LINKS HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WILD HORSES ~ PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF AND GET INVOLVED

PLENTY OF LINKS HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WILD HORSES ~ PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF AND GET INVOLVED

by Annie Kimmell Mond on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 4:42pm

Links for More Information - PLEASE SHARE WIDELY -

videos and scholarly articles at the bottom of list

  

Habitat for Horses  www.habitatforhorses.org 

Wild Horses Need You   www.wildhorsesneedyou.com

In Defense of Animals   www.idausa.org 

Animal Law Coalition  www.animallawcoalition.com  

Respect 4 Horses  http://www.respect4horses.com/

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign   www.wildhorsepreservation.com

Wild Earth Guardians (Report on fiscal costs of public lands grazing in the American West & other resources on public lands management and suggested actions to take)   www.sagebrushsea.org

Cloud Foundation   www.thecloudfoundation.org

Animal Welfare Institute   www.awionline.org

American Herds   www.americanherds.blogspot.com 

Equine Welfare Alliance   www.equinewelfarealliance.org

American Horse Defense Fund   www.ahdf.org

Saving the American Wild Horse (James Kleinert’s site/Disappointment Valley)  www.theamericanwildhorse.com

Friends of Animals  www.friendsofanimals.org

International Society for the protection of Mustangs and Burros  www.ispmb.org

Wind Dancer Foundation   http://www.wind-dancer.org/

Western Watersheds Project  www.westernwatersheds.org

WILD HORSES ARE NATIVE: SCIENTIFIC AND SCHOLARY ARTICLES:

 http://www.wildmustangcoalition.org/id48.html

 http://homepage.mac.com/john.brian/WildHorses/Evolution.html

VIDEOS: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7hovhbQBD4  

FREEDOM: A STALLION'S COURAGE

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=488737400750&ref=mf  

WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE WILD MUSTANGS?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6WlEsoRLII&feature=share  

TRAILER TO DISAPPOINTMENT VALLEY

THE MUSTANG CONSPIRACY part I :

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/   

The government conspiracy to eliminate wild mustangs

THE MUSTANG CONSPIRACY part II:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/part2.html

British Petroleum and the Ruby Pipeline

SAVE OUR NATIONAL HERITAGE - WILD HORSES!

One Little Foal Step at a Time

I cried all day over this one too. How could one not? The callus cruelty and total lack of feeling for horses or people by the BLM is frightening. Especially since it has been proven over and over again that lack of feeling for the suffering of animals almost always indicates a lack of feeling for one's fellow humans as well. These people give me nightmares. This cannot be allowed to go unanswered.

Please, if you are unfamiliar with R.T. Fitch and his writings, go here and read more. Read the comments about the posts. If you want to help us after you read more, R.T. has all the links you need to make your comments and donations. Hopefully, you will do these things and then help spread the word about the travesty the BLM is making of their mandate to protect and manage these American Icons.

These magnificent, intelligent creatures belong to you, to me and to all Americans. They are part of our Heritage - our Hearts and our Souls. And they are running out of time.

Amplify’d from rtfitch.wordpress.com

One Little Foal Step at a Time

(In My Humble Opinion) by R.T. Fitch ~ author of “Straight from the Horse’s Heart“

Fight to Save our Wild Horses Progresses

It’s been a tough month for Wild Horse Advocates, even tougher for the horses.  Months of legal planning had been mapped out by the HfH Advisory Council in an effort to stop four, specifically targeted BLM roundups from occurring.  Two of those were postponed by a year, one directly due to our efforts. But the other two went forward, one struggle even made it to court.  Did we make any progress?  Were the horses helped in anyway?  To put it mildly; “You bet ya!”

The year delay of the West Douglas stampede happened with very little fanfare and in what appeared to be a blink of an eye, mostly due to the fact that we held off on public notification until the TRO was filed.  The intent was to give you the full story and the culmination of our efforts but by the time we issued our press release it was only hours later that the BLM backed away and said that they would reconsider the attack on the horses the following year.  We filed our contempt of court paperwork one day, our preliminary injunction order the next day following up with the TRO the next and within hours the BLM stepped back.  Was that a win?  Once again, “You bet ya!”  Even though not ordered by the court the horses of West Douglas certainly gave it a big “hooves up” as they get to live like God intended them to live for at least another year and we have additional time granted to us to better prepare to defend them.

