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International Conference Launches With Field Trip to Birthplace of Prehistoric Horses and Visit to Their Dwindling Offspring

Posted by on September 22, 2012

Story by Steven Long ~ Author and Editor/Publisher Horseback Magazine

Wild Horse Bands Vanishing Under BLM Extinction Efforts

Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation during IEC’s America’s Wild Horse Advocate tour ~ photo by R.T. Fitch

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The leadership of the wild horse preservation movement in America got a VIP tour of  the Bureau of Land Management’s worst nightmare late Friday when they finished a jam packed day with dinner near the proposed Fossil Bed National Monument site. There, the bones of prehistoric rhinos and horses stick out of the Nevada landscape. The site, among others, is the birthplace of the horse as a species.

The site is 20 minutes from a herd management area the federal agency plans to clear of wild horses in its ongoing effort to rid the West of what many BLM land clients consider a nuisance and call the “cockroaches of the west”.

The occasion was a tour of the BLM’s Cold Creek, Wheeler Pass herd management area 40 minutes northwest of the Las Vegas strip. It ended with dinner at the prehistoric bone yard.

About 30 movers and shakers, arguably among the most influential wild horse advocates in the nation, broke away from the International Equine Conference for a trip to the field. They included Ginger Kathrens, PBS documentary filmmaker, John Holland, President of the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance, author R.T. Fitch and wildlife photographer and Greater Houston Horse Council Board Member Terry Fitch, EWA Vice President Vicky Tobin, and wild horse advocate Garnet Pasquale as well as wild horse preservation and anti horse slaughter financial benefactors.

AWHA Eco-Tour group (foreground, Ginger Kathrens and Terry Fitch) ~ photo by R.T. Fitch

The advocates were lucky to even see a wild horse, said field trip organizer Arlene Gawne, a Las Vegas realtor, and former wildlife photographer who spend decades in the African bush.

“We had great difficulty getting a permit from the BLM,” she said. The federal agency is notoriously secretive and takes great effort to prevent press and public from viewing the horses under its federal mandate.

“We saw nine bands of wild horses,” said nationally acclaimed true crime and animal welfare author Cathy Scott. “There was lots of feed and water at low elevations,” she said.

Scott is the bestselling author of The Millionaire’s Wife, and also writes for Forbes.

The BLM has claimed Nevada horses are suffering from drought conditions. Frequently, when advocates follow up on the agency’s claims the are found to be false.

Gawne commented on BLM’s efforts to remove wild horses from their herd.

“They are going to take eco tourism jobs away from the local Las Vegas people,” she said.

Preliminary sessions of the conference will work through a jam packed agenda Saturday as it continues on the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus.

see more wild horse links at www.windwildhorse.com

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