November 24, 2009 – Warm Weather

Last Friday we went up into Burnt Timber to get some observations in. Spotting around, we located a lot of horses up on the mountaintop; and so we headed up there. Chino’s harem was the first we saw.

Nearby them were the harems of Baja, Mescalero, and Starman. The bachelors, Ferdinand, Galaxy, and Fiesta, also popped up over a nearby hill.

The bachelors kept moving down in the direction of where we’d spotted the horses earlier, so we headed that way too. The bachelors ended up stopping down the hill a short distance where they mingled with Teton’s harem. The horses were definitely tolerant of each other. The first horses we saw were in very close proximity as well. Like many of the roans, Teton is darkening up as his winter coat grows in.

Across the valley from Teton’s harem and the bachelors was another group of horses. Coronado’s harem was the first I came to.

It’s always great to see Halcyon’s foal still alive. Halcyon’s only two years old, but she seems to be taking good care of her daughter.

Nearby were also White Cloud, Custer, and Bolder’s harems.

I’ve always found Custer’s winter coat coloring to be really interesting.

So November 20 is pretty late for so many horses to still be grazing the upper meadows. I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of them getting their winter weight on up there as there just isn’t a whole lot of forage left; this is a primary grazing area in the late spring and summer. What is prompting the horses to be up here when the mid-slope is full of quality forage? My best guess is a lack of water in the mid-slope now due to the warm weather we’ve been having. With all of the snow on the mountaintop, it is easy for the horses to get their water, as Washakie and Graciana (from Baja’s harem) are doing in this photograph. (I’m not sure what is with the bald spots on Washakie’s left neck and on her upper side, she’s had them for a while.)

There are definitely some harems in the mid-slope, such as Tecumseh, who was in the previous horse blog. These harems seem to be using the Burnt Timber guzzler, but they also seem to have other access to water in those areas. For example, there were pockets of snow in the forests that Tecumseh’s harem was near. As can be seen here, water is a big deal here. Though we usually associate water availability problems with the summer, it can even be a little bit of a problem this time of year. I’m not trying to cause an alarm that there will be some malnourished horses on the PMWHR this winter; I just think that it is interesting to describe the current horse distribution situation. It shouldn’t be too long before the mountain gets enough snow to push the horses off the top and down into the mid-slope, where there will also be snow available.

This all also serves as a good introduction to water sources on the PMWHR; this will be the topic of my next blog post.

November 18, 2009 – Fence Removal Project

I am very interested in and highly supportive of projects that improve the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. A while back, I found something that I thought was really in need of being done; there is a fence running through the PMWHR that I felt should be removed. Recall in my previous blog post about the evolution of the PMWHR that the original Range did not include any Forest Service land. The boundary back then basically looked like this:

Notice how the original boundary went right along that southeastern corner of the Forest Service (green) land. This was apparently fenced. Today, there is Forest Service land in the PMWHR.

Even though this area is in the PMWHR now, there are still portions of that fence from the original PMWHR boundary present along the BLM-Forest Service boundary. The fence in this area I am most concerned with is that section running along the east-west boundary line. This fence cuts through the Burnt Timber area, which is a very large area of the PMWHR. This is an area that is underutilized by the horses, and so it is an area where we’d like to see more horse use. The fence doesn’t totally split Burnt Timber into two areas; there are some areas, especially the canyons there, that the horses are able to get through the fence at. However, it would be a lot easier for the horses to move up and down the ridges of Burnt Timber if the fence wasn’t there.

I started talking with the BLM and Forest Service, and this summer the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center entered into a volunteer agreement with the two agencies to start removing the fence. Accessing the fence is pretty difficult, and I figure this is a big reason why the fence is still here today. However, we have figured out ways to best get to the fence and get it down; and my dad and I started this on November 11. There are two main ridges that the fence goes through that I’d like to see access opened up in; and we started with the west ridge, which is the bigger of the two. This is what the fence looked like before we started (feel free to click on the fence images to see larger versions of them):

After a few hours, though, we’d gotten the wire and a lot of posts out; and it looked like this:

In this first day of work, we were able to get almost 20% of the fence running through the west ridge opened up for the horses. We’ll just continue to do this, and pretty soon we’ll have it all opened up. In my blog post on AML, I asked the question of how AML can be raised. Making it easier for horses to live in underutilized areas is one way to do this. This is because it allows for a better distribution of the horses which can lead to better range conditions. I’ll discuss more specifics on living in this area in a future post.

It was fun to find some horses while we were out working on the fence. This is an area that sorrel roan stallion Tecumseh often spends time in this time of year.

Often I am just looking at them through a spotting scope, but it was nice being able to see them up close. Tecumseh’s foal, Jacinta, surprised me. When she was first born, she was looking like a bay to us.

We thought she might end up looking kind of like her dam Rosebud.

