TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/010190/01019001.000

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 7KB | 128 lines

AMERICAN SCENE, Page 10

Mustang Meadows Ranch

Halfway House For Horses

A rancher creates a haven for living symbols of the Old West

By Melaine L. Stephens


    Their high-pitched whinnies roll across the plains like a
tumbleweed-scattering wind. At dusk one of them rears and paws the
air, casting a silhouette that is the very image of freedom. These
are mustangs, the legendary wild horses of the American West. Two
decades ago, mustangs were headed for extinction. Now, at Mustang
Meadows Ranch, a 32,000-acre spread near St. Francis, S. Dak.,
1,500 of them have found sanctuary and a managed independence that
may help assure their survival.

    Descended from horses that escaped from Spanish herds, millions
of mustangs roamed the prairie at the start of the 19th century.
But as the wildness went out of the West and more and more
rangeland was plowed for crops or fenced off for cattle, the number
of mustangs dwindled. By 1970 only 17,000 were left, despite the
passage of federal laws that banned the use of airplanes and motor
vehicles to round them up for slaughter. In 1971 Congress responded
to a massive letter-writing campaign by enacting the Wild
Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which assigned the federal
Bureau of Land Management the responsibility for protecting these
"living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."

    Under BLM, the mustangs have recovered: 42,000 horses now run
free on the range. But their numbers have greatly surpassed the
ability of the land to support them. To ease the overpopulation,
BLM in 1976 inaugurated a national Adopt-a-Horse program, under
which 90,000 wild horses have been sold to private owners. But the
mustangs taken off the range annually include many that are too
old, crippled, ugly or mean to make good pets. Until two years ago,
thousands of unadoptable mustangs were crowded into dusty feeding
pens in Nebraska, Nevada and Texas at a cost to taxpayers of $13
million a year.

    Enter Dayton Hyde, an Oregon rancher with a reputation for
unorthodox management and a deep interest in conservation. "In my
travels I kept going by feedlots seeing these poor creatures cooped
up," says Hyde, 64. "I thought, That's no way to treat a wild
horse. My dream was to get these horses out of the feedlots and
running free again."

    In 1988 Hyde founded the nonprofit Institute for Range and the
American Mustang in order to create sanctuaries -- retirement homes
of sorts -- where unadoptable wild horses could once again roam
freely. He convinced BLM that with foundation and public funds he
could establish a self-sustaining sanctuary within three years.
IRAM's first project was a 12,600-acre sanctuary in the Black Hills
of South Dakota that opened last year. Tourists pay $15 to view 300
mustangs running on high plateaus of ponderosa pine. The project
makes Hyde smile. "The horses are finally getting over their
depression," he says. "They got so bored in the feedlots that they
didn't know how to run anymore."

    Hyde's ambition went beyond his successes at the Black Hills
sanctuary. He next sought to establish a larger range that could
accommodate thousands of horses. But since IRAM lacked both money
and land, Hyde needed the help of a private investor. He turned out
to be Alan Day, an owner of cattle ranches in Arizona and Nebraska.
Day, says Hyde, "knew how to manage grass and was not afraid of the
immensity of my dream."

    Day also knew a good business deal when he saw it. "America's
gone fat and sloppy, and for someone who's willing to go out there
and kick ass, there's a lot of opportunity," he says. In the case
of Mustang Meadows, Day and his two partners anticipated earning
a $50,000 annual profit from a huge tract they assembled by buying
22,000 acres for $1.4 million and leasing 10,000 adjoining acres
from the Sioux Indians. The money would come from IRAM's contract
with BLM and the state of South Dakota, which pays the sanctuary
an 85 cents-per-day subsidy per horse.

    The first mustangs arrived in August 1988. After being cooped
up in corrals anywhere from one month to several years, they needed
to readjust psychologically to the comparative freedom of the
ranch's open pastures. By gradually approaching the wary mustangs
in corrals, Day and his wranglers taught them to become comfortable
around people. "They have had so much negative training before they
get here, they think they are going to suffer if they see a man on
horseback," says Day. "We want to show them that we are not the
enemy." Out of the corrals, the mustangs are rotated to one of
twelve pastures, then moved periodically to allow the grass to
regrow. "I'm a grass specialist," Day explains. "Though some people
have romantic notions of the operation, I have to look at it as
cash flow. It has to make financial sense." This year potential
profits evaporated in the worst drought in memory.

    Some critics say that being the brother of U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor may have helped Day get the BLM
contract. But, scoffs Day, "Sandra doesn't even drive 56 m.p.h. She
didn't even know about this until it was a done deal." A more
serious complaint about Day's techniques has been lodged by
environmentalists who believe that wild horses ought to be just
that -- wild. "They're nothing but a big herd of domestic horses,"
says Donna Ewing, president of the Illinois-based Hooved Animal
Humane Society and a former colleague of Hyde's. Mustang Meadows,
Ewing charges, is "another ploy by BLM to eliminate the wild horse.
Hyde and Day are cattlemen, and who has been the biggest enemy of
horses?" According to Ewing, "The horses are harassed. There is a
lack of rock to keep their hooves trimmed naturally, so they have
to round them up and trim their hooves twice a year. The climate
is severe, and there is no natural shelter."

    Day scoffs at such criticism. Mustang-management techniques
like "herd-behavior modification," he claims, are essential.
"Nobody in the world," he boasts, "has ever managed wild horses on
this scale."

    Day has made a believer out of John Boyles, chief of the Wild
Horses and Burros division of BLM. "The situation ((at Mustang
Meadows)) is about as close to natural as you can get," says
Boyles. "As long as Congress says we can't destroy healthy excess
animals, the sanctuary gives us the least-cost alternative to
keeping the horses we can't place in private homes." BLM has
awarded a contract for a second sanctuary in Oklahoma.

    Such sanctuaries could eventually save taxpayers $2.5 million
a year. But they will never satisfy everyone with an opinion about
wild horses. Animal-rights activists and Old West buffs decry any
fettering of the mustangs' ability to roam the plains. Ranchers
object that free-running herds pose threats to pastures and water
that cattle need. "Most people feel there should be some place in
the U.S. for wild horses because they're so important in our past,"
says Boyles. "But we recognize the range is only going to support
so many. The two basic questions are, How many should we have? and
What should we do with the excess animals?" Until these questions
are answered, sanctuaries can provide mustangs a haven somewhere
between unbridled liberty and galloping into extinction.