 1:28:26.000 --> 1:28:29.000 not something that's very palatable to the public because the 1:28:29.040 --> 1:28:34.240 public doesn't necessarily understand what the tribal land managers are 1:28:34.240 --> 1:28:37.960 trying to do. And yeah, what they're up against, you know, 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:41.040 not only I mean, they're you know, on any reservation. 1:28:41.120 --> 1:28:45.559 We're fighting massive poverty. We're fighting alcoholism and drug abuse 1:28:45.680 --> 1:28:49.439 and and missing parents and a lot of you know, 1:28:49.520 --> 1:28:54.640 just abuse in general. We have rising dog and cat populations, 1:28:55.280 --> 1:28:56.960 and so you look at all of this and then 1:28:57.000 --> 1:28:59.240 you say, well, you know, leave the horses alone. And 1:28:59.280 --> 1:29:01.400 a lot of the tribe land managers are like, look, 1:29:01.439 --> 1:29:04.600 it's it's just another symptom of what's going on in 1:29:04.680 --> 1:29:08.759 tribal communities, and we have got to stop something somewhere. 1:29:09.640 --> 1:29:12.559 And so you know, you look at, okay, let more 1:29:12.600 --> 1:29:15.880 mountain lions, um, you know, let more mountain lions live. 1:29:16.560 --> 1:29:18.400 And and I know Carl and I said this, and 1:29:18.400 --> 1:29:20.640 I go, well, you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I 1:29:20.680 --> 1:29:24.360 think we look at threshold levels and we say, okay, 1:29:24.400 --> 1:29:27.519 so are what is our threshold level for numbers of 1:29:27.600 --> 1:29:33.720 species and whatnot. And the minute any animal, regardless of 1:29:33.760 --> 1:29:37.480 what it is, but the minute any animal does negative 1:29:38.120 --> 1:29:41.400 has a negative impact to the two leggeds, and I'm 1:29:41.439 --> 1:29:44.120 always telling people that I talk in two legged and 1:29:44.120 --> 1:29:47.799 four legged terms. So if there is a negative impact 1:29:47.880 --> 1:29:51.519 on a two legged to the point that it is death, 1:29:52.439 --> 1:29:55.360 that's your threshold. Then people start saying, oh, you've got 1:29:55.360 --> 1:29:58.920 to do something about this. That's most people's tipping point. 1:29:59.080 --> 1:30:03.880 That's yeah, their threshold is when there, right. But but 1:30:04.000 --> 1:30:06.439 the masses in general, and especially when you look at 1:30:06.520 --> 1:30:11.120 urban communities, that's that's their tipping point. Is Okay, Now 1:30:11.280 --> 1:30:15.559 we have negative effect on humans because it's it's causing 1:30:15.640 --> 1:30:19.719 you know, a human a human death, or our pets. Right. Yeah. Also, 1:30:19.800 --> 1:30:21.519 the mountain lions are in the back y already eating 1:30:21.479 --> 1:30:25.840 the dogs, right right. So if you're out hiking, you're 1:30:25.840 --> 1:30:30.200 out enjoying nature, quote unquote enjoying nature, and a mountain 1:30:30.240 --> 1:30:33.920 lion comes and takes your two year old, that's your threshold. 1:30:35.040 --> 1:30:37.439 You want all the mountain lions taken care of because 1:30:38.479 --> 1:30:42.400 it took your two year old. And the depletion of 1:30:43.560 --> 1:30:48.679 wildlife habitat and the depletion of like commercially viable grazing 1:30:48.800 --> 1:30:53.720 landscapes does not match most people's threshold. There's also it 1:30:53.760 --> 1:30:55.280 seems to me an element when you look at the 1:30:56.240 --> 1:31:01.240 article we keep talking about that argues that if we 1:31:01.240 --> 1:31:04.719 weren't um, that if we didn't hunt mountain lions, we'd 1:31:04.720 --> 1:31:07.880 be licking part of the horse problem. It demonstrates the 1:31:07.960 --> 1:31:11.360 type of self loathing, like a type of human self 1:31:11.439 --> 1:31:16.439 loathing that I see from people now and then, which 1:31:16.520 --> 1:31:22.280 is this idea that it's untenable that we would eat horses, 1:31:23.760 --> 1:31:28.240 but it's acceptable that a lion would do so, as 1:31:28.280 --> 1:31:33.719 though the horse, in his moment of death is thinking 1:31:33.760 --> 1:31:38.439 to himself, thank god, Um, I wasn't just shot by 1:31:38.479 --> 1:31:41.760 a rifle. I'm so much happier that I happen to 1:31:41.800 --> 1:31:46.840 have this thing gnawing on, gnawing me to death, as 1:31:46.880 --> 1:31:50.480 though the horse would find some level of of satisfaction 1:31:52.040 --> 1:31:55.559 or good feelings about that cause of death. Because why 1:31:55.600 --> 1:31:58.840 else would it be acceptable for someone to say, like, oh, 1:31:58.880 --> 1:32:02.840 that's not something we can do. Yeah, that's awful, but 1:32:03.479 --> 1:32:06.000 we should allow the lions to go do it for us, 1:32:07.400 --> 1:32:12.000 because people think that's natural. But the problem you run 1:32:12.000 --> 1:32:18.680 into here is you even lose that argument. Yeah, it's 1:32:18.760 --> 1:32:21.200 kind of a nice piece because it's like a helpful 1:32:21.240 --> 1:32:25.679 piece because it demonstrates the trouble that we humans find 1:32:25.720 --> 1:32:31.320 ourselves in right um in situations when it comes to 1:32:33.160 --> 1:32:39.800 wildlife or in this case, not quite wildlife, and balancing 1:32:39.840 --> 1:32:44.400 out how are we going to be good people and 1:32:44.439 --> 1:32:49.000 at what expense when in reality we're all trying to 1:32:49.040 --> 1:32:50.960 do the same thing. We're all trying to take care 1:32:50.960 --> 1:32:54.439 of our mother, the earth that we live on. And 1:32:54.479 --> 1:32:59.440 we talk about that and whether it's excessive pollution, you know, trash, 1:32:59.760 --> 1:33:02.320 what there, it's too many animals, whether it's too many 1:33:02.360 --> 1:33:06.559 two leggeds, whether it's you know, junked cars, whether you know, 1:33:06.640 --> 1:33:11.720 it's it's getting our ecosystems, you know, our marine uh 1:33:11.880 --> 1:33:14.720 areas you know, full of garbage and stuff. We all 1:33:14.720 --> 1:33:16.760 talk about trying to take care of our mother and 1:33:16.840 --> 1:33:18.719 how we're going to do this in this one area, 1:33:18.920 --> 1:33:22.960 and we failed to see the big picture that it's 1:33:23.000 --> 1:33:27.559 all interconnected. And so yeah, there there might be you 1:33:27.600 --> 1:33:30.360 know some well like right now in California they've got 1:33:30.479 --> 1:33:33.800 you know, a chicken disease and a poultry disease going 1:33:33.880 --> 1:33:36.800 on in in uh in animals, and so they're having 1:33:36.800 --> 1:33:38.800 to take out this is the U s D a 1:33:38.800 --> 1:33:42.679 Animal Plant Health Inspection service, to prevent it from coming 1:33:42.680 --> 1:33:48.080 in and really devastating our avian species. So they're taking 1:33:48.080 --> 1:33:53.160 out domestic domestic poultry down in southern California. If we 1:33:53.240 --> 1:33:57.280 had something like that that happened with horses, oh my goodness, 1:33:57.720 --> 1:34:00.760 I mean, that would be terrible. People would be like, 1:34:00.800 --> 1:34:03.080 oh my gosh, how how could we have? You know, 1:34:03.479 --> 1:34:07.280 African horse sickness or Venezuelan equine and cephalitis that will 1:34:07.360 --> 1:34:11.240 kill horses and they're dying on the landscape. And guess 1:34:11.280 --> 1:34:15.680 what those are both? I mean, especially Venezuelan equine andcephalitis. 1:34:15.680 --> 1:34:19.440 That's a human health problem because it's spread through mosquitoes. 1:34:19.960 --> 1:34:23.479 So you know, mosquito bites, an infected horse that comes 1:34:23.520 --> 1:34:26.160 over bites a human. Guess what now, the humans got 1:34:26.160 --> 1:34:30.479 it high high death rates. There would be something very 1:34:30.600 --> 1:34:33.000 very different if we had something like that going on. 1:34:33.040 --> 1:34:35.160 But we don't tend to see that all of these 1:34:35.160 --> 1:34:38.479 things are interconnected. That the trash we have on the 1:34:38.560 --> 1:34:42.320 landscape is also decreasing the forage for the animals that 1:34:42.400 --> 1:34:46.280 want to want to live there, whether they're they're deer 1:34:46.520 --> 1:34:50.800 or elk or cattle. Um. I don't know how many 1:34:50.800 --> 1:34:54.000 times I've I've worked on cattle that have hardwater, are 1:34:54.080 --> 1:34:58.280 hardware disease because they're eating wire, and they're eating cans, 1:34:58.439 --> 1:35:03.320 and they pick up garbage because they're flouraging. Hardware disease. 