A mistake on the part of the Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service of historic proportions.

Kristy

September 29, 2022

September 29th

This is the website of the contractor where the Alpine wild horses, that were taken from our public lands and their historic home in the Apache Forest, will be auctioned off THIS Saturday and Sunday. https://raillazyh.com/

The faces of these now homeless wild horses will be posted there tomorrow, Friday, for everyone to see. Minimum bids are 100 dollars per horse and 150 per mare foal pair. Anyone who wants to bid on them needs to pre-register and you can then enter your maximum bid and the website will place your bid up to that amount. We encourage any good homes to come to this website to bid. Pick up is at the Navajo County Fairgrounds in Holbrook, but we believe delivery will be offered for a price.

These are unhandled untrained horses, who have lived their hole life in the high altitudes of the beautiful Apache Forest in their close family units, called bands. They were the picture of horse happiness in their home of abundance, where they were not hurting anyone and not costing anyone a dime. They are cherished there by the public as an amazing recreational resource. Few things are on more bucketlists than watching peaceful wild horses in their natural environment. This forest is part of our public lands, set aside for all of the public of America, managed by the Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service (ASNF) in northern Arizona.

We are morbidly worried as we have looked and contacted everyone we know, and found only 2 interested good buyers so far, and NO interested sanctuaries, and yes we have contacted them all. The market for untamed wild horses is saturated and hay prices continue to rise. The Bureau of Land Management right now is paying people $1000 to take a wild horse, and over 1700 of these American icons horses have already ended up slaughtered in Mexico, because of their programs. (See AWHC investigation)

As a wild horse protection group it is the stuff our nightmares are made of. We sounded the alarm about the upcoming removal of the Alpine wild horses in January of this year. We have worked hard and documented 300 out of the 400 wild horses in this forest so far. We have formed a local Alpine management group and have offered humane cost effective solutions to the ASNF at no cost to them. We also were the ONLY organization at the Alpine wild horse auction last time to make sure we bid against suspicious buyers who indiscriminately bid on many stallions.

What killbuyers will do is place their max bid of likely around 300 to 400 dollars on every single horse and see what they end up with, because they don’t care how pretty the horse is and they also don’t care that they are untamed. They will get paid per pound at the slaughterhouse in Mexico and there’s no one that can stop them, as transport to slaughter is perfectly legal, still.

We have repeatedly met with, and warned the Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service (ASNF) this can and will happen to these helpless innocent horses, but they simply did not show any concern. They said they were looking for humane solutions, but they weren’t, and have refused every offer of humane management and humane birth control so far, again, at zero cost to them. Instead, they are spending hundreds of thousands of taxdollars on annihilating this herd from the wild, and trying to erase them from our Arizona historic memory.

Our own Arizona state historian Marshall Trimble tells the stories of these horses being there in 1971, but even that doesn’t make the Forest Service pause for a minute. They are public servants, doing a very shitty job of listening to the public.

Historically, this ASNF has been trying to get rid of these very same wild horses for more than a century. According to the historic articles (we have posted them) , they offered 5 and a half cents per pound for these very same wild horses at the railroads, in 1926. It seems like not much has changed in 100 years with this Forest Service.

Do they not realize that today, the public loves and cherishes wild horses and want to see them preserved and humanely managed? We value wild horses and don’t send them to slaughterhouses in 2022, right? And yet,…how are they going to prevent it?

Today, they have the Center of Biological Diversity on their side, (beware CBD members!) who sued the Forest Service and targeted these 400 wild horses, but failed to sue over the 2000 destructive cows present for half the year in the same alotments. They used the New Mexico Meadow jumping mouse and a trout, which they haven’t proved are even there, to pull the wool over a judges’ eyes who authorized these sales. 80 of these wild and free horses are have been captured so far and will be sold.

These wild horses living around and along the Coronado trail, are possibly the most historic wild horses in America originating all the way back to Fransisco Vasquez de Coronado who blazed this trail as one of the first explorers.

However, In order to further their agenda of extermination, the Forest Service has dubbed them “unauthorized livestock” making a mockery of the Wild Free roaming horse and burro Act passed unanimously in Congress in 1971 intended to protect historic wild horses such as these.

The ASFS Forest Service is trapping these horses, breaking up the precious family bands, and now here they are on this website, one by one, their fates in the hands of any bidder across America.

It is an abomination of historic proportions and all we can do now as a wild horse protection organization, is ask for help from across the world from anyone and everyone.

History is only ever made by people who care about the future. If you care about the future of these historic wild horses you HAVE to help us more. If we BAND together and STAMPEDE congress, our AZ state legislators, and the media, we can change their fate, just like we changed the fate of the Salt River wild horses in the nick of time, who are now living happily ever after in their historic home along the river, enjoyed by millions of people every year.

There is a way to do things better, a business model if you will, for humane wild horse management.

It is us, with just one foal this year in our herd of 400 Salt River horses, we proved beyond a doubt that there are fiscally responsible ways and humane ways to manage them in a designated habitat.

Help us. Contact your legislators. You have state legislators and congressional legislators. Call them, email them and visit them. Call your favorite news station. We will do the rest, but we need the calls first. Be the change. Be the drop that tips the bucket. Do it for the faces that will be on this auction sale website by tomorrow. https://raillazyh.com/

Here are some numbers you want to call every day, for as long as it takes!

Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service:

Jeffrey Todd PIO:
- (928)235-5764
General office:
- (928) 333-4301
- (928) 333 6200
- (928) 333 6280
Region3 Forest Service. (They are over the Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service.) :
- 505-842-3292
- Michiko.Martin@usda.gov
Senator Mark Kelly:
- 602-671-7901 / 202 224 2235
- Tucson Office: 520-475-5177
Senator Kyrsten Sinema:
- 602-598-7327 /202-224-4521
- (202) 224-3121 Capitol switchboard, you can reach any representative this way by naming your state and town.
Scheduler for Governor Doug Ducey:
- 602 542 1315