Because time is running out and their truth needs to be told.
“If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.”
― Albert Einstein
Photo of Old Buck who was a magnificent Heber wild stallion and protector of his band.
Why the Heber wild horse herd "Chronicles"?
Because time is running out and their truth needs to be told. “If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.” ― Albert Einstein Photo of Old Buck who was a magnificent Heber wild stallion and protector of his band.
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“hundreds of thousands of horses running all over the place” in Nevada. Really? Oh, Mark, shame on you. You’re either woefully ignorant or willfully deceptive.
In June of 2015 the public lands ranchers in the Heber/Overgaard area had a rally to gather the troops in opposition to the Heber wild horse herd. Their keynote speaker was Arizona Department of Agriculture Director Mark Killian. So here we have yet another government agency that has ignored the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and come out against the Heber wild horses, YOURS and MINE! The following is a transcript from the video of AZ Dept of AG Director Mark Killian speaking at the Public Lands Rancher Rally and posted on Endangered Ranchers of Arizona June 12, 2015 “And the thing that’s most important for the ranchers right now is that the horse numbers go up they’re going to cut the number of cattle off these allotments. And if this continues on, pretty soon there won’t be any ranchers left on these allotments. It’ll be just like it is in Nevada where they’ve got hundreds of thousands of horses running all over the place creating all kinds of problems. And so we’re working with the Forest Service to see if we can’t find a solution. But ultimately in my opinion we’re going to have to go back into court and prove to the court that these horses are not original.... At that point the person who took the video ran out of memory for her camera but posted that Killian had finished that sentence by saying: “we have to go back to court to prove that these horses are feral horses, not original wild horses.” There is no support for any argument that in order to prove the horses are protected as wild free-roaming, one must show a direct line to particular horses from any particular time. Heber wild horses with leg barring. Photo was taken in July 2017. Federal agencies, state agencies, and local public lands ranchers spoke out against wild horses and in many instances specifically Arizona’s Heber herd.
As time went on it became more and more apparent who the enemies of the Heber wild horses were. The public lands ranchers appeared to be a driving force pushing for the removal and even the slaughter of the wild horses living in the Sitgreaves National Forest. Heber Wild Horses: Legendary Or Problematic? KNAU News Talk - Arizona Public Radio | By Aaron Granillo Published June 5, 2015 Excerpt: In his own lifetime – 57-years – Gibson’s seen the wild horse population increase exponentially. He pays the Forest Service about $1,600 a month for grazing rights, and feels he’s not getting his money’s worth. Gibson believes there’s one solution to protect livelihood and land. “So in my opinion, the best thing to with these up here would be remove every one of them. [Heber wild horses] Whether they go to adoption, or, you know, I hate to say it, euthanized or to a slaughter plant," Gibson says. "I mean that sounds kind of harsh, but something has to be done with them.” This interview gives the impression that Mr. Gibson was the ranch and grazing lease owner at the time. In fact he was not. He was the ranch manager. Therefore it doesn’t add up that "he" paid for the grazing rights and "he" wasn’t getting “his money’s worth”. As for the population increase, based on numbers by the Forest Service the herd size has remained relatively stable using their estimates from 2005 to the present. Overpopulation of the Heber herd has never been proven. https://www.knau.org/.../heber-wild-horses-legendary-or... Arizona Game and Fish Department Director Larry Voyles had recommended killing healthy wild horses. He didn’t specify the Heber herd, just wild horses in general. Arizona agency lobbies for wild horse euthanasia Posted on Sep 3, 2010 by Tuesday's Horse Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD), is recommending the Bureau of Land Management euthanize healthy excess wild horses and burros as a management alternative. In a letter addressed to BLM director Bob Abbey, AZGFD Director Larry Voyles states, “In order to have a truly open dialogue and consideration for all viable management alternatives, the BLM should reconsider the inclusion of two options, which have been identified as “off the table” for the development of the new draft strategy: 1) euthanasia of healthy excess animals, and 2) their sale without limitation.” https://tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com/.../arizona-agency.../ Larry Voyles announced his retirement from the AZGFD in 2017. Getting the word out
Over the next weeks and months in the summer and fall of 2014 we used this Facebook page to inform people what the Forest Service had in store for the Heber wild horse herd. We asked that people please follow and share our page and they did! In the fall of 2014 we got the attention of the media. We met up in the forest with reporter Brenna Goth and photographer Tom Tingle of the Arizona Republic. “A herd in limbo” was published on Dec 11, 2014. It was the first of numerous media outlets over the following years to cover in print, online, in television broadcasts, and or radio programs the plight of the Hebers. The main objective of the Heber Wild Horses Facebook page is to save the herd. By that we mean all of them should be left free and free-roaming in the Sitgreaves and they should be declared a “Study Herd” for the next 7-10 years as requested by the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN 1980. According to the latest Schedule Of Proposed Actions (SOPA) the Heber Wild Horse Territory management plan final decision and implementation is expected in Oct 2023. If that happens the culls will begin along with some form of birth control such as PZP or GonaCon and there will soon no longer be any wild horses to see or photograph. The horses up in the Show Low area will all be removed. The horses that are so often enjoyed and photographed from Clay Springs west to Forest Service Rd 50 will be gone. There will only be a few token overmanaged horses in a small area of the Black Mesa Ranger District. We are so grateful for each and every one of you who over the years helped to spread the word by following our page and sharing our posts. We are also thankful for all those who have come from near and far to visit and photograph the Hebers and share their photographs and stories of the Heber wild horses on their own Facebook pages and other social media outlets. It truly does take a village. This black stallion is the original Diamond of the Heber herd. In the summer of 2014 things took a bizarre turn.