1:35:03.439 --> 1:35:06.640 Hardware disease because what they do is they swallow the 1:35:06.680 --> 1:35:09.719 wire or the nail or whatever this piece of metal 1:35:09.840 --> 1:35:12.840 is because they're eating on it. It goes down and 1:35:12.880 --> 1:35:15.080 it punctures the room and and then it spreads and 1:35:15.120 --> 1:35:19.960 you get this massive infection and a paracarditis or endocarditis 1:35:20.080 --> 1:35:22.920 or you know wherever it's punctured. And so what we 1:35:23.000 --> 1:35:25.240 do a lot of times with livestock is we will, 1:35:25.439 --> 1:35:27.559 especially in dairy cattle, is will go ahead and put 1:35:27.600 --> 1:35:30.479 magnets into them, into their room and to try and 1:35:30.520 --> 1:35:36.120 attract that metal to keep it from migrating out. Hardware disease, 1:35:36.160 --> 1:35:39.599 hardware disease, it's just a common term in veterinary medicine, 1:35:39.640 --> 1:35:42.600 in large animal of that medicine. So you look at that, 1:35:42.640 --> 1:35:44.200 and you look at horses and I don't know how 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:47.719 many times I've looked at horses that have stepped on glass, 1:35:47.760 --> 1:35:51.200 that has stepped on nails, and um, their foot becomes 1:35:51.200 --> 1:35:54.120 infected and there's no way to do anything with them 1:35:54.120 --> 1:35:56.439 because now this infection has gone all the way up 1:35:56.520 --> 1:35:59.920 into their tendon sheaths, and the most humane thing to 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:02.720 do is to put them down because they've got this 1:36:02.920 --> 1:36:06.360 spreading infection because they stepped on something that a human 1:36:06.439 --> 1:36:10.400 left out there. Yeah, and that happens with you know, 1:36:10.479 --> 1:36:13.879 with the free ranging horses. So I think people forget 1:36:14.520 --> 1:36:19.320 that we as two leggeds, we're as just just as 1:36:19.439 --> 1:36:21.600 much a component of this, and we have to be 1:36:21.680 --> 1:36:26.479 responsible about the whole thing. So whether you hunt or fish, 1:36:26.560 --> 1:36:28.880 or whether you're you know, not a proponent of it, 1:36:29.000 --> 1:36:32.600 or you are that realized that it's it's all interconnected. 1:36:32.840 --> 1:36:37.240 And I think a lot of people lose that that sense. 1:36:38.439 --> 1:36:40.400 They live in their little vacuum in the in their 1:36:40.479 --> 1:36:44.439 little suburban house, and they watch Netflix and whatnot, and 1:36:44.479 --> 1:36:48.719 they're completely separated from all of that that the hamburger 1:36:48.760 --> 1:36:51.599 that they got at McDonald's or in an out burger 1:36:52.240 --> 1:36:57.920 was actually once a living, breathing bovine animal that had 1:36:57.960 --> 1:37:00.160 a life, that had a spirit that you know, its 1:37:00.200 --> 1:37:02.680 heart was beating, But now they're eating it in an 1:37:02.680 --> 1:37:06.400 out burger, and people have lost that connection writing in 1:37:06.640 --> 1:37:12.200 simultaneously writing in letters about saving the horses among wildlife managers, 1:37:12.439 --> 1:37:18.920 is there any serious talk that that the wild Horse 1:37:19.000 --> 1:37:22.479 and Borough Protection Act was a mistake and that we 1:37:22.520 --> 1:37:26.280 ought to revisit it and repeal it because it's ultimately damaging, 1:37:27.520 --> 1:37:32.120 because it's it's proven to be quite damaging too wild 1:37:32.160 --> 1:37:36.639 horses and wild horse habitat. No, I've not heard anything 1:37:36.640 --> 1:37:40.280 about repealing it, but I've I have heard discussions about 1:37:40.320 --> 1:37:43.599 how we need to really clarify more of what we 1:37:44.040 --> 1:37:46.160 what we are to do. We talk about in in 1:37:46.200 --> 1:37:50.439 the Act, it talks about appropriate management levels and so on. 1:37:50.520 --> 1:37:54.960 That appropriate management level or a mL for those territories 1:37:56.439 --> 1:38:00.400 is determined. It's a very scientific method of deter rmining 1:38:00.680 --> 1:38:04.280 how many animals can reside. It's it's far more than 1:38:04.520 --> 1:38:07.800 carrying capacity, because we we throw that term around a well, 1:38:07.840 --> 1:38:11.160 carrying capacity of this plot of land or this this 1:38:11.240 --> 1:38:15.240 area of land is x y z well, so it's 1:38:15.320 --> 1:38:18.720 far more than that because it does look at the entirety, 1:38:18.880 --> 1:38:22.559 the the whole usage of that area. Yeah, not just 1:38:22.600 --> 1:38:24.559 like how many horses can you cram on it, but 1:38:24.600 --> 1:38:26.439 how many horses can you put on it and still 1:38:26.479 --> 1:38:30.519 have room for you know, for everything, for the fin, 1:38:30.880 --> 1:38:34.000 the feather, the you know, the the animals that are 1:38:34.040 --> 1:38:39.160 being brought in by the permitees, whether they're cattle or sheep. Um, 1:38:39.160 --> 1:38:42.880 certainly all of the you know, the native wildlife, the fish, 1:38:42.960 --> 1:38:46.200 I mean almost hesitate to say this, but you know 1:38:46.320 --> 1:38:51.800 a little mouse, you know that in about that little 1:38:51.800 --> 1:38:56.599 mouse that. Yeah, and so all of those they all 1:38:56.720 --> 1:39:00.040 have a right to live there, they all need to 1:39:00.240 --> 1:39:03.799 exist there. And so we've got to look at Okay, 1:39:03.840 --> 1:39:07.040 what do we do so that we can have that. 1:39:08.080 --> 1:39:10.479 And some people talk about, well, all the different tools 1:39:10.479 --> 1:39:13.080 that are in the toolbox, and and a lot of 1:39:13.120 --> 1:39:15.960 people will say, well, you know we can't have this tool. Well, 1:39:15.960 --> 1:39:19.479 we can't use that tool. Whether it's immuno contraception, whether 1:39:19.560 --> 1:39:24.960 it's the big s, whether it's you know something, Yeah, 1:39:25.280 --> 1:39:30.920 it's the contraceptive thing. Legitimate. Yes, it really does work 1:39:31.680 --> 1:39:36.240 in populations where you can already have them under control, 1:39:36.280 --> 1:39:41.240 where you've already got manageable population levels. Immuno contraception, I'm 1:39:41.240 --> 1:39:43.920 certified in it, I believe in it. Whether it's I 1:39:43.960 --> 1:39:48.240 love going to conduct actually stops ovulation where p ZP 1:39:48.600 --> 1:39:51.240 depending on the different levels. And that's the other thing 1:39:51.240 --> 1:39:54.200 in science, Um, you look at people, you know, say, well, 1:39:54.240 --> 1:39:57.680 PCPs the way to go and and hs US, you know, 1:39:57.720 --> 1:40:01.160 has the patent on the hundred microgram um dosage of 1:40:01.240 --> 1:40:03.639 p z P. But then you look at different adge 1:40:03.640 --> 1:40:05.800 events and I mean, there's there's so many different things 1:40:05.800 --> 1:40:07.560 that I explain it to people. I said, p z 1:40:07.680 --> 1:40:10.240 P is not just p z P. It's kind of 1:40:10.240 --> 1:40:12.639 like an apple is not just an apple. You've got 1:40:12.680 --> 1:40:14.920 all these different varieties of apples. And that's kind of 1:40:14.920 --> 1:40:17.080 what we're dealing with with p ZP right now, is 1:40:17.120 --> 1:40:20.800 that we have different varieties of it. And so it's 1:40:21.000 --> 1:40:24.120 usage and the response and and what you see in 1:40:24.200 --> 1:40:29.560 literature varies because you've got different concentrations and different adjuvants 1:40:29.640 --> 1:40:33.440 being used. So what is the animal rights perspective on 1:40:33.240 --> 1:40:36.080 on using contraceptives on horses? Because you'd be like, if 1:40:36.120 --> 1:40:42.120 you imagine if someone proposed that we would go and 1:40:42.160 --> 1:40:51.000 inject without consent forcibly inject humans with contraceptives, people would 1:40:51.000 --> 1:40:53.240 be I R. So if you have this idea that 1:40:53.439 --> 1:40:55.800 this is this untouchable thing that should be allowed to 1:40:55.800 --> 1:40:57.880 live its life, and then we have no right to 1:40:57.920 --> 1:41:00.519 come in and manipulate it, Yet we're gonna come in 1:41:00.760 --> 1:41:05.840 and take away its sexual viability without asking it or 1:41:05.880 --> 1:41:09.400 consulting it. Um. I would think that some people would 1:41:09.400 --> 1:41:11.960 recognize that as a pretty offensive idea, but it seems 1:41:12.000 --> 1:41:16.760 to be embraced by people who resist the big gas. Yeah, 1:41:16.960 --> 1:41:20.880 hs US owns the patent on the hundred microgram p 1:41:21.080 --> 1:41:25.320 z P. I mean Society, United States. Yes, yeah, and 1:41:25.400 --> 1:41:28.080 so and and they, you know, they have had great 1:41:28.120 --> 1:41:32.960 success in certain areas the Spring Spring Mountain or Spring 1:41:33.000 --> 1:41:37.040 Basin m h m A up in Colorado. Um, they're 1:41:37.080 --> 1:41:40.479 you know, they're having great success there. But it's much smaller. 