The mustang is an icon. It is called the “Spirit of the West” and is often a symbol of freedom for Americans. The reality of the mustang is more modest than the myth, however. But modest packages can contain marvelous promise.
On April 13-14, the first annual competitive adoption event of the Beatys Butte mustangs will be held at the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility in Adel, OR. Though this modest event will look like a small horse auction, it may prove to be much more. The adoption event marks five years of intense effort that may revolutionize how wild horses are managed in the West.
The horses up for adoption were gathered from the Beatys Butte Horse Management Area (HMA), located 65 miles east of Lakeview, OR. They have been professionally gentled and started under saddle by members of the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility. The group is a nonprofit, grassroots organization that represents a first-of-its-kind public/private partnership with the BLM.
Started by local ranchers, wild horse advocates, and local stakeholders, the effort is something new. Its goals are two-pronged: to manage the Beatys Butte HMA sustainably, and to produce gentle mustangs trained by local professionals for public adoption.
“Nothing like this has been tried anywhere,” declared Andy Rieber, a past WLJ correspondent who was instrumental in the effort’s formation.
“It started out as just a conversation,” Rieber explained. “Probably the same conversation that’s going on all over the West: ‘We have way too many horses.’”
An ever-growing problem
By BLM estimates, there are about 46,000 more wild horses on public lands than the range can sustainably support. Additionally, there are about 46,000 head also in long-term holding. The horses in off-range holding cost the government an estimated $50 million each year.
One of the big problems is that the wild horses reproduce quickly. Estimates by BLM and academic researchers place the reproduction rate at 20 percent a year. This means the population doubles every four years. Some wild horse advocacy groups dispute this number, saying the reproduction rate is closer to 10 percent a year.
Regardless the rate, the wild horse overpopulation continues to grow and has negative consequences for both the horses and the range. Too many horses stress and damage landscapes. The horses often suffer from starvation and thirst on territories that can’t support them.
The BLM has little recourse in managing the wild horses now. Under the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971, the BLM was allowed to “dispose of” excess horses over and above HMAs’ appropriate management levels. However, the agency’s list of potential management tools has been whittled down to almost nothing by litigation.
“The norm would be to wait until that horse population gets up to the point where it’s starting to do damage to the range and then we would come in with a helicopter and do a large gather,” explained Todd Forbes, BLM field manager for the Lakeview Resource Area.
Protests from wild horse advocacy groups and litigation from anti-grazing groups have recently limited gathers, however. But the BLM is facing a bigger issue: too little money for too many horses.
“We just can’t afford to gather and keep all the horses,” explained James Price, BLM wild horse and burro specialist for the area. “So, [the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility] is a way to manage one HMA without having to put those horses into a long-term holding situation.”
Rieber described the proposal that birthed the effort as local stakeholders saying, “Let’s try something different.”
A unique effort
The Beatys Butte HMA was no different than other HMAs around the West. In late 2015, roughly the time the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility nonprofit was formed, the Beatys Butte HMA had an estimated 1,200-1,500 horses. That’s at least six times the upper limit of the HMA’s appropriate management level. The HMA overlapped with a grazing association of local ranchers and the horses were damaging the range.
“The option that most people reach for in a situation like that is to file a lawsuit and say, ‘by law you have to remove these horses,’” Rieber said. But the group that became the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility took a different road.
“Instead of suing, they offered to help. That was a really revolutionary thing.”
While the BLM operates or oversees other mustang training programs, Forbes described the Beaty Butte program as “a little bit different.”
“This group not only offers horses that have more training than I think those other programs do, but they also, as part of this agreement, assist the BLM on the range management.”
He explained to WLJ that, following the large 2015 gather, the Beaty Butte effort and the BLM hope to keep the HMA within its appropriate management level of 100-250 horses. Their strategy involves a combination of more frequent, small gathers, contraceptives, and the training program to boost adoption.
“Our intent is to try to get away from large, massive helicopter horse gathers and to go to techniques that are less stressful for the horses,” Forbes explained.
“We’re hoping that between the contraceptives and being able to remove a few horses every year, we can keep that reproduction down to the point that with the horses we do gather, we can get 100 percent adoption.”
There is a draft National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process underway for the cooperative management of the Beatys Butte HMA. Forbes said he expects it will be completed soon and go out for a 30-day public comment period sometime in spring.
Gently trained with pride
As Forbes said, part of what makes the partnership unique is the time and effort that goes into the horses. That’s where Facility Manager Jim Hiatt and Head Trainer Catlin Martin come in. They agreed that their training efforts set the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility apart.
