Well, time has sure gone fast since I last posted. Things have been busy here at the Center and on the horse range as well. Since I last wrote, some of the horses have sadly been lost; but there are also many new foals out there. I will work on getting these updates created; but in the mean time there is something else well worth looking at.

The Bureau of Land Management’s Billings Field Office has released a draft of the proposed Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP).

A full PDF version of this document can be accessed by clicking on the link entitled “Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range Draft Herd Management Area Plan and Preliminary Environmental Assessment (EA)” on this web page or by clicking on the following image:

Note: I have found that it is best to right click the link and do a “Save link as” to download this 6.8 mb document to your own computer.

The Dear Reader supplement letter can be found by clicking this sentence.

The Reader’s Guide can be found by clicking on this sentence.

The Q & A’s can be found by clicking on this sentence.

Note: All of these documents are in PDF format. If you do not have a PDF reader, you can download it for free by clicking this sentence.

I will readdress some things from the supplementary documents here:

Herd Management Area Plans are documents that do things like define the wild horse appropriate management level (AML), manage the wild horse herd structure, enhance range habitat, and the like. HMAPs help define things that are done on a more short term basis, and so this type of plan is called an “Activity Plan.”

Herd Management Area Plans do not do much in the way of changing things like wild horse range boundaries, manage travel and recreation, and the like. These are the kinds of things defined in the Land Use Plans and travel management plans. These types of planning processes will be carried out for area in the near future.

Currently, the Herd Management Area Plan used for the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range is this document:

Notice the date - June 1984. There were some revisions in 1992; but, for the most part, a 24 year old document is what governs many actions on the wild horse range. You will see in the draft HMAP that it is proposed to change the new HMAP in 5 to 10 years, which is apparently the typical lifespan for these documents.

This document is in the draft phase. As you can read in the supplementary materials, this is the time to carefully read the document and provide the Billings Field Office with comments and solutions that will make help make the HMAP as great as possible.

Meaningful comments and solutions are encouraged and appreciated. Directions on submitting comments, which can be done in about every possible way, can be found on the Dear Reader Letter. It’s best to get going on this sooner than later. This is because there is a 30 day comment period, which I think started this week.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the Billings Field Office! Public lands aren’t just for the public to visit, we do get chances to give our suggestions on actions applied to them. This is one of those chances right now.

I spent the 4th out on the range, starting in the Burnt Timber area. The first horses to be seen were Jackson’s family. However, his three year old grulla filly wasn’t there. The two year old black filly was just down the hill.

Using a spotting scope, I scanned Sykes Ridge. I saw Mescalero, and I saw a new foal with his mare Dove. From that distance, I can’t get a lot of detail in my pictures, but at least I have a picture to show that foal exists.

The foal looks to be a buckskin, which is pretty exciting. This is also Dove’s first foal, and so this is also exciting.

Scanning more, I discovered a new foal with Morning Star’s three year old filly. This is likely Prince’s biologic offspring, though.

This foal looked to be a dun with a big blaze. The mother, Feldspar, also has a big blaze just like her father Starman.

Heading back down, Starman’s family had popped out.

Prince popped out of the trees and chased them away, and then his family came out.

There was another missing yearling filly from this family, and so that raises some interesting questions about having two yearlings disappear in the same area in a similar amount of time.

I headed out to Bighorn Canyon after this to see what was going on out there. On the way, I was able to get some nice pictures of a porcupine in a tree.

In the Canyon, there were 11 bighorn sheep rams and about the same number of ewes out on Mustang Flats.

Seattle’s family was nearby, and I was able to finally determine that the black foal is a colt.

I also got to see Cascade’s new foal. She was still a little touchy on the back legs, but she was getting around a little better.

I decided to head out to Bighorn Canyon on the evening of May 3rd to see how Seattle’s foal was doing and to see if I could figure out its sex. When I first started in, I saw a grulla and a black on a hill; and so I figured that the rest of Seattle’s family was below the hill. By the time I got there, I saw that Cascade had crossed the road and stopped on the shoulder. I then realized why she was there; she had a new foal right there.

I sat back quite a ways watching the foal trying to figure out what it was. I did find it to be a filly. While I was doing this, I also had my digital video camera going; and this footage can be seen here. (There were a lot of noisy birds flying around that were keeping Cascade’s attention there before she went off to graze.)

The two finally went back across the road to join the black horse, who was Cascade’s yearling colt. The three were off by themselves, and so this was likely a pretty new foal.

Something I noticed with this foal, though, was that she seemed to be having some trouble with her back legs. I think Cascade may have sensed something was up too, as she was making the foal move around while the foal would try and nurse - Cascade would let her drink a little and then take a few steps forward.

I heard a stallion calling out, and Cascade looked up at it. I decided to drive up and see who it was and to try and find Seattle and the rest. As I went up the road, I saw Seattle’s family coming down it pretty fast. I stopped just as they all ran past me toward Cascade.

Soon after, the family was all reunited; and I left as it as getting dark.