1:41:40.520 --> 1:41:43.479 I mean, it's sixty eight animals, so it's and you've 1:41:43.479 --> 1:41:46.760 got somebody who lives in amongst them. The animals have 1:41:46.880 --> 1:41:51.320 become acclimated to that that person, so, you know, very 1:41:51.320 --> 1:41:55.240 special circumstances. It's a very different circumstance the prior mountain horses. 1:41:55.600 --> 1:41:58.880 There again, you've got more acclamation to the humans and 1:41:59.000 --> 1:42:01.920 people that are going in and doing the darting. So 1:42:01.960 --> 1:42:05.519 in situations like that, it's very successful and I'm I'm 1:42:05.640 --> 1:42:09.120 very much in supportive those kinds of things. But you 1:42:09.200 --> 1:42:16.720 look at larger, larger landscapes, larger populations, it may not 1:42:16.800 --> 1:42:19.840 be that easy. You've got some i mean, the average 1:42:20.000 --> 1:42:23.639 i'd say, and and this is certainly not scientifically proven, 1:42:23.640 --> 1:42:26.479 but a lot of people will you know, um, and 1:42:26.640 --> 1:42:29.439 I can't pull the papers that Carl's got, But you 1:42:29.479 --> 1:42:32.760 look at like the flight zone of these free ranging horses, 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:40.160 and it far is much farther than the darting range 1:42:40.320 --> 1:42:43.280 of a dart of a you know, once you see dart. 1:42:44.040 --> 1:42:46.720 So you're looking at courses that when they see a 1:42:46.800 --> 1:42:49.960 human at a quarter mile, they're like, hell, no, I'm gone. 1:42:50.479 --> 1:42:53.160 There's kind of some irony here that, like, the horses 1:42:53.200 --> 1:43:03.120 that are actually treatable are less wild than the horses 1:43:03.160 --> 1:43:07.280 that are untreatable. Right, this flight distance being the distance 1:43:07.280 --> 1:43:10.320 at which they're gonna flee from your presence. So this 1:43:10.360 --> 1:43:13.680 example in Colorado, you know that we're talking wild the 1:43:13.800 --> 1:43:17.479 legal definition, but in terms of wildness like flightiness, if 1:43:17.479 --> 1:43:20.800 they're kind of tame wild horses, then there's the chance 1:43:20.800 --> 1:43:24.760 of applying a contraceptive program that's more effective than if 1:43:24.800 --> 1:43:28.160 they're wilder wild horses. So it's almost like the more 1:43:28.200 --> 1:43:31.200 their wildness is compromised, the more that's a viable option, 1:43:31.479 --> 1:43:34.880 which strikes me as ironic. Wild horses, it's like an 1:43:34.880 --> 1:43:41.599 irony rich it is not iron rich, but irony rich environment. Yes, 1:43:42.360 --> 1:43:44.080 another piece of it that we haven't touched on in 1:43:44.160 --> 1:43:46.600 terms of workable solutions. I'm glad. I'm glad that the 1:43:46.680 --> 1:43:48.720 contraception topic came up. Could you talk a little bit 1:43:48.760 --> 1:43:51.599 about adoptions. I don't think we've spent any time on 1:43:51.600 --> 1:43:55.120 that yet. So a lot of people want, you know, 1:43:55.200 --> 1:43:58.040 any of these horses that are removed, they want them 1:43:58.080 --> 1:44:01.759 to be adopted out. And as per the nineteen seventy 1:44:01.760 --> 1:44:03.840 one Act, it said that any horse that was over 1:44:03.920 --> 1:44:07.439 ten years of age was considered probably not adoptable. So 1:44:07.479 --> 1:44:11.400 you can sell those horses because the older horse gets, 1:44:11.439 --> 1:44:14.120 just like a human, the harder it is to change 1:44:14.160 --> 1:44:19.880 their behavior. So so horses that are that are taken 1:44:19.920 --> 1:44:22.479 off the ranges or that that are no longer free 1:44:22.560 --> 1:44:27.040 ranging horses and they're over ten years of age, they're sold. Now. 1:44:27.080 --> 1:44:30.559 Anybody that's under and especially the younger animals, they go 1:44:30.600 --> 1:44:36.679 into adoption, and so adoption is a hundred dollars. Sorry, 1:44:36.720 --> 1:44:39.200 the over ten year olds, they're taken off the range, 1:44:39.280 --> 1:44:41.559 they go to where we pay to have them graze 1:44:41.640 --> 1:44:44.519 on private land. They can go that way, or they 1:44:44.520 --> 1:44:49.120 can be sold outright, and we cannot sell knowingly to 1:44:49.439 --> 1:44:53.439 a slaughter buyer, because they those people do exist, you know, 1:44:53.479 --> 1:44:56.759 because they make their living by taking horses to either Canada. 1:44:56.920 --> 1:45:00.360 Max Yeah, Dave phillips Um, the guy that a wild 1:45:00.360 --> 1:45:02.519 horse country. He spends quite a bit of time talking 1:45:02.560 --> 1:45:07.960 about the illegal trade, right of at times or people 1:45:07.960 --> 1:45:09.840 have said like, oh, no, I have an interest and 1:45:09.920 --> 1:45:12.800 I'll find a place for them, when in fact they're 1:45:12.800 --> 1:45:15.320 getting them and selling them into slaughter, right. And so 1:45:15.479 --> 1:45:18.200 part of what the Act does to um to protect 1:45:18.240 --> 1:45:20.360 those animals is that we are not able to sell 1:45:20.360 --> 1:45:24.280 more than four horses to any one individual, and that 1:45:24.360 --> 1:45:28.559 kind of helps decreased you know, because people realize, you know, 1:45:28.640 --> 1:45:30.800 if somebody's coming in saying, yeah, I want to buy 1:45:30.800 --> 1:45:34.559 six animals, that's a that's a big flag. We go, yeah, 1:45:34.640 --> 1:45:37.479 probably not going to sell to those that person, because 1:45:37.479 --> 1:45:41.360 we we pretty much know. So we do have, at 1:45:41.400 --> 1:45:43.960 least on the Carson National Forest in New Mexico, we 1:45:44.000 --> 1:45:47.639 have a very successful adoption program um for the horses 1:45:47.680 --> 1:45:50.599 that we take off of two of our wild horse 1:45:50.640 --> 1:45:53.960 and borrow territories on the Carson National Forest, and we've 1:45:54.000 --> 1:45:57.880 been very successful in finding forever homes with those animals. 1:45:58.720 --> 1:46:02.680 When you adopt, there is a mandatory one year inspection 1:46:02.960 --> 1:46:05.639 before you can get your bill of sale for that horse, 1:46:05.960 --> 1:46:08.600 Before that horse truly belongs to you, we have to 1:46:08.640 --> 1:46:10.920 go back out and do an inspection, make sure that 1:46:10.960 --> 1:46:13.519 you are instill that you still own the horse, that 1:46:13.560 --> 1:46:16.360 you still are in possession of that horse, and that 1:46:16.479 --> 1:46:19.799 its quality of life is good, that it hasn't gotten 1:46:19.800 --> 1:46:21.880 a pin a key body score of like a two 1:46:22.160 --> 1:46:25.320 or a one, and and that it's you know, it's 1:46:25.320 --> 1:46:29.280 being treated humanely and everything. Because we have that responsibility 1:46:29.840 --> 1:46:33.160 um as for the ACT and the BLM does the 1:46:33.200 --> 1:46:36.280 same thing. So it's a hundred dollars. So how many 1:46:36.600 --> 1:46:38.759 like off the cars in National Force, how many horses 1:46:38.760 --> 1:46:41.719 have come off there and gone into adoption since two 1:46:41.720 --> 1:46:46.920 thousand four? Um, we've had five hundred. Shoot, Sean just 1:46:46.960 --> 1:46:49.920 gave me this number. I think it was five seven animals. 1:46:51.080 --> 1:46:54.800 And right now we're still way. We're about five or 1:46:54.840 --> 1:46:58.040 six times over our a m L five or six times. 1:47:00.280 --> 1:47:02.320 And that's so what does that number for the AM 1:47:02.439 --> 1:47:04.920 for the and the a m L. Is that that 1:47:04.960 --> 1:47:08.280 portion of carson asma for us right for for um 1:47:08.320 --> 1:47:12.679 for one of the territories. Um, we're looking at about 1:47:12.800 --> 1:47:18.040 five hundred seventy one, or it was almost five hundred animals, 1:47:18.160 --> 1:47:20.479 right around five animals, and you feel like you should 1:47:20.520 --> 1:47:25.080 have about a hundred. I was reading that into like, 1:47:25.240 --> 1:47:27.240 that's the high range of the A m L. Because 1:47:27.280 --> 1:47:29.439 A m L s are given in a range so 1:47:29.479 --> 1:47:35.480 that it allows for fluctuations based on drought and forage availability, 1:47:35.560 --> 1:47:38.479 and so you'll always have a lower range in the 1:47:38.560 --> 1:47:41.960 A m L and then a higher upper range. And 1:47:42.200 --> 1:47:46.519 we are at exceeding our higher upper range five or 1:47:46.560 --> 1:47:50.280 six times. I was reading about the ways that wild 1:47:50.280 --> 1:47:53.920 horse numbers can explode when conditions are good, that in 1:47:53.960 --> 1:47:57.240 two thousand seven there was an estimated twenty eight point 1:47:57.320 --> 1:48:02.760 five thousand, while the horses in the American West ten 1:48:02.840 --> 1:48:08.599 years later in an estimated eighty three thousand. Right, because 1:48:08.640 --> 1:48:11.920 it's given that in any given year, we we say 1:48:11.920 --> 1:48:16.400 that our reproductive rate is and so you look at 1:48:16.479 --> 1:48:21.559 in five years that population is a greater than it 1:48:21.680 --> 1:48:24.640 was five years previous. So if you just take the 1:48:24.640 --> 1:48:28.400 Carson National Forest part of it, is there enough demand? 