6 years of Preservation
July 31st
🗓 Today is an important anniversary for the Salt River wild horses, and all who love them.
On this day, July 31st, in the year 2015, a 7 day notice to impound and remove all of the Salt River wild horses was posted by the Forest Service. Today marks 6 years of preservation of the Salt River wild horses!
On this same fateful day, a famous wild horse was born, who stole many people’s hearts. At just a few days old he became an ambassador for the herd. He looked at the cameras, whinnied, and ended up on every news station reporting on the pending removal of his cherished herd. Today is Diamond’s 6th Birthday!
While so many other areas are loosing their wild horses in record numbers, we continue to keep these horses free, by working with our State (AZDA) and also with federal government (USFS). We take all of the costs and care of these horses upon ourselves, so that it doesn’t cost any taxpayer money.
Our fertility control program has stabilized the population humanely, which is what also keeps other stakeholders happy, who want to see far fewer wild horses living along the river.
We have always advocated that there can be a win-win solution for wild horses, for the public and for the government. We have put our money where our mouth has been and this year, with only one foal born so far, people are finally believing us.
Have we compromised in some areas, maybe, the horses have lost some habitat, but the government has compromised also. The Forest Service did not have to agree to leave the horses here, and they still don’t. It is important to remember that the Act that protects the Salt River wild horses from slaughter and harassment, does not actually protect them from removals.
What protects them from removal is the Intergovernmental agreement between the Forest Service and the AZDA and our contract to control the population humanely.
Under that contract we can also rescue mortally wounded wild horses. On July 9th, 2016, we rescued Diamond, because he lost his hoof by getting stuck in a cattle guard and he would have died a horrible death. Diamond has made a miraculous recovery and today he is a happy thriving young stallion celebrating his 6th birthday with his buddies Pacman and Rosco, at SRWHMG sanctuary in Prescott.
This makes for a meaningful, double celebration of humane wild horse management today. However, instead of touting victory, we want to focus on celebrating the cooperation with our governments. We want to promote that positive solutions can happen, when everyone decides to work together. We hope that more areas will take our example of -in the field- humane- wild horse management and cooperation with local governments.
We sincerely thank the Tonto National Forest supervisor Neil Bosworth and the Mesa ranger district Matt Lane. We thank Governor Doug Ducey and we thank director Mark Killian as well as Makenzie and Jerome and Rob of the AZDA. We thank our dedicated and incredible volunteers, our hardworking president and directors, and our coalition partner the AWHC. And above all we thank our amazing supporters and sponsors. Think about it for a minute: without any of these people, the Salt River wild horses would literally be….nowhere.
If you’d like to show your support, please share this post and please post a positive 5 star review on our page and also the AZDA page and the Forest Service page and the Governors page.
We also still need your support for their humane management by making a monthly donation, you can even sponsor Diamond himself.
Let’s never ever forget how grateful we are that every Salt River wild horse is still roaming wild and free. Long live the Salt River wild horses and Happy Birthday Diamond!
For the public and by the public,
SRWHMG.