I made a quick trip up Burnt Timber on the evening of the 30th. I first saw Santa Fe’s family on the way up.

However, I saw that the upcoming yearling filly Halle was not with them. I walked all around the area, but she just wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

During the evening, I also saw Jackson and Tecumseh’s families further up.

I had a little time on the evening of the 28th, so I decided to go see if Admiral’s mare had foaled yet. I went out there and hiked all over the area that I’ve been seeing them out for all of my past trips. Try as I might, I could not find them. The only thing in the area were about 30 deer in about 6 groups. I figured they were in a drainage I didn’t see or something, so I headed back.

As I topped the final hill before arriving at my Jeep, I heard the sound of running horses. I grabbed my camera and scanned, and then I saw Admiral’s family running toward me. I figure a bachelor must have agitated them out of wherever they had been.

I think these are the kinds of pictures most associated with wild horses. Truth be told, I’ve only seen this dust-and-tails flying kind of thing a few times; so this was pretty exciting to watch and photograph.

They didn’t see me sitting on that hill, and they just kept running right past me.

I’m sure you’ve figured it out now, but there wasn’t any new foal yet. Soon though!

On the 22nd, I headed back out to the canyon to see if I could figure out the sex of Seattle’s new foal. On the way out, we had a really nice surprise - Blizzard was visible. Right now, this is one of the more elusive of the Dryhead families; and so it is always special to get to see them.

The past few times that they’ve been seen, the grulla roan mare Strawberry hasn’t been with them or with anyone else. However, she was back this time. Strawberry is a pretty independent mare, and this isn’t the first time she has gone off by herself like this.

Sacajawea was further up on a hill. She almost looks pregnant, but it’s hard to tell from that distance.

Sacajawea and Merlin’s 2007 colt is really good looking. He has great stripes and a two tone mane. He does look a little funny now as he has a big black patch on his face.

Seattle’s family was pretty far up, and so I didn’t get much time with them before it got too dark. Thus, I still am not sure of the sex of that foal. I am still a little hesitant to try too hard as the family is already a little touchy as it is, and so I don’t think it will hurt to be a patient for just a little longer.

On the 20th, I wanted to see if Seattle’s mare had foaled yet. The day started out cool and cloudy, and we spotted the family upon arriving on the flats. I also saw that she had indeed foaled through my binoculars. We started walking out to them, and then it started to snow.

We hid behind some junipers watching this beautiful new foal. It’s totally black, just like Seattle.

We didn’t spend too much time there as we didn’t want to accidentally stress the foal out any more. I am fairly sure it had been born the evening before or early the morning of this day, so this was not a fun first day of life for it. Because of the time constraint, and the visibility from the snow, I couldn’t determine for certain if it was male or female. I am pretty sure it is a filly, but I couldn’t verify that.

This was the beginning of what would actually be a pretty big snowstorm in the Bighorn Basin. However, I wasn’t too concerned with the foal surviving it. With the three mares, three offspring, and Seattle, I knew she would be kept plenty warm and sheltered.

I spent a pretty good amount of time walking around Sykes Ridge on the 19th. The first horses I found while hiking were Admiral’s family. Still no new foal, but it was still nice to see them. Admiral grazed down low while the filly and her mother grazed on a hillslope.

As I walked back from them, I saw that the bachelor Starbuck had wandered into the area too. (As a point of interest, Starbuck is the father of the above dun mare with Admiral.)

As I continued up, I spotted Bristol and his filly out a way. I decided to walk out to them as it’d been a while since I’d seen them up close. I was a little curious if the filly was showing any signs of pregnancy.

Bristol looks the same as usual, and he lives in an area that no other horses do. He may not be too strong, but I think he is smart enough to know where he has the best chance of keeping his filly.

I don’t think the filly really looks pregnant, and she is still a little young. I have heard of cases in the wild where horses have foaled at her age (2 years).

I don’t often mention them here, but I really do see a lot of deer on my trips. I estimate I see anywhere from 15 to 30 on each trip to the Pryors, depending on where I am going. I usually see quite a few as I head up Sykes. These are mule deer. Only once have I ever seen a white tail on the range, and she was just barely in it. These deer were walking around in the mountain mahogany, and they were eating it.

Bighorn sheep also eat the mahogany, but I didn’t see any around this day. I did see plenty of places they had been in recently further up, though.

Corona’s family was just on the other side of the hill from the deer. It was just the second time I’d seen this 2008 foal.

My goal for the day was to get as high onto Sykes as I could, at least to the Sykes catchment area. I did make it there, but I didn’t stay long as there was a storm moving in. The only horse I saw close on Sykes was the bachelor Flint (Blue Moon). I also saw Morning Star and Coronado’s families from a distance.

We headed back before the storm hit. On the way down, I took this picture: (You can click it for a larger version.)

This is what Mustang Flats looks like from above. I’ve posted some pictures before showing horses on the face of the mountain headed up; this is near where they come up. You can also see Highway 37 and Bighorn Canyon in the picture. Those are the Bighorn Mountains in the background.