1:48:29.400 --> 1:48:34.760 Are people waiting in line to adopt one of these horses? No? No, 1:48:35.000 --> 1:48:37.240 I mean we don't have four hundred people saying like 1:48:37.280 --> 1:48:41.080 go get Me one, and the BLM actually had some 1:48:41.160 --> 1:48:46.120 numbers published from their databases UM looking back to the 1:48:46.200 --> 1:48:50.599 number of adoptions UM, so they had nine thousand, seven 1:48:50.680 --> 1:48:54.760 hundred adoptions nationally. Ten years later in two thousand five 1:48:54.760 --> 1:48:58.479 it was down from d to fifty seven hundred. Then 1:48:58.479 --> 1:49:00.400 from two thousand five to twenty six teen it went 1:49:00.439 --> 1:49:08.280 down from to and twelve. So I've heard talking maybe 1:49:08.280 --> 1:49:10.519 you could confirm it to Lonni. But the idea of 1:49:10.960 --> 1:49:14.639 the adoption market being saturated over time, like the people 1:49:14.640 --> 1:49:17.320 who wanted to adopt a horse have adopted a horse, 1:49:18.040 --> 1:49:20.800 and so the ratio of them that during these round 1:49:20.880 --> 1:49:22.920 ups when they go out and capture to try to 1:49:22.960 --> 1:49:25.840 reduce the population on the landscape closer to a m 1:49:25.960 --> 1:49:29.080 L rather than those being adopted, they're going more and 1:49:28.920 --> 1:49:32.639 more and more to the holding facilities. So a downward 1:49:32.640 --> 1:49:36.720 trend in adoption. Meanwhile an upward trend in the population 1:49:36.880 --> 1:49:39.720 both in in holding facilities and on the landscape, to 1:49:39.720 --> 1:49:42.480 the point where there's forty four thousand and holding facilities 1:49:43.040 --> 1:49:47.120 forty six thousand as of two thousand seventeen. Yeah, and 1:49:47.120 --> 1:49:50.200 and to your point about the population growth again, looking 1:49:50.200 --> 1:49:53.759 at the BLM, numbers which are readily available online. Between 1:49:55.720 --> 1:50:00.599 eighteen there was at increase on range, so not including 1:50:00.600 --> 1:50:03.360 the ones that are being held at the facilities, and 1:50:03.400 --> 1:50:06.880 that bumping population was from an estimated seventy two thousand, 1:50:06.960 --> 1:50:13.120 six hundred seventy four up to fifty one and the 1:50:13.200 --> 1:50:17.200 a m L the max a m L is twenty 1:50:17.280 --> 1:50:21.320 six thousand, six ninety so the max mL is basically 1:50:21.360 --> 1:50:26.240 being exceeded by about in order of three man. It 1:50:26.280 --> 1:50:30.519 seems like an insurmountable problem. Have you heard the argument, 1:50:30.720 --> 1:50:34.400 You're you're shaking your head, have you heard the argument? 1:50:34.560 --> 1:50:36.799 Years ago, I was working on a story about magazine 1:50:36.840 --> 1:50:39.639 story about livestock theft and and that led me into 1:50:39.720 --> 1:50:42.479 some other conversations with people in the livestock world and 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:45.440 a in a in a stock detective guy who investigates 1:50:45.479 --> 1:50:51.680 livestock theft. I was talking about the un the unanticipated 1:50:51.760 --> 1:50:57.240 consequences of when we closed the horse slaughter facilities in 1:50:57.320 --> 1:51:01.120 the US, where when you had horror slaughter facilities in 1:51:01.160 --> 1:51:06.560 the US and people could sell unwanted horses to slaughter facilities, 1:51:07.200 --> 1:51:14.360 it created an outlet for unwanted horses. And he felt 1:51:14.400 --> 1:51:16.720 that once you remove that outlet, even though you could 1:51:16.720 --> 1:51:21.000 still sell into Canada Mexico, which was much less convenient 1:51:21.040 --> 1:51:24.600 and far more expensive and less profitable for operators that 1:51:25.000 --> 1:51:30.040 without that outlet, he saw he and his colleagues saw 1:51:30.080 --> 1:51:35.360 a dramatic increase in horse abuse and neglect, and a 1:51:35.439 --> 1:51:41.599 dramatic increase in feral horses on the landscape, because suddenly 1:51:41.840 --> 1:51:45.519 it used to be that all horses had some monetary value, 1:51:46.240 --> 1:51:49.880 and it went to being that most horses. Now there 1:51:49.960 --> 1:51:53.600 was no value for unwanted horses. And he felt it 1:51:53.680 --> 1:51:57.760 was like one of these great like I said, unanticipated 1:51:57.880 --> 1:52:02.640 or unforeseen consequences of an action, where supposedly, in an 1:52:02.680 --> 1:52:08.840 act to eliminate horse suffering, you open the floodgates of 1:52:08.920 --> 1:52:12.200 horse suffering by creating a problem. He said, we used 1:52:12.200 --> 1:52:16.000 to get phone calls because someone's horse had been stolen. 1:52:16.560 --> 1:52:19.599 Now we get phone calls because someone has a horse 1:52:19.640 --> 1:52:23.800 in their yard and they don't know where it came from. 1:52:23.840 --> 1:52:26.400 And he sites that shift in particular, and he talked 1:52:26.400 --> 1:52:32.200 about in California that shift and leading to new populations 1:52:32.200 --> 1:52:35.080 of wild horses and places where they didn't previously exist 1:52:35.120 --> 1:52:38.240 because people would simply load a stock trailer with unwanted 1:52:38.280 --> 1:52:41.680 horses and drive it out and open the gate. And 1:52:41.760 --> 1:52:44.639 that's that's where I was saying on especially on tribal lands. 1:52:44.800 --> 1:52:48.439 That's one of the theories that tribal land managers have 1:52:48.840 --> 1:52:53.479 of why we have so many free ranging horses on 1:52:53.560 --> 1:52:57.640 tribal lands is because in in the urban populations that 1:52:57.720 --> 1:53:01.599 are close to tribal lands, people will get a horse 1:53:01.760 --> 1:53:03.680 or a pony, you know, and they're, oh, I want 1:53:03.680 --> 1:53:05.960 to buy this from my daughter. She really wants this 1:53:06.000 --> 1:53:08.599 horse or whatnot, and it's so cool to have a horse. 1:53:09.240 --> 1:53:12.439 And then they realize that, you know, hey, is well 1:53:12.520 --> 1:53:15.639 this year good quality horse. Alfalfa is you know, fifteen 1:53:15.640 --> 1:53:20.559 dollars of bail and Timothy is upwards of bail. And 1:53:20.600 --> 1:53:23.000 that's really what your veterinarian tells you. You should be 1:53:23.040 --> 1:53:26.160 feeding your horse. And oh, by the way you put 1:53:26.200 --> 1:53:28.360 all that into him, what's going to come out the 1:53:28.400 --> 1:53:30.479 other end? And now I have to deal with all 1:53:30.520 --> 1:53:34.759 this poop and it becomes overwhelming and maybe not every 1:53:34.800 --> 1:53:37.880 horse is you know, black, beauty and um, and it's 1:53:37.920 --> 1:53:40.559 not as nice a horse is what they thought it was. 1:53:40.840 --> 1:53:43.320 Or the kid loses interest because now they'd rather be 1:53:43.400 --> 1:53:47.559 playing PlayStation as opposed to outside working with the horse, 1:53:47.720 --> 1:53:50.640 and you know, just a whole bunch of factors. So 1:53:50.680 --> 1:53:53.120 now there's this unwanted horse and they don't know what 1:53:53.200 --> 1:53:55.160 to do with it. Well, the most two main thing 1:53:55.200 --> 1:53:57.519 in their mind is let's take it out and put 1:53:57.560 --> 1:54:01.120 it on the landscape. Oh yeah, there's that tribal land 1:54:01.120 --> 1:54:03.200 out there, and the horse can run out there because 1:54:03.200 --> 1:54:06.600 there's plenty of grass, not realizing that a lot of 1:54:06.600 --> 1:54:09.240 that grass is non native grass that you know, doesn't 1:54:09.240 --> 1:54:13.839 have a high palatability factor and it may look lush, 1:54:14.240 --> 1:54:16.200 but even the cows won't eat it. The deer and 1:54:16.240 --> 1:54:18.280 the elk won't eat it, you know, the antelope aren't 1:54:18.280 --> 1:54:21.439 eating it. And so they put this horse out there thinking, oh, 1:54:21.479 --> 1:54:23.200 I'm doing a good thing because I'm gonna let it 1:54:23.240 --> 1:54:27.759 go out there and eat all that free grass. Starvation camp. 1:54:28.920 --> 1:54:32.000 The same stock detective talked about that too, that you 1:54:32.040 --> 1:54:38.000 could track incidences of wild horses in relation to alf 1:54:38.040 --> 1:54:42.840 alfa prices. Yeah, the more expensive feed got, the more 1:54:42.840 --> 1:54:45.520 wild horses around the landscape because people couldn't afford to 1:54:45.560 --> 1:54:48.040 take care of him. And have you seen the movie, 1:54:48.360 --> 1:54:52.720 the seventies movie Um The Electric Horseman with Robert Redford 1:54:53.720 --> 1:54:55.760 when he goes to cut his horse loose. What does 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:59.839 he do? He drives out until he finds some horses 1:55:00.000 --> 1:55:03.520 out on the horizon and turns his turns his loose. 