Even in September, we were still describing Jacinta as a bay.

Now, though, she is looking like she could end up being dun.

It’s interesting to see the progression of the colors of foals through their first couple years of life. It looks like Jacinta could turn out looking like her older half-sister Helenium.

Bay roan Beulah is the fifth member of Tecumseh’s harem.

Baja and his harem were nearby them, and I also found Lakota and Starman’s harems nearby. We have still been having very nice weather here, and so I’ve been able to spend some good time on the PMWHR seeing how the horses are. I look forward to going back out to work on the fence more so that the horses living in the Burnt Timber area have an easier time moving around in there this winter.

October 21, 2009 – Mountain Update

On the 21st we headed out to the range. After seeing only Sitting Bull and his harem in the Lower Sykes area, we decided to head up Burnt Timber. The snow had melted a lot since I was last there, and nearly all of the puddles in the mid-slope were dried up. Scoping to the top of the mountain, we could see that there was still a good amount of snow up there still. However, there was also a good amount of horses up there too. Drifts blocked our way, so we had to walk in to the horses.

Going down the cirque, the first horses we saw were Starman’s harem as his daughter Isadora peeked out at us.

Up from them was Two Boots and his harem. The colt foal was still missing, and so I think that he is probably gone. As we continued to walk in, we came upon Lakota and Baja’s harems. The black colt in Baja’s harem is definitely striking, much like Isadora is above.

This foal, like the others, is getting big and is growing in his first fuzzy winter coat. Crossing over the hill, we came upon a number of horses – the harems of White Cloud, Teton, Bolder, Blue Moon, and Mescalero. Custer and Coronado’s harems could be seen in the distance.

There was a little interchange up there. White Cloud’s black mare Pococeno wasn’t with the harem, but his two year old daughter was back from Morning Star. I couldn’t see her with any of the harems I saw.

There really was a good amount of snow on the ground, and there’s not a whole lot of available forage in some of the areas the horses were in due to these seasonal conditions. The snow does provide water for them; and, judging from a lack of water in the mid-slope, I guess that was a big reason the horses were up there. Not all of the horses were up on top, though many were. Some, like Jackson below, had their harems down there still. I’m not exactly sure where they watered, but they are definitely able to take advantage of the great forage that is present in these areas right now.

Also, I have been receiving a number of inquiries on the health of some particular horses. White Cloud and Firestorm are the topic of many of these inquiries. While up on the mountain this day, I took some short video clips of them moving around so you can see how you think they are looking. You’ll also see Exhilaration there walking; there will be more on him in the next post on the Dryhead horses. To view this movie, please click here. (Note: I disabled comments on this video so that any relevant comments can be put here so that it is easier for others to read them.)

September 17, 2009 – Mountain Updates

I have made trips to the mountain on the 11th, 15th, and 16th. There are only two harems I’ve not yet seen up there since before the gather, and they are two harems that weren’t ever gathered. I will continue to look for them. I thought I would post some photographs and information on some of the things I’ve thought are of interest.

As has been mentioned, Baja’s mare Bacardi and her filly foal were not brought in by the helicopter due to the foal’s small size. The two ended up being taken in by Coronado. Below is Bacardi and her foal with Coronado’s harem.

Just a day or two after this, Bacardi and her foal rejoined Baja. I don’t find this too surprising at all really. Halcyon’s foal, who is pictured in above too, is doing pretty well. The first time I saw her after the gather, she was a little tender on her feet; but I think she is doing very well after having saw her last on Tuesday.

Brumby, the mare that tied up, is also doing very well now. Her foal, along with a few other foals, is still a little tender; but I think they will be just fine.

Something I’ve noticed that I find very interesting is a relationship the bachelor Fiesta has developed with Flint’s harem. When I first saw him on the 11th, he was with the other bachelors. However, this week he almost seems to be acting as a satellite bachelor for Flint. Sometimes bachelors will follow a harem around, but Fiesta actually seemed to be working with the harem. Satellite bachelors are one of my favorite things to observe, and so I will be interested to see where this goes with these two.

I’ll be posting specifics on the gather later, likely today; but I’d still like to talk a little about horses that were never gathered. These were horses that the helicopter couldn’t really push down the mountain. From what I understand, they would just slip away. It’s likely that they could have been gathered, but I understand that the BLM did not want to have any accidents occur from pushing the horses as hard as would have been required. Below are Doc and Custer’s harems (Doc’s grulla mare is just out of the photograph). They, along with a number of other horses, never went through Britton Springs. Some of the horses that were never gathered would have been removed had they been gathered. Horses that had been gathered were removed in place of these individuals. The yearlings in each of these photographs would have likely been removed had they been gathered.

I’ll be heading up to the mountain again tomorrow, and I hope to see the two harems I’ve not seen. There was a new foal reported in by the BLM during the gather operations, and so finding this foal is one of my main priorities right now.