“We’ve got a lot of community pride in what we do,” Hiatt added. “Catlin and I have a lot of pride in what we do, and we want the horses to turn out.”
Hiatt described himself as a retired lifelong rancher. Though he grew up on a North Dakota ranch, he noted with a laugh that a help wanted ad running in WLJ brought him to Adel, OR, in 1984 where he’s been ever since.
Martin is an Adel native on the other hand. He is an energetic 30-year-old who has gentled and started hundreds of ranch colts under saddle using low-stress natural horsemanship techniques most of his life.
When asked about their training process, the pair described a three-pronged effort: selecting good, young prospects; using low-stress training practices that don’t force the horses; and grain.
“Once you win their belly over you kind of got them,” Martin said with a chuckle. “You kind of win their hearts over with grain.”
This sort of low-stress handling builds trust in the horses, the pair said.
“Once you earn their trust, they turn into kind of pets,” Martin added, describing the young horses as eager for human attention.
“When you go out to catch one, others come around like, ‘take me coach!’” Hiatt described. “They want to be involved and to have your attention.”
Martin described visitors to the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility “getting mobbed” by interested mustangs wanting to interact with people.
“[Visitors] are just amazed at how gentle they are. These aren’t wild horses. And that’s how we want to sell it too; sure, they’re mustangs, but we don’t want them going out of here being wild.”
A value worth reproducing
The amount of time and effort that goes into gentling and starting these horses is considerable. That investment costs, but Forbes says it is worth it for the wellbeing of the horses, the range, and wild horse management overall.
“Your cost per horse that you’re adopting out through this program seems relatively high,” he noted. “But when you consider the number of horses that are gathered off the range now that live out the rest of their lives in a holding facility somewhere, that overall cost per horse is considerably less for a program like this.”
Hiatt summarized the value neatly, saying: “Every horse that we adopt through here saves the taxpayers something like $50,000 just in the BLM not having to feed it in some holding facility somewhere. To me that’s the biggie.”
Forbes acknowledged that putting resources into something like the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility is something of a paradigm shift when it comes to horse management costs.
“It’s a cool program,” Forbes added. “If we can make this program work, I think it will be a good example to start showing what can be done as far as adopting horses out and staying at an appropriate management level, reducing the number of horses in long-term storage.”
Hiatt told WLJ he had heard rumors that a community in Northern California was thinking about starting up a similar group. Price also told WLJ he has gotten calls from stakeholders in other areas interested in replicating the program.
The Beaty Butte effort was independently described as “a pilot program” by several people WLJ interviewed. Everyone stressed the need for cooperation between stakeholders and the BLM to make such a program work, however.
“Without the BLM this would not have happened,” said Hiatt, advising interested stakeholders to get in touch with their local BLM and/or Wild Horse and Burro Program specialist.
“My advice is make sure you have a core group of folks that are really dedicated and make sure that they include a diversity of folks,” Forbes added. He stressed that the core group must be very dedicated.
“The board of directors that works with this facility is just a phenomenal group of people. They really have done their due diligence and put in a tremendous amount of work, and I can’t say enough about that.”
He also emphasized the importance of the group’s diversity—members of the ranching community, local residents and community leaders, representatives from involved industries, and members of the horse advocacy groups.
“You need that diverse group of stakeholders in order to provide transparency and trust amongst all the groups.”
Sale specifics
The adoption event will feature the first 10 Beatys Butte mustangs Martin and Hiatt have gentled and started.
“So, it will be kind of a small event,” explained Hiatt. The two-day event will involve horse previews and training demonstrations.
“We’re going to try to make it as entertaining as possible for the people who come,” Hiatt added. “Some people I’ve talked to are coming from quite a ways away. As far as the Midwest.”
The second day will have the competitive bid adoption. This will function very much like a standard horse auction, but all involved stressed that it is an adoption event, not a sale.
“These horses are still BLM horses just like a standard BLM adoption,” reiterated Forbes, noting the winning bidder will still have to fill out adoption paperwork and have facilities meeting BLM requirements like any other adopter. “The horses are still the property of the BLM for one year until that person that does the adoption demonstrates that they can care for the horse.”
Rieber summarized the effort of the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility as “trying to change the equation” on wild horses.
“The idea here is really to add value to these horses and present them to the public as something that really is valuable and worth spending some money on because what you’re getting is very special.” — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
“Nothing like this has been tried anywhere.” — Andy Rieber
