American Highway allows KNLS listeners to travel America's back roads, highways, and byways.  You'll find some of this nation's most interesting people, places and events in these stories.

America’s Wild Horses At Risk

Fires and drought ravaging the American west are destroying more than homes and trees. The flames are also burning up thousands of hectares of open rangeland, threatening the nation's herds of wild horses with starvation and disease. The New Life Station's Mike Osborne recently traveled to north central Tennessee, to investigate a program designed to save these monarchs of the range.

It’s usually pretty quiet on the U.S. Government’s wild horse ranch just outside the small town of Cross Plains. The mustangs cared for here can enjoy their morning hay undisturbed. But once each month, a small army of people, trucks and horse trailers invades the ranch. Milling about on either side of the corral fence, horses and people eye each other nervously.

These folks have traveled here from all over the eastern United States to adopt a wild horse. The program is operated by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management. Charged with protecting the nation's mustang herds, the agency routinely rounds up excess horses to keep their ever-growing numbers from overgrazing the rangeland. Tennessee supervisor Sandy Socker says the adoption program is especially important this summer, with record breaking drought and fires out west.

"It creates intensive heat which is a hazard to the animals," Socker says.   "Plus what it does, it will burn up either their winter or their summer range, and it can evaporate all their water sources. So what it means is the horses will starve if we don't remove them."

TAt one time the roundups were more traditional, using cowboys on horseback to bring the herds in. Today wranglers flying small helicopters gather the mustangs. The animals are given a quick veterinary exam and most are soon returned to the range. Those to be placed for adoption are loaded on trucks and shipped to centers like the one at Cross Plains, all over the country.

When they arrive at the Tennessee ranch, prospective new owners are put through a rigorous screening process to ensure that the mustangs go to a good home. And because the horses are wild the agency also provides an intensive educational course with lectures by professional trainers and a veterinarian.

Those who pass the screening draw lots to see who will get to choose first among the available animals. From there, it's back to the corral to make some hard, final choices about which horse to take home.

Ron and Mary Wells adopted a mare they call Dingy six months ago, and they are working to make the animal a part of the family. Many people still break their horses by riding the frightened and bucking animal to an exhausted standstill as is seen in rodeos and western films. But the Wells are using a slower, quieter method called gentling. They use kindness and the animal's own herd instinct to tame the horse.

"She's halter broke. Touch her all over. Follow on the lead. Wash her with a hose. Put the saddle blanket on her. We've never tried to ride her yet, but we feel like, just take your time. Don't push it," Mr. Wells says.

Mary Wells adds, "In the short time we've had her she has put on weight. She's growing. She's affectionate. She's loving. She's everything we wanted. So much so we're back again today."

On this second visit to the adoption center, the Wells are lucky enough to draw a low number and so are able to take home the small gray mare they'd picked out earlier in the day. They pay a $125 fee to the agency, load up their new mustang, and head for home in nearby Lebanon, Tennessee.

Horses not adopted at the center move on to other facilities all across the eastern states.

In the past twenty years, the Cross Plains ranch alone has found new homes for more than 17,000 mustangs and wild burros . With fires in the west continuing to burn up the range, the center will have to exceed even that remarkable pace to keep thousands of America's wild mustangs from starving. 

To learn more about the wild horse adoption program, visit the BLM website: http://www.adoptahorse.blm.gov/

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