Damonte Ranch High students free wild horses from temporary corral

[NVMojo]

From the Reno Gazette Journal:

Some students at Damonte Ranch High School feared for the lives of wild horses roaming near their south Reno campus.

After all, the schools sports teams are called the “Mustangs.”

Other kids, possibly, just wanted to skip class.

Either way, dozens of Damonte students left campus during Friday morning classes, intent on freeing the horses corralled next to the school.

They succeeded. But they were wrong, according to state officials responsible for getting the horses into the corral.

The kids aren’t so sure.

“We opened the gate,” said Jessci Coughlin, a 15-year-old freshman. “Everybody freaked. They’re our mascot. They have no right to take (the horses) away.”

more...

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2005/01/21/90379.php

[saltpoint]

1. Bless the beasts and the children.

[brentspeak]

5. That was my thought seeing that headline n/t

[saltpoint]

8. Hi, brentspeak. I read that novel in a long ago time --

-- but it stays with me.

I think there was a film of it also...?

[cornermouse]

2. Especially since the government just started a new

policy of selling them for slaughter. Good kids.

[neweurope]

3. God help the horses and the kids. Good news, brave kids.

I'm still waiting for somebody telling me what Germans can do to help theses horses.


------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[confuddled]

4. Hurray for the kids!

Okay,so they may have gotten it a little wrong ...
Then again, maybe not. It's hard telling who to believe any more these days. In either case, you can't fault their good intentions, and I was glad to read that they weren't being prosecuted.
They were apparently acting on their knowledge of Conrad Burn's despicable plans for the nation's wild horses as eloquently summarized and contextualized by Chris Floyd in "Beastly Behavior" at:

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/12/17/120.html

(And, okay, so I may be a little in love with Chris Floyd. So what?)

[Igel]

6. Good job; one dead.

"Holmes, who was not at the corral when the students came, said he had to shoot a horse in front of the high school in December after the animal was hit by a car and injured."

Instead of, arguably, none dead:

" 'When the horses are rounded up, they will be taken to a state holding facility in Carson City, checked for disease and put up for adoption, Holmes said.

'None of these horses ever go to a sale yard or slaughter house,” Holmes said. “The state of Nevada has never done that.' "

[sandnsea]

7. Compare it to deer

That happens a couple times a year in that area. Just like cars hit deer in other areas. That's not a justification for slaughtering the horses. We're expanding the introduction of buffalo across the country, no reason not to move some of these horses to reserves. We haven't done everything possible to avoid killing the horses, we shouldn't even think of the idea.

[Igel]

10. They weren't going to slaughter the horses.

At least, we have their word that they weren't, and no evidence they were lying or misinformed.

The horses were in the suburbs because heavy snows forced them from their usual romping grounds. Suburbs + horses don't mix well.

[mordarlar]

11. The horses moved to the city areas that are very dangerous to them....

The city corraled them to keep them and the people safe until they could SAFELY move them to another area, or into adoptions. The kids misunderstood. But the misunderstanding has placed the animals back into the danger of population.

[TygrBright]

13. Uh-huh...

>>'None of these horses ever go to a sale yard or slaughter house,” Holmes said. “The state of Nevada has never done that.' <<

You should excuse the expression, but this is horse puckey. Nevada's state wildlife management bureaucracy was one hundred percent complicit in the hunting and slaughter of wild mustangs that very nearly wiped out the breed until the passage of a state law in the 1950s that prohibited the wholesale hunting and slaughter of horses on state land. Unfortunately, most of the herds occupied federal land.

The horses were hated by ranchers who wanted to graze cattle under cheap leases of federal lands, and hunted and exterminated like vermin until there were practically none left.

It took a citizen's campaign by a courageous woman, Velma Johnston (also known --initially derisively-- as "Wild Horse Annie") to stop the slaughter, which was not only wholesale but undertaken in the most vicious and inhumane manner. Legislation in 1959 protected the herds from the cruel hunting processes, but did nothing to protect them. It wasn't until 1971 that legislation finally passed protecting wild horses and burros.

The herds were left alone for awhile and began, slowly, to recover. They have not reached 19th-century population estimates, but they are again becoming numerous enough to impinge upon the exploitation of federal lands for cattle grazing. Naturally, this means that the ranchers interested in cheap grazing leases, and the land management bureaucracy that relies on that revenue, again regard them as a threat.

Under the friendly "supervision" of the Bush BLM, hunting has again begun, using loopholes in the earlier laws. A few herds are contained for showing tourists. The rest are quietly being exterminated again. These kids were probably aware of that, and assumed that the horses they freed were destined for the same fate that thousands of others have met since 2000.

But of course I implicitly trust any government spokesperson who tells me about how carefully and compassionately they are treating a wildlife resource that has no economic value and poses a threat to private and public revenues. Uh-huh. I do, really.

ironically,
Bright

[confuddled]

14. Thank you for your perspective

I know there's quite a bit of activism in the Reno area around this issue and was a bit skeptical about Holmes seemingly benevolent comments, particularly given Conrad Burn's despicable legislation(introduced by stealth into the 'urgent' intel bill) addressing the wild horse population. See my earlier post(#4)in this regard.

[Krupskaya]

15. Nice timing.

I'm reading "Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West" by Marguerite Henry to my six-year-old. (First time for him; it's about the 500th time I've read it.)

It's a first-person account of Annie's childhood and then her fight to save the mustangs. Great book.

[DRoseDARs]

9. These moron children should have been trampled...

The horses were corralled for their own protection because they had come down from the mountains into a subdivision. Why? Because they were looking for food since the snowstorms we had recently had made foraging very difficult. These horses would have been cared for and transfered somewhere safer for them. But no, these idiot children decide it's a good idea to endanger themselves, motorists, and the horses by releasing them. One of the horses is already dead; had to be put down because it was hit by a car after being released, others have had close calls because we've been shrouded in fog for the past several days limiting visibility. The horses weren't heading to the slaughter house. I hope these children face serious consequences for their actions.

And before anyone whines "The horses were here first" like freshman Richard Obregon from the article, horses were brought to this hemisphere by the Europeans. Technically, Humans were here first.

[mordarlar]

12. The children's intentions were not done maliciously. Sad misunderstanding.

We have all made errors. I approve of the actions of the officials in letting it go without criminal action.

[PaulaFarrell]

16. Technically, horses evolved in North America first

and then migrated elsewhere. They were present here until about 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct, no one is sure why - but isn't that about the time people first came to N. America? Strange coincidence.