Most reading this want to see wild mustangs left untouched, never exposed to the beating blades of a helicopter chasing them across hills into a metal barred traps, not forced into a trailer and hauled away, and not separated from their family band by the hand of man.
But there is a cost for that kind of freedom.... Americans hear often about the price of freedom and who pays that toll to guard our freedoms, but the freedom of a wild mustang is not defended in the way human freedom is.... their freedom is different than ours - it is a wild & untouched freedom, glimpsed by us when we lucky enough to visit and observe them in their wild places.
Lara enjoying a splash on a hot summer day in the Red Desert.
Freedom for the wild mustang is ranging across several thousand acres of sage filled hills, high mountain ridges, low valleys with creeks, and washes that offer secret spots of water and late summer grasses. Freedom for a wild and untouched mustang is choosing your family, maybe choosing to be a solo wanderer, or joining a gang of bachelor stallions. Freedom is allowing humans to observe you - or showing them your tail as you gallop away to the places they cannot follow. Freedom is the cool of a summer morning as a stallion stands on a ridge, the wind whispering through his mane, as his eyes watch through his long forelock the sparkling of the sun as it begins to stretch across the hills below, knowing it will soon warm him, as his family stirs behind him and the day begins, gazing at the land below him from that ridge knowing that this is his sacred place.
Adonis
But wild freedom is not always pretty - it can be messy and is rarely easy... it is no vet care for broken bones, torn skin, or snake bites. It is not showing pain or weakness when there is an injury and you have to keep up with your band. It is ranging sometimes for miles between a water hole and good grazing. It is defending your family against others and letting go of your colts and fillies as they grow up and move out of the family band to find their own way. It is knowing where all the water holes are or how to find new water when there is drought. It is searching for food in dry years and digging in deep snows through most winters.
Lara & family - now spirits in the winds of the Red Desert.
And sometimes it is not being able to find enough food to keep you or your family alive through a long harsh winter.
The winter of 2023 started early... parts of the desert that can normally be driven in through mid-December were inaccessible by mid-November. Places that I have driven into through mid or late January were not reachable by early January. Roads that are often plowed and driven by mine workers through the winter were abandoned as the deep snows and bitter winds beat them back daily until they gave up and instead used snow-trac machines to the uranium mine in the middle of the desert.
Not even man was able to avoid the depths of snows and insistence of the winds.
The wild things of the desert had no one to help them, in snows that even in the least affected places were still at the least 2ft deep, and most places across the Red Desert were much deeper, covering 4ft fences and 7ft sage, filling cattle guards, and some that live in these places saw their houses disappear behind the unbearable, and what felt like, never-ending snow fall.
Aspens Buried in Snow
And the wild things were left to struggle and find a way to survive in ways that only the wild things know how to do.... Elk, pronghorn, mule deer, and wild mustangs were still in the desert - the desert where the ungulates historically migrate out of high mountains to winter in. Only this winter the desert held a death sentence for many of those wild things - including our wild mustangs.
Rushing muddy water as the snows melt away.
May 1st and I was finally able to drive into the heart of the desert, most of the snow finally melted, and what was left melting quickly... rivers of water flowing through washes, water holes filling in, and new grasses beginning to peek out of the ground, as the sagebrush struggles to return to life after a very long cold rest. I spent three days in this first week of May, driving any roads and two-tracks not still closed by snow drifts or mud... and as I drove down these roads I began to see the things I dreaded most - the bodies of wild mustangs whose spirits now were whispers in the winds of their wild desert.
I knew that I would find them... I knew from locals and friends that the winter had claimed wild lives of all kinds as the snows kept falling heavily even into April. But knowing it did not keep back the grief of losing them. And it did not prepare me for finding families that I had loved for years... nothing could have prepared my heart for those losses.
But even as I stood there on the same hills that I had spent hours with them as they lived wild, as I stood there surrounded by death, their spirits brushed across me in the wind, and they reminded me, they had lived their entire lives in wild and untouched freedom.
Their spirits will always be found in the sacred winds of their wild desert lands.
This blog is here because I need to share with you what happened... I hope you are willing to try and hopefully understand just how brutal this winter was - harsh is only a word that is not nearly enough to describe what happened in the desert this winter... and I need to honor the loss of wild ones that I loved deeply for many years and the loss of ones I did not know.
Adonis: unknown - 2023
And I want to honor and celebrate those that did find the will and places to survive, those that came through this horrific winter, those that lost band members but did not give up and found a way to keep alive and find a new family. The stallions that are guiding youngsters whose mares did not live. Mares that somehow managed to keep their babies safe and growing in their bellies and have given us the miracle of new life in what feels right now like a very desolate desert. I am so thankful for those that have survived, their thin bodies a witness to the winter they endured, and as they chase the new grasses, regaining their strength, as they also grieve for those wild ones lost, they also lead us into the joy of summer in a way that only a wild horse know how to feel, I follow them there to that place where my heart will slowly heal along with theirs, as the spirits of those gone gallop in the winds across their sacred places, as the void of emptiness is filled with new life, new hopes, and new dreams.
Stallion and two yearlings in Lost Creek HMA
I find in my soul a place where joy exists alongside the grief..... I grieve deeply the loss of many old friends of the desert, but I celebrate also those that are still walking the sacred ground and claiming their right to be wild and living in untouched freedom.
Poseidon & young mares - their sire Grey Thief and mare Chosovi are missing.
A young Poseidon stepping into the role of a stallion as was taught him when he was the colt without a sire, he will need to remember that kindness as he becomes the stallion to the mares and a youngster that are now without their sire and mare. And he will also have to be strong as there will undoubtedly be other stallions to challenge him for this new family.
Erik the Red now with Hestia, Bluebell and her colt Legacy.
I fear the likely loss of Koda.... he had spent much energy last summer and fall fighting Erik the Red and Grey Thief for his family, and although Koda knew more than most stallions of the desert, it seems that young Erik the Red has finally won this family in the depths of the snows.
I confess that in the secret places of my heart, as long as I fail to find his body, I hold hope that somewhere in the hills of his mountain, Koda is resting and regaining his strength and soon he will find me..... there are some who will scoff and call me a fool - it is ok, having hope is always better than not!
Calypso & new filly Chara
This winter was the one we all dread.... this winter was the one that took more wild lives than we can likely count (and quite frankly my soul cannot bear to look for more losses to count), this winter is the proof that we cannot continue to use the arbitrarily assigned AML number to be followed as the rule of thumb for HMAs, or allow central HAs such as Arapaho Creek to be zeroed out because someone wishes to eliminate wild horses from a favorite grazing pasture for cows (or whatever the reason given may be). This winter was unexpected and no one in the government agencies seemed to understood what was happening until it was too late to help the wild things. And it could happen again... there is no way for us humans to ever really truly predict if we will have too little, just enough, or far too much snow - the weather does as it pleases and our weather predictions be damned - especially in Wyoming.
Home on the Range - Jeffrey City, WY