Mustangs

We went for a drive Sunday at the nearby industrial park (it is supposed to be the biggest in the world). Some day there will be a road from the warehouses through to the valley next to ours. If Hubby could get a job there his commute would be much less. Even without changing jobs, in bad weather it would be the best option for him, though a bit longer in good weather. So we check out the progress on the road every once in a while.


We were on the look out for Bighorn sheep since they turned 30 of them loose out there recently. Didn't see any.


But we did see around 100 mustangs.

The black blurs are horses (I have a cheap camera)

Ok, these two aren't horses. They are Corrintes (Mexican Longhorns, the breed used in rodeos). I guess the owner of the industrial park turned a bunch of them loose, too.

The Truckee River (and the reason water is not really an issue for horses in our area)

This is March- the wet season. Notice the lush green grazing.......not.

I love horses. Always have. I was one of those horse crazy little girls. Still have nearly 400 plastic model horses, in fact. Before we moved here, I prayed for God to give us some wildlife wherever He was taking us to. It never occurred to me "wild life" could be mustangs eating my garden! I feel sooooo blessed:-)


Having said that, the mustangs ARE non-native pests. Now, don't get me wrong, I would gladly feed and water them so they would hang around my house if it wasn't illegal. But then, I've been known to feed common house sparrows, too.

• They eat grazing that native animals (deer, elk, etc) could use.
• They eat lawns and landscaping (ask my son whose whole crop of watermelons went to the horses one night a few years ago.)
• They tear up irrigation systems to get the water (and play.) In fact, they took out part of my dad's. He was watching them and thought it worth the entertainment of enjoying their antics to have to fix it, but not everyone agrees.
• They often cause traffic accidents. Neither people or horses come out good in these.

Yet some people act like they are this infallible, perfect resource. Fact is, the only thing positive they provide for our society is entertainment and tourist attraction (well, free lawn service too, if you don't have a fence).


So I have no problem with rounding them up to keep the numbers down to what the land can support.


I do have a problem with how they do it.


They take tax payer money to round the animals up, corral, vet, feed them.Then they adopt them out and pay more money to check up on the new owners to make sure they are taking care of them right.


I think it would be much better to do like we do with Elk.


Every year we have a lottery for elk tags. If you win a tag you get to try to shoot one elk. If you shoot an elk without a tag you are in BIG trouble. The number of tags is determined by how close to over population the herds are.


So let's auction off "tags" for mustangs. If you hurt yours when you catch it you can't ever get another tag plus you have to pay a big fine. This would make the horses bring a little money in instead of costing tax payer so much.

And for those who say we shouldn't grow beef out west because we can feed more people on an acre of wheat than an acre of beef, go look at those pictures again. There is no way on earth you can grow wheat here. That's lava bedrock with a few sagebrush. But you CAN support beef. One cow/calf unit per 40 acres, true. But it puts the land to some good, economic use. It really T'aint good for nothin' else. (Well, industrial parks obviously, but somehow I don't think the greenys will think that's a viable alternative either)