This past Thursday a New York Judge failed to find in our favor for our effort to stop the North Piceance roundup in Colorado.  With all of the time, money, blood, sweat and tears spent was it a success for the horses?  Once again a resounding; “You bet ya!”

I’ll put it into the whispered terms of a loving women who I held, crying, in my arms upon hearing the news of the court’s denial.

“The horses of North Piceance made a sacrifice that other herds well benefit from,” whispered my wife Terry as we both struggled with tears upon hearing the news, “it’s like a new born foal taking its first steps, one at a time.  We took several little legal foal steps that the BLM will never be able to erase.”

And she is right.

Although the horses of the North Piceance herd will now slip away into the BLM’s cloud of mysterious equine disappearances and obscurity their ultimate sacrifice allowed us to win several combative, legal skirmishes against the BLM.

Although it might seem like a very small victory it will prove to be huge in the future and that little foal step was the issue of “venue” or where the suit was filed.  We landed this case far from the ranges of the west and right in the middle of Central Park in New York City.  Why?  We did so in hopes of finding a judge that was fresh, new and untainted by the influence of Ken Salazar’s special interest driven BLM.  The BLM wanted out of NYC, badly.  They wanted to be either back out west or in a D.C. court where their cronies had more influence but due to the New York based ASPCA being one of our volunteer plaintiffs, the judge let us stay thus setting a precedence for seeking out favorable venues for additional cases in the future.  Thank you ASPCA for the win and do you think we will use this in the future, “You bet ya!”

The major win of the case comes from the quiet and sincere Colorado Veterinarian Dr. Don Moore.  Dr. Moore was first taken to the North Piceance area to view the horses by his father over forty years ago.  Dr. Moore has grown up with those horses and the court agreed that Dr. Moore has suffered irreparable harm by this herd being destroyed.  The BLM’s argument was that Dr. Moore could just go somewhere else to see wild horses, what’s the difference?  The difference is gigantic and the BLM’s indifference in court outlines their failed understanding of their primary job to protect these horses instead of destroying them.  To tell Dr. Moore to go somewhere else to see other wild horses is like telling Ginger Kathrens that she does not need to see Cloud, the wild stallion of the Pryor Mountain herd that she has been following for over a decade and a half.  The BLM can simply stampede Cloud and his family into the mystery concentration camps and Ginger can just go somewhere else to see a wild horse.  How asinine is that for a defense in federal court?  It’s your tax dollars hard at work trying to defend a failed and perverted policy of systematically exterminating all of the publicly owned wild horses on publicly owned land.  The court agreed so that from this day forward, it is on the record that for future cases  Americans are irreparably damaged and injured by the BLM’s insidious action of cruelly and inhumanely stripping our federally protected wild horses from public lands.  Will we use that angle in future cases when attempting to save our wild horses from extinction?  “You bet ya!”

Over the last several weeks we have accomplished what our good friend and fellow wild horse crusader Laura Leigh from Grass Roots Horse has said,

“We laid another brick, just one more legal brick in the foundation of the major case to forever stop the BLM from violating local, state and federal laws.”

One brick at a time, one little foal step at a time we move forward and forward we did move.

I am a man driven by a wet tear on the side of my face, a woman softly sobbing in my arms and the soft yet stinging words,

“We didn’t stop the killing of the horses, R.T.  The mares, that little foal, we did not save them.”

And for that I bleed, and because of that we stand strong.

For all those who have perished; we will press on to stop the massacre of the mustangs, even if it is only one little foal step at a time.

Read more at rtfitch.wordpress.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/dvbv

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Protest Against Wild Horse Roundups And Horse Slaughter

There is much more on Tuesday's Horse on The Int'l Fund for Horses website. If you want to join in on upcoming protests or get help organizing your own protest, this is the place to go.

Please protest if you can, or help spread the word if you can't actually attend. For the horses.

Amplify’d from tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com

AGAINST WILD HORSE & BURRO ROUNDUPS and HORSE SLAUGHTER

Protesting and calling for a moratorium on all roundups of America’s wild horses and burros.

Protesting horse slaughter and demanding an immediate vote on HR 503 and S 727, The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, banning the slaughter of America’s equines.

