Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range Draft Evaluation

I’m still not in Wyoming, but I do know of some changes. Lakota’s black yearling filly is now with Jackson, and Lakota once again has Jackson’s yearling filly who had been with Santa Fe.

One thing to look at is the recently released Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range Draft Evaluation. From what I understand, this document is an initial step in seeing how the range is being managed. I think this will culminate in the writing and/or revision of the Herd Management Area Plan for the range. If you can, I think that looking at this document and being informed of the BLM’s probable actions would be very valuable. It’s important that we get well informed on these issues from the beginning so that we can do everything we can to make sure the range is managed as best as it can be. This isn’t really a document that can be appealed against, but the BLM is welcoming any objective and technical information that should be better addressed or known. I haven’t had time to fully read the document yet, but I will try to summarize it here as I do read it.

In the mean time, the full PDF version of the document can be found by clicking on the appropriate link at the Billings Field Office’s wild horse page, which can be accessed by clicking here.

November 10, 2007 – Mountaintop

It should come as no surprise that the 10 was also a nice sunny day on the mountain. There were some changes we observed; the yearling fillies of two families weren’t with their families.

The dun yearling filly from Santa Fe’s family and the grulla yearling filly from Prince’s family weren’t there.

I’m not sure which families these yearlings are with now, but I know they aren’t with Lakota, Duke, White Cloud, Coronado, Bolder, or 4 bachelors as I saw these horses as well.

The biggest surprise of the day was seeing a horse I was thinking may not be alive anymore – Bigfoot. He was dogging Bolder’s family, which is what he was doing the last time I’d seen him in August. He has a great spirit in that he is still trying to get a family even though his knee is so injured.

Earlier in the summer, I learned that Bigfoot once had a mare who died shortly after having a foal. As we have seen in a couple other occasions, Bigfoot tried to take care of the foal. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t be successful; but it really does show the importance of family to the wild horses.

Beyond that, I don’t know much about Bigfoot other than he is likely the father of Zeppelin and Duke. He is also frequently seen in the area northwest of Penn’s Cabin, and I had heard of him being spotted there after I’d last seen him.

I apologize for not taking too many other pictures; I was mainly focused on Bigfoot. I just parked myself under a tree and watched and photographed him for a while as I don’t have any really great pictures of him.

Today, the 13, it is very windy and the wind chill here in Lovell is 7 degrees. I can’t see the mountains at all, so I am hoping they are getting some good precipitation.

It’s been pretty obvious lately that I’ve not been able to make any trips to see the Bighorn Canyon horses lately. It just gets dark so fast now that I can’t make my evening trips out there. Hopefully I will be able to make it out there sometime this week as I’ll be leaving for a couple weeks this weekend.

November 4, 2007 – Mountaintop

November 4 was another warm sunny day on the mountain. There were many horses visible. The first family we found was Teton’s. It wasn’t any surprise that the two year old colt was back with the family.

Also, I haven’t posted any pictures of Phoenix’s wound lately; so here is one I took that day.

Chino’s family was just a short distance away. As his winter coat comes in, Chino is really showing his buckskin color.

Chino’s lookalike mares are actually a mother and daughter.

The grulla yearling colt in the family is the last of Tony’s offspring.

The colt foal is turning into a very beautiful grulla.

A number of families were spread out in the meadows around Penn’s Cabin. White Cloud’s September foal is still alive, and I was able to get some pictures of her near her sister who was born in the summer for size comparison.

As we were leaving, Bolder’s family moved to a small frozen pond to water. It was fun watching them paw at the ice to break it up so they could eat and drink it.

As can be seen, there wasn’t much snow on the mountain then; and there is even less now that the weather has remained warm and sunny. Hopefully the mountains will have some good snowstorms soon to start the snow pack.