1:55:07.600 --> 1:55:12.480 I don't you know, Carl, you got more? What more 1:55:12.480 --> 1:55:14.560 do you have? You I've been, I've been over here. 1:55:14.920 --> 1:55:16.760 It's like I can't even like do my job. I 1:55:16.800 --> 1:55:19.760 can't even do my job right now. I can't do 1:55:19.840 --> 1:55:22.960 my job right now of walking through this because I 1:55:23.000 --> 1:55:29.640 get it's like, I'm so baffled. I'm so baffled by 1:55:31.880 --> 1:55:41.040 the mindsets that are on display when we're talking about 1:55:41.080 --> 1:55:44.640 individuals who are taking steps that they think are improving, 1:55:44.840 --> 1:55:49.680 alleviating suffering, improving the world, that in fact are so 1:55:49.840 --> 1:55:57.880 obviously driving negatives that it makes it like it makes 1:55:57.880 --> 1:56:01.080 it difficult for me to carry on the conversation because 1:56:01.080 --> 1:56:03.280 I want to step out and just try to understand 1:56:03.280 --> 1:56:05.720 it better. Yeah. No, it's a it's a really tough 1:56:06.120 --> 1:56:09.720 position to be in. It's there's no there's no easy solution, 1:56:09.760 --> 1:56:13.240 and a lot of a lot of really good people 1:56:13.440 --> 1:56:16.360 who care a whole heck of a lot about the 1:56:16.400 --> 1:56:19.960 well being of horses and about the well being of 1:56:20.760 --> 1:56:24.480 range conditions and about the well being of rural economies 1:56:24.520 --> 1:56:28.840 that are dependent upon these systems. Have been banging their 1:56:28.840 --> 1:56:30.880 heads against the wall for years trying to come up 1:56:30.880 --> 1:56:35.400 with a solution. And um, there are very disparate competing 1:56:35.960 --> 1:56:39.400 value sets at play here. So UM, you know you 1:56:39.560 --> 1:56:44.560 you're coming at this from a relatively well informed standpoint 1:56:44.760 --> 1:56:48.280 on in terms of the ecological consequences. Um, I think 1:56:48.320 --> 1:56:52.000 a lot of people, frankly, are looking at it from 1:56:52.000 --> 1:56:54.960 a really simple lens. They like horses. They don't want 1:56:54.960 --> 1:56:57.600 anything bad to happen to the horses. They want the 1:56:57.640 --> 1:56:59.920 horses to be free. End of conversation, move on to 1:57:00.040 --> 1:57:02.360 something else. It's not something that I think a lot 1:57:02.360 --> 1:57:06.360 of people have put a ton of thought into. Necessarily, 1:57:06.440 --> 1:57:08.440 we don't want anything bad to happen to the horse. 1:57:08.720 --> 1:57:12.880 If it happened from a person Diana thirst getting killed 1:57:12.880 --> 1:57:15.800 by a line, that's all cool. Yeah, But we're at 1:57:15.800 --> 1:57:17.839 a point now, I mean, and and you know, I'm 1:57:18.000 --> 1:57:19.840 recognized I'm preaching to the choir here a little bit. 1:57:19.880 --> 1:57:23.080 But the distribution of species and habitats on the landscape 1:57:23.120 --> 1:57:25.200 on the face of the earth are are driven by 1:57:25.240 --> 1:57:29.280 our decisions. Like the places where we still have wildness 1:57:29.320 --> 1:57:33.200 and wildlife are there because humans have decided it to 1:57:33.280 --> 1:57:36.480 be so. And the places where we don't have those 1:57:36.560 --> 1:57:38.840 characteristics on the landscape are places we haven't made that 1:57:38.920 --> 1:57:42.400 a priority. So it comes down to what we value. 1:57:43.040 --> 1:57:45.160 And you know, this Act some of the language that 1:57:45.200 --> 1:57:47.840 we haven't really talked about in the Act um. You've 1:57:47.840 --> 1:57:54.360 made a couple of comments, Steve about the um. The 1:57:54.400 --> 1:57:58.440 degree to which we attribute wildness to the species is 1:57:58.480 --> 1:58:01.520 it's something that that is rooted in science, is it's 1:58:01.520 --> 1:58:05.360 something that is rooted in reality. And really it doesn't 1:58:05.360 --> 1:58:07.920 matter because it's something that's rooted in the Law. The 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:10.320 Wild and the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burrows 1:58:10.400 --> 1:58:15.720 Act states as the policy of Congress that wild free 1:58:15.760 --> 1:58:19.640 roaming horses and burrows shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, 1:58:19.720 --> 1:58:23.880 or death. And to accomplish this there to be considered 1:58:23.960 --> 1:58:27.720 in the area where presently found as an integral part 1:58:27.800 --> 1:58:31.840 of the natural system of the public lands. That is 1:58:31.960 --> 1:58:36.000 federal law. So it's not the ecology of it doesn't 1:58:36.000 --> 1:58:40.720 even matter, right it it's a federal law by law 1:58:41.080 --> 1:58:44.240 there to be in the American psyche at that time, 1:58:45.240 --> 1:58:49.000 I think you know, probably these issues around inhumane treatment. 1:58:49.040 --> 1:58:52.880 We're driving this. It captured the minds of America leading 1:58:52.920 --> 1:58:55.080 up to the nineteen seventy one passage of the Act. 1:58:55.840 --> 1:58:59.160 And even if you read the language here, it's none 1:58:59.160 --> 1:59:03.720 of this is is science. Frankly, it's I'll read a 1:59:03.720 --> 1:59:06.160 little bit more of it to to get the point across. 1:59:06.600 --> 1:59:09.720 Congress finds and declares that wild free roaming horses and 1:59:09.720 --> 1:59:13.280 burrows are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit 1:59:13.320 --> 1:59:15.880 of the West, that they contribute to the diversity of 1:59:15.920 --> 1:59:18.360 life forms within the nation and enrich the lives of 1:59:18.400 --> 1:59:21.520 the American people, and that these horses and burrows are 1:59:21.560 --> 1:59:24.960 fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy 1:59:25.000 --> 1:59:27.960 of Congress that wild free roaming horses and burros shall 1:59:28.040 --> 1:59:30.960 be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death. And to 1:59:31.000 --> 1:59:33.600 accomplish this, they're to be considered in the area where 1:59:33.600 --> 1:59:36.880 presently found as an integral part of the natural system 1:59:36.960 --> 1:59:43.160 of the public lands. It's beautiful, eloquent language, has nothing 1:59:43.160 --> 1:59:46.480 to do with ecology. They've captured the spirit of the 1:59:46.480 --> 1:59:51.520 American West, you know, so when you're trying to manage that, 1:59:51.840 --> 1:59:59.960 gunfights also kind of capture that spirit, you know. When 2:00:00.320 --> 2:00:03.920 in in the movie Hidalgo, when Vigo Mortenson after he 2:00:03.960 --> 2:00:08.200 wins the Big Arabian you know, the the race, the 2:00:08.480 --> 2:00:12.480 Endurance Race over in South Saudi Arabia, and he comes 2:00:12.520 --> 2:00:16.600 back and he takes Hidalago back to Montana, and he 2:00:16.920 --> 2:00:19.840 lets him go and says, go be within. And the 2:00:19.880 --> 2:00:22.600 picture that you see, I mean, that's what people are 2:00:22.640 --> 2:00:26.919 looking at. And and yes, maybe there are were limited 2:00:26.960 --> 2:00:29.960 areas where you see things like that, and it's but 2:00:30.040 --> 2:00:33.800 it's very romantic, it's very touching. And I wish that 2:00:33.880 --> 2:00:36.920 they all looked that wonderful. I wish that the landscape 2:00:37.040 --> 2:00:39.560 all looks like that, but it doesn't. And so we 2:00:39.640 --> 2:00:44.600 have a responsibility two keep the land where it is, 2:00:45.040 --> 2:00:48.560 try to keep that land so that it can be productive, 2:00:48.800 --> 2:00:52.640 so they can be beautiful. It's