Scheduled Protests:

BOSTON, Massachusetts DONE!

When:

Friday, October 8, 2010 at 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Where:

Massachusetts State House, Behind the Boston Common in front of the State House

Follow Up:

Report and Pictures >>

STAMFORD, Connecticut DONE!

When:

Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 2:00 pm

Where:

Downtown Stamford on the Ferguson Library steps

Follow Up:

On the way.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada DONE!

When:

Monday, Columbus Day, October 11, 2010, 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where:

Horseman’s Park, 5800 E. Flamingo Drive

Follow Up:

Report, Pictures, Media Coverage >>

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont

When:

Friday, October 29, 2010 2 PM to 5 PM

Where:

At the Co-op, 2 Main St.

Notes:

Please bring a sign.

Contacts:

Jeanne – hilbiljean@yahoo.com

NEW YORK CITY, New York

When:

Saturday, November 13, 2010, 1 PM to 3 PM

Where:

Columbus Circle, 59th Street, Manhattan, at the south end of Central Park and Broadway – near the statues (also referred to as the north side of Central Park South).

Notes:

Please bring a sign.

Contacts:

Jo De George – jo@degeorgedynamic.com; Linda Berardo – Lin817@aol.com

There are more rallies and protests being organized for IA, GA, MD, VA, NH, ME, SC, WY, CO, TX, FL and VA. Also New York City in November. We will post details as soon as we have them. Read more at tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/dpuf

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Feds and Contractor Caught Conducting Covert Wild Horse Stampede

As you read this, please keep in mind that this is all TRUE and DOCUMENTED. The BLM and the Cattoors are now not only conducting covert removals of hundreds of horses, they actually threatened the life of an advocate on PUBLIC LAND!

Now, President Obama and members of Congress - What do you intend to do about this? Are you actually going to ignore an attack on a tax paying American citizen on public land by one of your Agencies and their henchmen? Do the citizens of the United States of America have ANY rights left at all?

I AM WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER, MR. PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.

Amplify’d from rtfitch.wordpress.com

September 26, 2010

Feds and Contractor Caught Conducting Covert Wild Horse Stampede

(The News as We See It) by R.T. Fitch ~ Documentation supplied by GrassRootsHorse

BLM/Cattors covertly loading and shipping wild horses from Sheldon ~ Photo by Leslie Peeples

While law makers and the American public had their eyes concentrated on the much contested Silver King round up in Nevada the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) along with helicopter contractor David Cattoor where conducting an unpublished and unannounced secret wild horse gather at the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge (Sheldon).

Plaintiff in several suits against the BLM for lack of transparency and violation of First Amendment Rights, Laura Leigh of GrassRootsHorse, was tipped off that there was illicit activity taking place at Sheldon as many roads were closed due to a “wild horse gather”.

On September 22, 2010 Ms. Leigh discussed this situation with wild horse advocate Leslie Peeples, who was already on the road to visit another wild horse herd, and Ms. Peeples immediately changed plans and headed to Sheldon to investigate as no such “gather” was indicated in any public records.

On the morning of Sept. 23, 2010 Ms. Peeples phoned the Lakeview office of the USFWS and when asked if a wild horse gather was being conducted she was told, “yes”.

Cattoor Truck at Sheldon ~ Photo by Leslie Peeples

Ms. Peeples headed out to Sheldon on back roads when she encountered an oncoming semi-truck with a livestock trailer being towed behind it at a reasonable speed.  Ms. Peeples intended to ask the driver where the stampede was taking place so she pulled her car over to the side of the road and stepped out into her lane of traffic to flag the driver down for information.  Upon seeing this, according to filed court documents, the truck driver aimed for the center of the road, speeded up and missed running over Ms. Peoples by only inches.

Read more at rtfitch.wordpress.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9A0JuW

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Press Release From Grass Roots Horse - September 24, 2010

 

Velma Johnston 

September 24, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Maureen VanDerStad
860-598-0095
Contact: Info@grassrootshorse.com

A Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order was filed at 5 a.m. PT September 24, 2010 in Nevada. The action was brought by Laura Leigh, photojournalist and videographer who is supported by Grass Roots Horse in this matter.

The motion asks for an immediate cessation of all helicopter roundups and all related activities regarding any and all aspects of any actions related to wild horse movement, gathering or rounding up as well as any actions involving all horses in short or long term holding.

