Wild Horses near the Colorado/New Mexico line

Slow Down!

Open Range

Mare and Colt

Slaughtering Wild Horses?

I first became aware of the beauty of wild mustangs when I saw small herds of them standing beside the road near the Colorado/New Mexico state line. As I watched them graze close to the edge of the road, I saw cars, trucks and RVs passing at 75 or 80 mph as if the horses were invisible. No one slowed down. The horses didn’t seem to notice the cars, either. A weird disconnect. A couple of days later, one of the fillies I had admired was hit and killed as she stood in the middle of the road where her mother had died before her.

That was about six months ago. Since then the issues around wild horses have escalated  from cars killing horses in open range to drunken hunters shooting into the herds with shotguns, to whole herds being rounded up and sent to slaughter in Mexico. And now a legislative panel has unanimously approved a $20,000 study to determine the feasibility of an equine slaughterhouse in New Mexico. What’s wrong with this picture?

Humans don’t have many domestic animal friends. Cats, dogs and horses. Dogs need us. Cats, not so much. For centuries we have bonded with gentle, intelligent  horses. Why can’t we allow wild horses to live in peace on Wild Horse Mesa in Colorado and in other designated areas? Why doesn’t the BLM intervene when wild horses are rounded up for slaughter? Right now, so I’m told, forty baby horses from a month to a year old, are captured in a pen in the Costilla area, most likely waiting to be sent to slaughter. What can we do about it? Better hurry!