difficult when you're in 2:00:52.680 --> 2:00:58.760 these very arid landscapes and there's you know, a caring 2:00:58.760 --> 2:01:01.720 capacity for a cow might be a thousand acres per cow. 2:01:02.120 --> 2:01:04.760 So the cows are going or the deer or the 2:01:04.800 --> 2:01:07.120 elk are going, you know, miles to find that one 2:01:07.160 --> 2:01:09.960 blade of grass or that one you know, um, a 2:01:10.040 --> 2:01:13.320 little bit of oak, which you know oak will kill 2:01:13.320 --> 2:01:17.200 a horse, but um, but you know, see, I think 2:01:17.240 --> 2:01:21.880 we we lose that sense because Hollywood has given us 2:01:21.920 --> 2:01:27.080 these images that that people see and and that's what 2:01:27.280 --> 2:01:31.000 they focus on. You know, they look at at Hidalgo 2:01:31.080 --> 2:01:33.840 and what great measures this mustang did and how he 2:01:33.920 --> 2:01:37.720 beat all the Arabian horses, you know, and everything that. 2:01:38.160 --> 2:01:40.800 You know, they see Vigo mortons and oh my gosh, 2:01:40.840 --> 2:01:43.920 that's what That's what people look at. That's what they 2:01:43.920 --> 2:01:48.320 associate to, and not the cruel reality that a lot 2:01:48.360 --> 2:01:51.680 of these horses are starving in and a hundred and 2:01:51.800 --> 2:01:54.760 nine two of them are dying of thirst and getting 2:01:54.760 --> 2:01:58.240 stuck in the mire on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, 2:01:58.320 --> 2:02:01.280 because there was nothing left for them to eat. That's 2:02:01.320 --> 2:02:04.440 a really good point, and I think that speaks to 2:02:04.440 --> 2:02:06.560 where we are right now in the conversation and what 2:02:06.720 --> 2:02:10.000 likely is ahead in the conversation. The more of those 2:02:10.080 --> 2:02:13.840 kind of instances you have, you can't possibly talk about 2:02:13.880 --> 2:02:21.440 the welfare of these horses when you have situations where 2:02:21.880 --> 2:02:25.720 they're dying by the hundreds due to a lack of 2:02:25.760 --> 2:02:29.840 resources on the landscape and we're not addressing it. You know, 2:02:29.960 --> 2:02:35.240 it's anybody who's willing to spend sixty seconds thinking about 2:02:35.280 --> 2:02:41.840 it will recognize that there's something in the system has 2:02:41.880 --> 2:02:45.200 to change. Right what is what is happening on the 2:02:45.240 --> 2:02:48.920 landscape right now is not sustainable. There are a whole 2:02:48.920 --> 2:02:51.720 host of negative consequences, whether you want to think about 2:02:51.720 --> 2:02:54.080 it from an ecological perspective and the other species on 2:02:54.120 --> 2:02:57.680 the landscape that are being detrimentally affected, or what they 2:02:57.680 --> 2:03:01.440 want to think about it from animal welfare perspective, what's 2:03:01.440 --> 2:03:04.920 happening right now is not optimal. I mean even you 2:03:04.960 --> 2:03:08.240 know these infographics that I've been printing off from the 2:03:08.240 --> 2:03:10.840 Bureau of Land Management, the the language that they use. 2:03:11.680 --> 2:03:16.720 You know, population population is going up, adoptions are going down. 2:03:16.800 --> 2:03:20.400 There's not There's not much here that is like a 2:03:20.440 --> 2:03:25.080 silver lining or a positive takeaway. It's basically recognition that 2:03:25.120 --> 2:03:28.760 we're in a really tough place right now, and um, 2:03:30.120 --> 2:03:33.160 there are difficult decisions ahead about what to do. You know, 2:03:33.240 --> 2:03:36.680 do we want to continue allowing our shared public lands 2:03:36.760 --> 2:03:41.320 to be dramatically impacted in some places and and the 2:03:41.400 --> 2:03:45.720 wildlife other than the horses um suffering and folks trying 2:03:45.760 --> 2:03:51.120 to produce livestock on those landscapes being negatively affected. At 2:03:51.160 --> 2:03:55.840 some point, something's got to change. My perspective on what 2:03:55.960 --> 2:03:59.400 has the change, I have like great clarity on it 2:04:00.440 --> 2:04:07.480 because I understand the argument that people give for why 2:04:07.520 --> 2:04:10.480 they want to recognize them as a form of wildlife. 2:04:11.280 --> 2:04:14.920 I understand it so well I could masquerade as someone 2:04:15.000 --> 2:04:19.280 who held that opinion and deliver it in a somewhat 2:04:19.280 --> 2:04:23.840 convincing way. So I understand it to that level. But 2:04:23.920 --> 2:04:28.680 I just like wholesale reject the idea. And I think 2:04:28.760 --> 2:04:35.400 that from my perspective, the primary, our primary objective when 2:04:35.440 --> 2:04:41.200 looking at land management should be towards the long term 2:04:41.240 --> 2:04:51.000 sustainability of native wildlife and anything that I shouldn't say 2:04:51.000 --> 2:04:54.160 anything that stands in the way, but many of the 2:04:54.240 --> 2:04:56.200 things that stand in the way of the long term 2:04:56.360 --> 2:05:01.800 sustainability of native wildlife would have to move side. And 2:05:01.840 --> 2:05:05.760 I think that it was a tragic mistake that we 2:05:07.160 --> 2:05:11.680 would go and enact a piece of legislation that so 2:05:12.080 --> 2:05:18.840 wholly tied the hands of future generations and addressing a 2:05:18.880 --> 2:05:24.920 problem that I feel should have been anticipated. It's it's 2:05:24.960 --> 2:05:26.840 just the mess, and it's on people's minds because we 2:05:26.880 --> 2:05:29.120 get emails constantly from people being like, dude, I don't 2:05:29.160 --> 2:05:32.960 understand the wild horse situation. You know, me like you 2:05:33.040 --> 2:05:36.280 got a couple of hours. Yeah. There's a great quote 2:05:36.320 --> 2:05:40.680 from Dave Phillips in this article that I've poked out 2:05:40.680 --> 2:05:47.360 a little bit today that I agree with wholeheartedly. Um, 2:05:47.400 --> 2:05:49.960 he says. Wild Horse advocacy groups have blasted the plans 2:05:49.960 --> 2:05:52.560 and are preparing for a legal fight. In all likelihood, though, 2:05:53.280 --> 2:05:55.480 none of these ideas will make it out of Washington, 2:05:55.960 --> 2:05:59.879 particularly unlikely as the slaughter option. No one in Congress 2:06:00.000 --> 2:06:02.680 wants to vote to turn an American symbol into sausage. 2:06:04.280 --> 2:06:07.360 That's from this Dave Phillips article, And I think that's right. 2:06:07.400 --> 2:06:10.960 You know, if you think about the political landscape, you 2:06:11.000 --> 2:06:16.160 put yourself in the shoes of an elected representative, you 2:06:16.200 --> 2:06:18.240 know who wants to have the proverbial blood on their 2:06:18.240 --> 2:06:20.960 hands to make that kind of a decision. You think 2:06:20.960 --> 2:06:26.800 about being on the campaign trail, and I guess the 2:06:26.880 --> 2:06:33.840 question would be, what what proportion of America shares your perspective? Steve, 2:06:35.160 --> 2:06:43.520 I can't answer that. Yeah, you yeah, I do. One 2:06:43.560 --> 2:06:48.360 guy and he agrees, I have no idea. Man, I 2:06:48.400 --> 2:06:52.040 have no idea. There's not a quick fix. And and 2:06:52.080 --> 2:06:53.880 what a lot of people are looking for is they 2:06:53.880 --> 2:06:57.720 want they want us to do a cookbook and get 2:06:57.760 --> 2:07:00.400 hand them a little three by five card that says, 2:07:00.480 --> 2:07:03.640 if you do steps one, two and three and four 2:07:03.720 --> 2:07:07.320 in this order, you will no longer have any issues. Yeah, 2:07:07.320 --> 2:07:09.400 there's not a quick fix, but there's not a slow fix. 2:07:11.120 --> 2:07:14.600 And and and a lot of it is driven by 2:07:14.760 --> 2:07:17.920 what he was saying, litigation. You know, we tie things 2:07:18.040 --> 2:07:21.560 up in courts of law with people that have probably 2:07:21.600 --> 2:07:26.200 never even smelled a horse. They have no idea, and 2:07:26.240 --> 2:07:29.720 they've never gone out to where these animals are living. 