This motion is about accountability, access, and transparency. “This is about the horses, each and every horse. Every individual life that leaves the range matters and is important to the American public. This is not about some bulk inventory and it is about time that the government recognizes that fact. We are not going away. The wild horses and burros are living beings mandated to be managed humanely.” said Maureen VanDerStad of Grass Roots Horse, a nonprofit group based in grass roots activism.

This battle for humane treatment and proper management of the wild horses and burros has been going on for decades and is still going on. It began on a grass roots level when Velma Johnston first sought to stop the killing and abuse of the wild horses and burros six decades ago. That effort resulted in the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which mandated, among many other things, the humane treatment of these symbols of our American heritage and pioneer spirit. The Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Interior have steadily and secretly chipped away at those mandates and protections over the years resulting in the abominable situation we have now. Anything to do with the wild horse and burro program or the animals themselves, even their location, is shrouded in secrecy and hidden under layers of excessive bureaucracy.

Copy of the filed motion: Link

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BLM to continue castrating wild horses using disputed anesthesia protocol

Succinylcholine is a neuromuscular blocking agent and has NO anesthetic properties. This is the same drug that Dr. Richard Sanford used for castration at the Broken Arrow holding facility in Fallon, Nevada, causing the deaths of several geldings by pulmonary hemorrhage.

Why in the world would the BLM continue to use this dangerous and outdated drug? Well, why not? If you don't give a damn about the suffering and/or death you inflict on an innocent, gentle, intelligent Being who's only crime is existing, you can do whatever you want.

I won't write out what I would LIKE to do to these heartless zombies because I try to maintain a G rating for my blog, but I'm sure I can leave it to your own imagination to fill in the blanks.

Truly, words fail me. I'm coming to believe there is NOTHING these people will not stoop to in order to remove these magnificent creatures from the land that is theirs as native wildlife and by mandate of law. Whatever the reason they think they have for these atrocities, in reality this is nothing but mindless madness.

To those in power who have done NOTHING despite the endless pleas, I say to you that you're not fit for the position you hold, and, if it is within my power, you will not keep it. One of the many incredible things about horses is that they do not hold grudges. I however, do.

Amplify’d from www.examiner.com

Maureen Harmonay

Equine Advocacy Examiner

BLM to continue castrating wild horses using disputed anesthesia protocol

Two stallions at the BLM's Indian Lakes Road holding facility in Fallon, Nevada

Photo: Copyright Cat Kindsfather. No use without express written permission.

It's official.  The BLM intends to disregard HSUS veterinarian Dr. Eric Davis's "serious concerns" about the use of the paralytic drug, succinycholine, as an anesthesia agent during wild horse castrations.  It doesn't matter that succinylcholine has already caused the deaths of several geldings castrated by Dr. Richard Sanford at the Broken Arrow holding facility in Fallon, Nevada.  And apparently, it doesn't matter that the drug routinely causes potentially fatal respiratory difficulties that are best addressed by pressurized oxygen equipment that is not even available at BLM facilities.

No, it doesn't matter what anyone says:  the BLM and its veterinarians make their own rules, often without regard for what is in the best interests of the wild horses they purportedly manage.  In response to inquiries from Leslie Peeples about the BLM's continued use of succinylcholine during castrations, BLM Public Affairs Officer Jeff Fontana furnished a statement from the agency which claims that "complications and side effects are rare." Read more at www.examiner.com

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Why the war on America's wild horses?

Why indeed. Partly, it's what it's always been - public lands ranchers seem to forget that they are on PUBLIC LAND and begrudge the horses any of what is theirs by law.

These days though, there's more to it. Even the ranchers are starting to feel a cold wind up their backs, and well they should. Big Energy is coming to take this land. There's money in them thar hills, and Big Energy is planning to make the most of it.

They'll dig more open pit mines and pollute more atmosphere and ground water; they will build more pipelines like Ruby to carry more BP gas. All of these things take WATER - millions of gallons of WATER, and there's even more money to be made in water rights.



Secretary Salazar has said he wants to "industrialize" the West. And they are planning to do just that - until they pump dry the aquifers that took thousands of years to fill. After that, they will leave, looking for new conquests.

Not only will the horses be gone, so will everything else.

