Wildish: Mustang of the American West
It’s usually early in the morning when the administrator of one of the wild horse activist pages I follow on Facebook declares war on the Bureau of Land Management. This language is nothing new. I bet if I hadn’t told you this was from a wild horse activist page, you would have wondered if I pulled this from your brother-in-law’s page on “draining the swamp,” your mom’s status update about “fake news,” or your coworker’s share on how to stop the “Dems.”
The subject of wild horses is yet another example of a contentious, polarized issue. Wild horses and burros, or wild donkeys, are roaming the western United States. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is required by a 1971 law to protect them as living symbols of American history like the bald eagle. To keep the population at what is called an “Appropriate Management Level” for the sake of the animals and ecological landscape, the BLM round up herds, also known as bands, with helicopters. Once the horses are off public lands, the BLM feeds the animals over half the program’s budget in holding pastures.
The loud voices on Facebook reflect the failure of management because now, there are too many wild horses and burros. The population numbers continue to boom which further degrades the ecological integrity of places like Arizona and Nevada. No one knows what to do. There isn’t enough money or time to come up with a perfect solution. There isn’t enough adoption to keep up. People on all sides of the issue — whatever their ideas for solutions for management may be — have two things in common: they hate each other, and they hate the BLM.
I’m producing a podcast series called Wildish: Mustang of the American West to investigate this provocative topic. In May 2019, I traveled to the Sand Wash Basin in Northwestern Colorado to meet a wild horse photographer, Patti. She offered to drive me around the basin where I would interview her, and we could possibly find some wild horses. Half-asleep one morning, I climbed in Patti’s truck.
After a while of talking on the road, Patti passively said, “My friend, Ottilia, is joining us. She’s another photographer.”
Patti told me Ottilia didn’t like to talk to people, so I doubted Ottilia would want to talk to a poor grad student, like me, with tattered, bulky headphones and a boxy field recorder held together with rubber bands. We bounced and rattled along a dirt path, the basin yawning, vast and open revealing a mosaic of whites, browns, and grays sprinkled with sagebrush. A tower of a woman came into view leaning on the trunk of her SUV with an impatient scowl. Ottilia.
The three of us zig-zagged the basin occasionally scanning the horizon with binoculars. We finally came upon three bands of wild horses less than 200 yards away and excitedly but stealthily crept out of the vehicles. Patti and Ottilia set up their equipment: tripods and cameras that looked more like telescopes. I clumsily slid my headphones over my ballcap, and unsure of what sounds I’d capture, I pressed record.
Behind me, Ottilia’s camera shutter pulsed as fast as my heart. I had never seen a wild horse even after a year of research. She gasped, crying “oh my god” in her thick Hungarian accent. We gawked at this beautiful stallion they called Chip. It felt bizarre to think these wild animals had names. The sage crunched under Ottilia’s cowboy boots. I was careful to keep my distance from Ottilia until she whispered if she were a mare, she wouldn’t hesitate to let Chip steal her away. We began to stifle giggles, which was difficult from the heavy amounts of coffee and adrenaline. Patti left us behind for a closer shot. Ottilia and I continued to joke with each other that whole weekend in the basin.
After hearing Ottilia’s background story and her passion for wild horses, I wished I could interview her, but whenever I had my equipment out, she’d hesitate, point wide-eyed, and ask, “You’re not recording, are you?”
It took three months before I was able to convince Ottilia that just because she had a strong accent didn’t mean people wouldn’t listen to her. We rendezvoused again in the Sand Wash Basin one August afternoon. We sat facing each other in camp chairs using her SUV to shield us from the wind. Sharp sand blew in our faces from the oncoming storm that churned against the mountains. My microphone distorted and screamed in my ears. We laughed as Ottilia declared it was somehow the BLM trying to sabotage our interview.
She told me the story of a very young foal she came across outside of Rock Springs, Wyoming. He was contorted and unable to walk easily or graze. He was bleeding from the mouth, so Ottilia guessed it was some sort of spinal injury. She called the BLM.
“That was the one thing that awakened me. How they handled [it]. Because, up until then, I wasn’t against them [BLM]. I needed to experience what other people had told me.”
A BLM employee finally came out to the location. The employee walked around the foal for maybe ten seconds, then drove away, Ottilia claimed. To Ottilia, it seemed callous. Unnerved, she used her platform as a well-known wild horse photographer.
“After I made a fuss on the internet telling people to call in to help that foal, they [BLM] eventually made an announcement they had to put the foal down because it was necessary.”
Ottilia said her Facebook followers were consistently calling the Rock Springs office for days, and it worked.
“But that foal was out there for a whole week suffering in obvious pain.”
That was not the only incident Ottilia experienced. She also told me a story of a week-old foal who was alone in the sagebrush left behind by his mother. He was dehydrated and starving.
Ottilia paused. Her eyes filling with tears, she told me how the foal got up, walked to her car, and tried to suck the mud and salt off the tires. Again, she called the BLM. They tried to convince her his mother would come back, but Ottilia knew better.
“I may not have grown up here, but I know these horses,” Ottilia told me. “Mothers don’t just leave their babies.”
They told Ottilia they’d come to check on the foal the following day, but Ottilia was not convinced that they would come out at all. She threatened to stay with the horse overnight unless they came that day.
I used to work for the government as a park ranger. Bureaucracies are complicated, and it takes an excruciatingly long time to get anything done — from changing policy in D.C. to getting a new stapler in the office. I empathize with the BLM. As a result of a slow, thankless system, it’s easy to get jaded, but is that a good excuse to become bad at your job?
I’ve spent hours speaking to various BLM employees about working for the Wild Horse and Burro Program. “You don’t stay in this job unless you care about the horses,” BLM specialist told me at a helicopter roundup, or gather, in Utah who has been working under this program for almost three decades. I have no doubt everyone I have spoken to from the BLM cares about the welfare of the animals.
It does, however, make me wonder about those I haven’t spoken to, like the BLM lead who told Ottilia flatly to stay away from the horses.
“He was not happy with me for making a fuss on Facebook and getting people to call them.”
Ottilia did not appreciate the BLM lead’s anger. She is an American, and this is her freedom.
As a graduate student in an environmental program, I am concerned for the severely strained ecological landscape. As someone who grew up loving horses — riding them, drawing them, and watching every movie about them — I am concerned for their well-being. What draws me to the debate is the people. I am fascinated with the relationships people have with wild horses and the dry, western soil.
Perhaps wild horses serve as a metaphor for Americans as untamed and untied immigrants. We both represent an ideal, and wild horses being chased by helicopters stir a lot of emotion. It is understandable that words of war are waged on the BLM from an armchair in LA. Or Boston. Or wherever, as they share Facebook post after post inappropriately comparing gathers to the Holocaust and crying tyranny.
The substance belongs to those with their boots in the sage: BLM employees receiving death threats; ranchers suing the BLM for wild horse overpopulation; photographers, like Ottilia, who know each horse by name.
“They [wild horses] were all I had when I had no one,” Ottilia told me.
It’s usually early in the morning when the wild horse and burro specialist rolls out of bed for another wild horse gather. It’s early when the rancher gets up to ride out and survey his cattle, cut and splice his fences, and divert scarce water sources. It’s early when Ottilia drives an hour before sunrise to her wild horses who know the sound of her voice.
Each of them clasping to a thermos of coffee, shivering in the cold. Each of them chastised on the internet. Each of them hating the other. Each of them scanning the horizon for that symbol of the American West. Each of them longing desperately for change.