2:07:32.080 --> 2:07:35.400 They have no idea. And so those of us that 2:07:35.520 --> 2:07:38.280 live out here and and this is what we do, 2:07:38.800 --> 2:07:41.480 and this is our passion. I want to do what's 2:07:41.560 --> 2:07:45.520 best by the horses. And sometimes it's you know, the 2:07:45.600 --> 2:07:47.840 hardest thing for me as a veterinarian. And I tell 2:07:47.880 --> 2:07:50.520 people this all the time. I went to vet school 2:07:50.800 --> 2:07:54.000 to above all, do no harm, because that was huge. 2:07:54.040 --> 2:07:59.560 That was what we were taught. Above all, do no harm. 2:07:59.600 --> 2:08:03.160 But what are we doing right now by not having 2:08:03.400 --> 2:08:05.800 you know, in a lot of in a lot of cases, 2:08:05.880 --> 2:08:10.720 we are causing more harm. Maybe not to one individual 2:08:10.920 --> 2:08:13.600 when we look at you know, just that a single individual, 2:08:14.000 --> 2:08:17.720 but when we look at the landscape as a whole, 2:08:18.160 --> 2:08:22.920 to our entire planet. We are doing harm. And that's 2:08:22.960 --> 2:08:27.480 tough because it calls for some really tough decisions that 2:08:27.560 --> 2:08:37.320 people don't want to to face. And it's hard. Yeah, jeez. 2:08:39.720 --> 2:08:42.080 I ask just like in like a perfect world, if 2:08:42.120 --> 2:08:45.360 if you are now controller of the wild horse issue, 2:08:45.520 --> 2:08:48.360 you could legislate as you please give her the give 2:08:48.360 --> 2:08:50.600 her that you could be commander of the universe, man 2:08:50.720 --> 2:08:54.160 or of the universe, and you can point it gun 2:08:54.160 --> 2:08:57.800 to anybody and say, do as I wish, what would 2:08:57.880 --> 2:09:00.440 what would it look like? What would what would be 2:09:00.480 --> 2:09:06.880 a possible solution er? And I have to think about 2:09:06.920 --> 2:09:09.919 that because you know, as as a force service official, 2:09:10.720 --> 2:09:13.400 I have to go by what the what the federal 2:09:13.520 --> 2:09:18.080 law says. I appreciate, I appreciate that you feel that way. Yeah, 2:09:18.120 --> 2:09:20.560 I have to. I have to do what the law says, 2:09:21.080 --> 2:09:23.840 and so I have to protect those horses. I have 2:09:23.960 --> 2:09:27.720 to do what's right by those populations that are mandated 2:09:28.280 --> 2:09:31.320 in the law. And so I will do everything that 2:09:31.400 --> 2:09:38.600 I can to protect to maintain uh multiple use viability, 2:09:38.640 --> 2:09:43.400 to make sure that that forest is still able to survive, 2:09:43.760 --> 2:09:46.360 that the grass can still grow there, that the trees 2:09:46.440 --> 2:09:50.360 can still exist, that the little mouse can still exist. 2:09:50.440 --> 2:09:54.040 The horses that are there can exist, the the deer, 2:09:54.120 --> 2:09:57.120 the antelope, you know, everybody that is supposed to be there, 2:09:57.800 --> 2:10:00.600 even down to the earthworms and the rubs that are 2:10:00.640 --> 2:10:03.880 in the ground and sub level, that they all can 2:10:03.960 --> 2:10:07.839 be there. That's what I work on. What's your method 2:10:08.200 --> 2:10:13.440 of protection is what's kind of tricky and contested. That's 2:10:13.440 --> 2:10:16.240 what's tough. You know, we remove um. I'm all about 2:10:16.280 --> 2:10:19.640 trying to find as many homes for these animals. Um. 2:10:19.680 --> 2:10:24.680 I own one myself and and I have an adoption 2:10:25.120 --> 2:10:29.520 Momo Momo, my big old may Bay Mayor. She's she's 2:10:29.560 --> 2:10:34.000 she's gone through gentling. She's now in a trainer's hands 2:10:34.080 --> 2:10:36.480 and he's working with her. And and he's told me, 2:10:36.520 --> 2:10:38.720 he said, it'll be a while before you can write her. 2:10:39.160 --> 2:10:41.880 She's a tough one, you know. She's three probably going 2:10:41.960 --> 2:10:45.360 on four UM, and she came off the Modoc National Forest. 2:10:46.040 --> 2:10:48.480 But I'm not giving up hope. You know, I've had her. 2:10:48.760 --> 2:10:51.920 It'll be a year in September um and and she 2:10:52.080 --> 2:10:58.160 was a purchase because she was deemed unadoptable at the 2:10:58.240 --> 2:11:01.840 Devil's Garden facilities. So we've brought thirty six animals from 2:11:01.880 --> 2:11:07.240 California to our facility on the Carson National Forest. Um. 2:11:07.400 --> 2:11:11.400 One of the animals was in very poor health than 2:11:11.520 --> 2:11:15.960 we had to euthanize a guilding. Um. We have several 2:11:16.000 --> 2:11:20.080 mayors that we're using for our low stress baiting on 2:11:20.120 --> 2:11:22.960 the Carson National Forest where we use them as an 2:11:23.000 --> 2:11:26.480 attractant for other animals that come in a form of 2:11:26.520 --> 2:11:30.880 like Judas Horse kind of sort of yeah. Um, and 2:11:30.920 --> 2:11:36.400 then you know we we got everybody else a permanent home. Carl, 2:11:37.240 --> 2:11:40.000 can you entertain the commander of the universe? Are you 2:11:40.040 --> 2:11:42.640 not allowed to do that? I got a couple of 2:11:42.680 --> 2:11:44.520 things I want to say, but I'm not going I'm 2:11:44.560 --> 2:11:46.160 not going to command you can't do the commander. I'm 2:11:46.160 --> 2:11:48.000 not going to take the reins on what we do 2:11:48.160 --> 2:11:51.120 from here. I think Solani's points really well taken. I mean, ultimately, 2:11:51.160 --> 2:11:55.520 our job is to um execute the law. You know, 2:11:55.600 --> 2:12:01.600 what we're told by the American people the Congress as 2:12:01.600 --> 2:12:04.240 our legal mandate is what we're here to do. I 2:12:04.280 --> 2:12:08.440 think it's worth pointing out some of the ecological science 2:12:08.480 --> 2:12:11.600 around the issue so that folks who are involved in 2:12:11.600 --> 2:12:14.200 the democratic process can weigh in in a more informed 2:12:14.840 --> 2:12:18.120 manner um. But ultimately it's not up to us to 2:12:18.120 --> 2:12:20.800 be the controllers of the universe because we are in 2:12:20.880 --> 2:12:24.160 fact public servants. We work for the American people, so 2:12:25.120 --> 2:12:28.760 we do what we are told by all of you, 2:12:29.280 --> 2:12:32.920 our bosses. You all are the controllers of um our 2:12:32.960 --> 2:12:39.640 programs of work. So that's one of the um limitations 2:12:39.960 --> 2:12:42.440 and beauties of being a public servant, I suppose. But 2:12:42.440 --> 2:12:43.640 there are a couple of things I want to point 2:12:43.640 --> 2:12:47.080 out thinking about the ecology of horses, all right, going 2:12:47.160 --> 2:12:52.880 back to the place to see when we had not 2:12:53.040 --> 2:12:55.840 just wild horses, but like the wildest landscape that you 2:12:55.840 --> 2:13:02.680 could imagine clearly a prey species being haunted by a 2:13:02.680 --> 2:13:08.120 whole host of incredible carnivores that I've already described, saber 2:13:08.200 --> 2:13:18.080 tooth tigers, short faced bears, dire wolves, American lions, human beings. 2:13:18.120 --> 2:13:21.680 So it's a species that has evolved as a prey animal. 2:13:23.560 --> 2:13:27.880 And getting to your point, Steve, about this topic being 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:33.280 one which is very irony rich. Another paper we're going 2:13:33.320 --> 2:13:36.920 to share recently came out that speaks to this debate 2:13:37.080 --> 2:13:42.600 about whether or not the coortinary megafonal extinctions were driven 2:13:42.640 --> 2:13:45.120 by more by climate or more by people. There's a 2:13:45.160 --> 2:13:50.000 really cool fresh science paper that came out um by 2:13:50.120 --> 2:13:55.000 Felicia Smith at All titled body sized downgrading of Mammals 2:13:55.040 --> 2:13:58.880 over the Late Coortinary. When all these huge species from 2:13:58.920 --> 2:14:02.720 around around globe we're just dropping off like flies. And 2:14:02.760 --> 2:14:06.280 here's a quote from the abstract. Although all habitable continents 2:14:06.360 --> 2:14:10.040 once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species are largely 2:14:10.040 --> 2:14:14.360 confined to Africa. This decline is coincident with the global 2:14:14.400 --> 2:14:18.120 expansion of hominins over the late coortinary. So they go 2:14:18.200 --> 2:14:21.320 through and and present a pretty compelling case for the 2:14:21.400 --> 2:14:27.320 likelihood of humans being the source of the extinction of 2:14:27.480 --> 2:14:30.040 all of these large mammals, not just in North America 2:14:30.040 --> 2:14:32.400 but around the globe. They kind of trace the expansion 2:14:32.440 --> 2:14:36.240 of humans and the concurrent elimination of all these big 2:14:36.960 --> 2:14:41.840 you know, giant ground sloth, wooly rhinoceros, sabretooth tiger. List 2:14:41.840 --> 2:14:43.400 goes on, Yeah, I want to can I can I 2:14:43.560 --> 2:14:47.560 expand that just real quick first, at least jump on it. So, Yeah, 2:14:47.720 --> 2:14:50.200 there's the thing put out by someone by the last 2:14:50.240 --> 2:14:53.240 name of Martin Uh and another guy, the blitz Creek 2:14:53.360 --> 2:14:57.480 hypothesis will be the idea that you see the large 2:14:57.920 --> 2:15:05.080 mammal extinctions occur with the arrival of man. And what's 2:15:05.120 --> 2:15:08.000 interesting is you go and look like people arrived in 2:15:08.040 --> 2:15:12.680 Australia forty or fifty thousand years ago on that continent. 