Amplify’d from www.examiner.com

Maureen Harmonay

Equine Advocacy Examiner

Why the war on America's wild horses?

BLM says the 178,000-acre Montezuma Peak & Paymaster HMAs can only support 3 horses

Photo: Pam Nickoles Photography, www.NickolesPhotography.com

It seems that hardly a day goes by without the BLM announcing that it intends to round up most of the members of yet another wild herd and put them behind bars forever.  After weeks and months of this, we have to ask:  why the rush to sweep America's free-roaming mustangs from their designated homelands?

The BLM's language belies their true intent.  They no longer talk about "gathers," but are now bluntly describing their missions with a word that reveals how they really view what they're doing to wild horses:  "removals."  As if these horses are a form of vermin that must be eradicated because they pose a threat, or don't belong.

BLM has gotten pretty good at smooth-talking the rationales behind the forced removals of the wild horses, never admitting that cattle interests, or mineral interests, or gas interests, or industrial interests are the true forces behind the dizzying efforts to create vast wild horse-free zones where herds have roamed for decades, if not for centuries.  Instead, they talk about the lack of suitable habitat, water sources, and forage, making it seem that they are doing the wild horses a favor by wrenching them from their families and from the only homes they have ever known. Read more at www.examiner.com

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After seeing this video, with Dave Cattoor talking about killing and hiding any horses that are injured during the “gather,” this article is somewhat anticlimactic.

Still, I wanted to include it to demonstrate how, even though the author surely knew what Cattoor had said, it’s not included here, as the article - as with most articles in our “major” news sources these days - goes for “balance” instead of the ugly truth.

If our major news papers/networks were privy to an argument between God and Satin I’m quite sure they would do their best to make it balanced, so as not to show any favoritism to good over evil. Taking a stand these is SO un-PC after all. Plus, the unvarnished Truth is rather out of favor these days, with fence-straddling being the most sought after goal.

Nevertheless, there are a few good quotes from people like Simone Netherlands and Deniz Bolbol here, as well as that oft quoted, ridiculous misstatement from Bob Abbey about our wanting to do away with ANY management of the horses. There are quotes from the ever gabby Dave Cattoor as well.

In my humble opinion, after what Cattoor said in the video, he might want to keep his mouth shut.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Horse Advocates Pull for Underdog in Roundups

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

More than 1,200 wild horses have been captured during the current roundup.

By JESSE McKINLEY

Published: September 5, 2010

OUTSIDE RAVENDALE, Calif. — It is horse versus helicopter here in the high desert.

The New York Times

The current roundup in northeastern California and neighboring Nevada has been going on for a month.

On one side are nearly 40,000 horses spread over 10 states, whose presence on the range is a last vestige of the Old West. On the other is a group of crusty cowboys whose chosen method of roundup involves rotors more than wrangling, using high-tech helicopters to drive galloping mustangs into low-tech traps.

“When they get in here, they know something’s going on,” said Dave Cattoor, 68, a straight-talking roundup expert who has been herding horses since he was 12. “The chips are down.”

Over the last month, Mr. Cattoor and his feral quarry have been doing battle under the dry, horizon-to-horizon skies of northeastern California and a neighboring Nevada county, with humans the inevitable victor.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Dave Cattoor says the current method of rounding up wild horses is “the best we can do.”

More than 1,200 horses have been captured during the current roundup, much to the chagrin of people like Simone Netherlands, an animal rights advocate who says that the roundups — part of a nationwide push to take some 12,000 horses off public lands — are cruel, expensive and unnecessary.

“They’re running at full speed for miles and miles for hours, with babies, little babies, and they don’t let up on them,” Ms. Netherlands said. “They’re stressing them out to the max.”

The Bureau of Land Management, which is overseeing the roundup, disputes that, saying that the roundups are humane and that it must reduce the wild horse population to more sustainable levels, both for their health and for that of the other animals that live in this harsh terrain.

“Some advocate groups would like us to leave the horses out there and let nature take its course,” said Bob Abbey, director of the bureau. “We don’t believe that’s a sound option.”

The debate over roundups dates back decades, to the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, a federal law that protected what was then a faltering wild horse population and made it illegal for cowboys like Mr. Cattoor to round up horses on their own for sport or profit.

