Unnecessary Tragedy for Wild Horses
The following is an important post from Chilly Pepper – Miracle Mustang Rescue.
This is a very difficult update to write. Just this morning I received a phone call that we lost two more horses. (Not we specifically, but everyone who loves our wild horses). This morning a mare and her foal were struck by a car on the highway in NV. The mare died on impact, but the baby lay suffering with a horribly broken leg until it could be humanely euthanized.
The reason I bring this to everyone’s attention is this. Everyone wants to blame the government for rounding up the horses, but anyone who feeds the wild horses are responsible as well. Obviously this does not apply to folks who are part of official programs who are designated to help care for the wild horses and have authority to do so. (For the record, I do not agree with what is happening to our wild horses whatsoever, but we need to stop giving them more reasons to do more roundups.) However, every time there is an accident involving our beloved wild horses on the highway, it opens the doors and causes more horses to be rounded up.
People need to take responsibility. DO NOT EVER FEED ANY WILDLIFE! There have been so many accidents, many involving loss of human life as well as the lives of the horses, and a HUGE PERCENTAGE of these accidents are due to folks feeding the wild horses. Not only is it illegal, but you are killing our wild horses. In prior years, before the recent epidemic of folks thinking it is “cool” to get close to and feed or pet wild horses, there were fewer incidents. But EVERY TIME you feed or pet a wild horse, you are teaching it that not only are humans safe, BUT THEIR VEHICLES ARE AS WELL. You are teaching them that vehicles mean food, and they don’t understand that they mean horrific pain and death. If you are feeding the wild horses, you are taking their natural “life saving” fear away from them, and in the end you are causing their death or at the very least the “excuse” or need for them to be rounded up. I know that folks are not hurting the horses on purpose, but the fact is the damage is being done, and the mare and her beautiful little baby paid the ultimate price for thinking they were safe around cars.
Then the circle comes back to situations like ours, where we are responsible for too many horses and have to fund raise to keep them out of the slaughter pipelines due to more and more being rounded up.