2:15:13.280 --> 2:15:19.080 That's when you see the elimination of the large mega fauna. 2:15:19.360 --> 2:15:22.280 You see the elimination of the large mega faunta in Europe, 2:15:22.360 --> 2:15:25.840 which closely resembled the large mega fauna we had here, 2:15:26.360 --> 2:15:31.680 occur twenty thousand years earlier than it did here, contemporaneous 2:15:31.680 --> 2:15:35.680 with the arrival of modern man there. And then you 2:15:35.720 --> 2:15:39.600 see these last little holdout locations of large mega fauna, 2:15:40.200 --> 2:15:43.560 like on Wrangle Island in the Baring Sea, where a 2:15:43.680 --> 2:15:47.520 mammoth existed until four thousand years ago, and it doesn't 2:15:47.560 --> 2:15:51.880 seem that anyone showed up there till around four thousand 2:15:52.000 --> 2:15:56.560 years ago. It winds up being it makes it paints 2:15:56.560 --> 2:16:00.480 of there's a very compelling argument. It's not bulletproof, there's 2:16:00.480 --> 2:16:02.400 a lot of problems with it, but there's this really 2:16:02.440 --> 2:16:06.839 compelling argument that there's something about the arrival of humans 2:16:07.360 --> 2:16:09.520 that spells trouble for man. And of course you have 2:16:09.640 --> 2:16:14.760 the African exception. The African exception is that people had 2:16:14.800 --> 2:16:19.600 always existed on that landscape and a large mega fauna 2:16:19.720 --> 2:16:24.400 had learned strategies to coexist with humans, and it didn't 2:16:24.440 --> 2:16:26.480 work in places where all of a sudden people just 2:16:26.560 --> 2:16:29.920 show up and walk up to these things and jab 2:16:30.000 --> 2:16:32.879 them with a spear because the animals had not had 2:16:32.879 --> 2:16:36.520 a chance to learn how to coexist with humans. It's 2:16:36.520 --> 2:16:39.959 a really interesting idea, and you're gonna like this paper 2:16:40.120 --> 2:16:43.080 if you haven't already. Yeah, Okay. So they also talk 2:16:43.160 --> 2:16:47.840 about climate. They kind of the historical climatic cycles, and 2:16:47.920 --> 2:16:49.840 they point to the fact that there had been a 2:16:49.920 --> 2:16:56.080 number of these fairly similarly dramatic changes in climate historically 2:16:56.160 --> 2:17:02.240 prior to the expansion of hominence, where these giant animals 2:17:02.280 --> 2:17:08.160 persisted through those climate changes, like like twenty some glacial episodes. Right. 2:17:09.240 --> 2:17:11.959 So one of the interesting as a brief aside, one 2:17:11.959 --> 2:17:15.600 of the interesting predictions in this paper they talk about 2:17:15.959 --> 2:17:19.320 if we continue on the trajectory were on in terms 2:17:19.320 --> 2:17:23.039 of the loss of large mammals and looking at the 2:17:23.080 --> 2:17:27.680 species that are threatened with potential extinction on the horizon. 2:17:28.240 --> 2:17:31.520 You know, many of our largest mammals, as an example, 2:17:31.600 --> 2:17:39.280 Rhinoceros um African elephants, et cetera. The authors here say, thus, 2:17:39.360 --> 2:17:41.800 the largest mammal on Earth and a few hundred years 2:17:41.840 --> 2:17:46.720 may well be the domestic cow at about nine So 2:17:48.800 --> 2:17:51.360 the takeaway from this paper, though with regard to horses, 2:17:52.440 --> 2:17:56.400 is that this is a species which evolved as a 2:17:56.440 --> 2:18:02.040 prey species, including a human relationship to it as predators, 2:18:02.360 --> 2:18:06.200 likely to the point where we played a central role 2:18:06.959 --> 2:18:12.320 in the elimination of the original wild horses which we're 2:18:12.360 --> 2:18:15.960 now trying to resurrect, while also staying totally out of 2:18:15.959 --> 2:18:19.440 the equation in terms of any kind of population management 2:18:20.240 --> 2:18:23.760 to your point about it being irony rich. And then 2:18:24.160 --> 2:18:28.200 another paper that I want to share, also from Science UM, 2:18:28.240 --> 2:18:34.080 talks about the ancestry of domestic and Perswolski horses, and 2:18:34.120 --> 2:18:37.960 Perswolski horses were long thought to be the last remaining 2:18:38.040 --> 2:18:44.480 truly wild horse lineage UM and these researchers did a 2:18:44.480 --> 2:18:50.400 bunch of genetic analyzes and compared modern day Preswolski horses 2:18:50.440 --> 2:18:54.160 to various potential sources and essentially came to the conclusion 2:18:54.200 --> 2:18:59.119 that even the modern Perswolski horses are the direct descendants 2:18:59.160 --> 2:19:05.400 of horse is which were maintained for agricultural purposes about 2:19:05.440 --> 2:19:12.280 four thousand years ago um by bow tie people, and 2:19:12.280 --> 2:19:15.680 this was a very different relationship to horses. They talked 2:19:15.680 --> 2:19:20.240 about these archaeological sites where they found horse dung as 2:19:20.240 --> 2:19:23.680 well as evidence for pole axing, which would have been 2:19:23.680 --> 2:19:27.920 a way of dispatching horses, and they found evidence against 2:19:28.200 --> 2:19:33.680 selective body part transportation, suggesting controlled slaughter at settlements rather 2:19:33.720 --> 2:19:38.600 than hunting. Tools associated with leather, leather thong production, bit 2:19:38.720 --> 2:19:44.520 related dental pathologies and equine milk fats within ceramics support 2:19:44.600 --> 2:19:49.480 pastoral husbandry involving milking and harnessing. So these were people 2:19:49.520 --> 2:19:56.600 four thousand years ago living with the predecessors of the 2:19:56.640 --> 2:19:58.720 horses that have long thought to be the last wild 2:19:58.720 --> 2:20:03.720 horses in a situation where they're maintaining them for milking 2:20:04.560 --> 2:20:07.880 and also pole axing them for meat in their settlements 2:20:08.040 --> 2:20:11.640 as opposed to hunting forum. So a couple of takeaways 2:20:11.640 --> 2:20:15.360 would be just another example of the complexity of this 2:20:15.440 --> 2:20:20.680 relationship that we have to horses and the fact that 2:20:20.920 --> 2:20:26.920 four thousand years ago, the descendants the ancestors of the 2:20:26.920 --> 2:20:31.240 horses that we thought were the last wild horses domestic species. 2:20:31.920 --> 2:20:34.959 So let's say for a moment that we want to 2:20:35.080 --> 2:20:41.080 we want to treat these special status horses today as 2:20:41.080 --> 2:20:45.080 a wild species. To do so in the absence of 2:20:45.240 --> 2:20:51.640 any kind of meaningful predation, whether it's from a non 2:20:51.720 --> 2:20:58.160 human predator or a human predator, just seems like a 2:20:58.240 --> 2:21:02.800 recipe for more of what we've experienced thus far. And 2:21:02.840 --> 2:21:07.240 then the last point I would make is the horse 2:21:08.160 --> 2:21:12.600 issues are largely of an American public land issue. We've 2:21:12.600 --> 2:21:15.680 talked about the tribal lands issue, and we're talking about 2:21:15.720 --> 2:21:18.680 forest service and BLM management. We're talking about our shared 2:21:18.720 --> 2:21:23.400 American public lands. And to the point I made earlier 2:21:23.400 --> 2:21:27.680 about us Tailanni and I, you know, we're public servants. 2:21:28.680 --> 2:21:32.360 We do what the people want us to do as 2:21:32.800 --> 2:21:39.360 employees of the U. S D a forest service. The 2:21:39.440 --> 2:21:43.360 condition of our shared public lands and the work being 2:21:43.400 --> 2:21:47.600 done on those public lands, whatever is being prioritized or 2:21:47.720 --> 2:21:52.400 not prioritized to me, paints are very powerful and telling 2:21:53.080 --> 2:21:59.240 picture of the priorities and values and knowledge of the 2:21:59.280 --> 2:22:07.560 people of our country. Full stop, full stop. We're responding 2:22:07.600 --> 2:22:13.279 to what the people want, all right, You're honest, No, 2:22:13.360 --> 2:22:26.039 I can't. Dr Carl Malcolm and Dr Tilani Francisco, thank 2:22:26.080 --> 2:22:28.600 you very much for joining us and taking some time 2:22:29.760 --> 2:22:37.280 to talk about feral horses, and also the wild ones 2:22:37.959 --> 2:22:40.600 and the free ranging ones, and the free ranging ones, 2:22:41.400 --> 2:22:49.600 the special status ones, and the ones that one might 2:22:49.720 --> 2:22:52.640 argue we have a few too many of, so thanks 2:22:52.640 --> 2:22:52.959 again