“A cowboy really wasn’t a cowboy if you didn’t rope a wild horse,” Mr. Cattoor said. “But they stopped that. They stopped the maintenance, which costs nothing, and turned it into a multimillion-dollar deal. It’s crazy.”

Questions about the roundups have intensified in recent years as costs have mounted, both in dollars and in dead horses. Seven horses have died in the current operation, and last winter, a roundup in Nevada resulted in over 100 horse deaths, prompting more than 50 members of Congress to ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to look for independent analysis of the bureau’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. Late last month, the bureau did just that, asking the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a technical review of the program.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Animal advocates like Denise Constantinide think the roundups are cruel, expensive and unnecessary.

Horses that are captured are offered for adoption, but with demand for horses low and the cost of feed high, the government often ends up quartering them on large private ranches, primarily in Kansas and Oklahoma. In 2009, about 70 percent of the entire program’s $40.6 million budget was spent holding 34,500 horses and burros, a system that the Government Accountability Office has concluded will “overwhelm the program” if not controlled.

“They are a symbol of the American West,” said Nathaniel Messer, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Missouri and a former member of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Committee. “But do we need 35,000 symbols of the American West?”

For critics like Deniz Bolbol, the pattern of roundup, removal and stockpiling is an example of the bureau’s catering to private interests on public lands, namely by favoring livestock ranchers — who pay the government for the right to graze and who can sell their animals — over wild horses, which cannot be sold for slaughter.

“We remove wild horses from the public lands so private livestock can graze, and then we ship the wild horses to private ranchers in the Midwest where we stockpile them and pay private ranchers,” said Ms. Bolbol, a spokeswoman for the group In Defense of Animals, which has sued to stop the roundups. “This is what you call a racket.”

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The aim of the roundups is to reduce the horse population to more sustainable levels.

And while Mr. Cattoor calls Ms. Bolbol and other protesters “fanatics,” he does not think the government’s reliance on big, periodic roundups makes much sense either, saying the bureau needs more steady maintenance of the wild herds, which can double in size every four years.

Perhaps the only other thing the two sides can agree on is that the horses — whose estimated populations range from about 120 in New Mexico to more than 17,000 in Nevada — are magnificent. Art DiGrazia, the operations chief for one of the bureau’s wild horse and burro offices in California, said that some of the mustangs on the range were descended from Army cavalry horses, which were bred for size, speed and strength and left here or given to ranchers.

“They have the intelligence and endurance to work out in this country,” said Mr. DiGrazia, a bearded New Jersey native who speaks in a hoarse whisper. “They’ll know before you know that there’s something out there going on.”

The method of capture is simple: horses are located from helicopters, which have been used in roundups since the mid-1970s, and pushed toward the trap site, essentially a funnel shaped by two netted walls that lead into a temporary corral. Once the herd runs into the funnel, Mr. Cattoor lets loose a so-called Judas horse, which is trained to lead the rest into the trap, where — uncombed, unshod and often stomping and biting — they slowly settle into their new lives as kept animals.

All of which is more humane than the old days, said Mr. Cattoor, who recalls cowboys using rope and brawn to bring in a herd, often injuring horses and horsemen alike.

“You have to really put the pound on them,” he said. “You’d have to get them sore footed and tired, and there’s a lot of problems with getting them really tired. Today, at this point, this is the best we can do.”

One recent morning, Mr. Cattoor and his team conducted several successful runs — 10 horses in one, a handful in another — before a small herd of four horses, their black manes and wild tails flying, came running full-tilt across the desert. The helicopter was close on their heels, whipping up curlicues of dust in the horses’ wake.

They were headed straight for the trap, when suddenly the herd broke, with three horses escaping across a field, while a single stallion — the leader — galloped in another direction. The pilot, perhaps 50 feet up, chose to follow the larger group, but horse sense had its way; the three headed into a patch of trees, where helicopters cannot pursue. The stallion, meanwhile, disappeared up a ridge and back into the wild.

Mr. Cattoor watched it all, standing near his Judas horse with a resigned smile, as roundup opponents watched happily from a public viewing station several hundred feet away.

“These wild horse advocates love it when the horse beats the helicopter,” Mr. Cattoor said. “And they do sometimes win.”

A version of this article appeared in print on September 6, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition. Read more at www.nytimes.com

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