by Holly Hazard
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| Mustangs will soon benefit from an elegant solution. © iStock.com |
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In Sacramento County, Calif., scores of at-risk youngsters are undergoing therapy by learning to rehabilitate some 100 abused horses at an equine rescue center.
They're also helping The HSUS develop a birth control vaccine that promises to save the lives of thousands of America's wild horses threatened with slaughter.
Troubling Circumstances
The Bureau of Land Management, which administers federal public lands and the wild horses on it, says it may have to kill some 30,000 unadoptable and unwanted mustangs it has permanently removed from the range. The animals face three options: continue to live out their lives in government corrals at considerable expense to the taxpayer; be sold for slaughter in Canada or Mexico and exported to foreign horsemeat fanciers; or be euthanized as the law allows and the BLM threatens.
Another 30,000 mustangs roam the range in 10 western states. Their population will double in four years to more than twice the 27,000 animals permitted to run free by the BLM. Unless there is a change in the government's failed management policy, thousands more will be rounded up and warehoused—adding to the massive unwanted surplus and exacerbating a problem whose solution has eluded the BLM since 1971. That's the year Congress unanimously passed a law that promised to protect the mustangs in perpetuity.
The history of America's wild horses is tragic. Around 1900, some 2 million roamed the western rangelands. Over the next seven decades, they were exterminated like vermin at the behest of politically powerful ranchers. The cattlemen grazed their vast herds on public lands for pennies a head and didn't want horses competing for scarce water and forage.
By 1971, only 17,000 mustangs remained. Responding to public outrage, Congress designated them as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West," with the implicit assurance of an end to the killing. Today, that promise rings hollow.
The ranchers continue to bully the BLM into keeping the numbers of free-roaming wild horses at a minimum, prompting the mass roundups. In their view, and the government's, the problem today hasn't changed from the turn of the century. There are too many horses.
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| The Grace Foundation will help the horses—and children. © iStock.com |
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Turning a Corner
Happily, there is a solution. The HSUS and its scientific collaborators have developed a safe and humane vaccine-induced animal birth control method called immuno-contraception. It has been successfully used to reduce herds of wild ponies on federal nature reserves, deer in urban areas, and elephants in Africa.
It has also been used to control reproduction in more than 100 species of zoo animals.
This fall, the first mares in a test group of 130 mustangs were injected with the vaccine to launch a five-year field study to prove that birth control can effectively reduce the herds of free-ranging horses.
The project, a joint partnership with the BLM, is financed by a $1.7 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation and supported by donated vehicles from Land Rover. Once the method has been validated, the program will be expanded to between 8,000 and 10,0000 mares, gradually reducing herd sizes, the need for roundups, and the threat of mass killings.
A small but vital element in assuring success lies with The Grace Foundation of Northern California. Its dual mission provides care for neglected horses, and therapy for children with special emotional and physical needs who heal by learning to rehabilitate the animals.
When The HSUS launched the immuno-contraception project, it searched for a horse rescue center that would help with critical studies that could not be performed in the wild. The Grace Foundation jumped at the chance. Along with field research is the need to refine the dosage of the vaccine and develop the most efficient method of administering it to the horses in order to lower the cost and streamline the delivery system.
To adequately monitor results, the biological reaction to the product needs to be tested at several intervals throughout the year. It would be difficult and extremely stressful—not to mention expensive—to monitor the effectiveness of the vaccine by continually rounding up dozens of the 130 test mares who range over long distances in rough terrain.
Graceful Solution
The Grace Foundation's nurture of horses and children with equal fervor is an unusual mission twist for an animal rescue organization. It cares for horses who have been starved, abandoned, suffered from untreated illnesses and injuries, or driven crazy after years of confinement in tiny stalls that barely allowed them to move. They in turn are groomed, ridden and rehabilitated by youngsters who may be incarcerated for delinquency, or victims of physical and sexual abuse and other ill treatment.
As one of The HSUS's newest partners, Grace is now extending its compassion for domestic horses and troubled kids to America's wild horse herds. All three have experienced betrayal and indifference at the hands of people who have controlled their lives and contributed to their plight. Now it's difficult not to see hope in the future.
Holly Hazard is Chief Innovations Officer for The HSUS.