One of the Heber wild horse herd advocates spent much of her vacation time camping in the forest. Over the years she had always been on good terms with the Black Mesa Forest Service employees. They were very friendly and helpful. But in the early summer of 2014, before we knew the Forest Service had restarted work on the Heber Wild Horse Territory management plan, she noticed a change. We didn’t know it at the time but the Forest Service had requested the services of the Enterprise Program to help them with the management plan. That created a lot more activity than what had previously been seen in the forest. Things got strange during the 4th of July weekend when she went up to camp. Saturday, July 5th a little after 10:00 PM there was a loud knock on the side of her living quarters trailer. She was unable to see a vehicle when she looked out the window but she saw a man in a Forest Service uniform. He demanded she open the door. He said she had overstayed the 14 day limit. But the fact was that it was only her second night there. She asked him to show her his ID but he just kept pointing to the name badge on his shirt. She was unable to read it because the whole time he was shining his bright flashlight in her eyes. She offered to show him her ID but he told her it wasn’t necessary because he knew exactly who she was. The conversation went on but was going nowhere. So she finally closed and locked her door and went to sleep. The next evening she left her trailer and went to meet up with friends for dinner in Overgaard. Upon her return to her campsite at about 6:30 pm she saw both locks to the living quarters of her trailer had been drilled out. In fear of what might happen next she hooked up her trailer and drove to Bison Ranch. She called the Sheriff’s Dept and they advised her to go to the Forest Service office when they opened. She spent the night in her trailer in the Bison Ranch parking lot. Monday morning, July 7 she went to the Black Mesa Forest Service office in Overgaard. She told the woman at the desk what had happened. She included the description of the man who went to her trailer the night of July 5th. At that point a Forest Service employee who was in his office and overheard the conversation came out. He told her it was their law enforcement officer and told her his name. He asked her into his office to discuss the situation. He told her that since it involved law enforcement she would need to report the incident to the Patrol Captain in Springerville. When she left the FS office she called the Patrol Captain and left a message. He returned her call later that day at which time she gave him a detailed report over the phone. He asked her what she would like to see happen. She told him that at the very least the officer who went to her trailer at 10:00 pm for no valid reason should have a psych evaluation because his behavior was not normal. The Captain told her to file a report. That day she sent in a very detailed report by email to the Captain. She never heard back. In 2018 another advocate for the Heber Wild Horses Freedom Preservation Alliance sent in a FOIA request asking for any information on incidents that were reported in July 2014 involving Forest Service employees including law enforcement where a citizen(s) felt threatened or intimidated or falsely accused by such FS employees. The following response was received: “Staff members searched in every place where a reasonably knowledgeable professional could expect to find records pertaining to your request. We did not locate any records responsive to your request for the Black Mesa Ranger District for the month of July 2014. For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA. .See 5 U.S.C . 552(c) (2006 & Supp. IV 2010). This response is limited to those records that are subject to the requirements of the FOIA. This is a standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist.” Not caving in to intimidation, still standing up for what's right by speaking out for the Heber wild horse herd. The Calm Before the Storm
It sounds cliché but it really was...the calm before the storm. Shortly after the 2008 Scoping Summary was released things got quiet. Time passed with no new chatter about the Heber Wild Horse Territory management plan or roundups. The ones of us who loved the horses allowed ourselves to enjoy them and their rightful home while the danger that had been stalking them was temporarily pushed to the back of our minds. The Calm After pondering opening a Facebook page for the Heber Wild Horses for several years the leap to actually do so was finally made on June 29, 2014. Up until then there were no Facebook pages for this relatively unknown herd. It was time for them to have their page. As with so many pages on Facebook about various things it was predominantly going to be a page to bring about awareness of something that was dear to our hearts. A place to share photos and stories of the wild horses we loved. But always in the back of our minds was the thought that it would be a place to rally supporters “just in case” the Forest Service decided to once again go after the herd. We heard it was a lack of funding that put the management plan project “ON HOLD”. We knew it was possible that the funding situation could change at any time. The Storm It wasn’t long after the Heber Wild Horses Facebook page was opened that we discovered in an April 2014 Arizona Game and Fish Dept. Lands Update that the storm that had once loomed on the horizon was already moving in. The Lands Update stated, “The A-S [Apache-Sitgreaves] had restarted work on the Heber Wild Horse Territory Environmental Impact Statement after a five year delay.” One of the Heber wild ones. Photo taken in 2014. After the 2005 Temporary Restraining Order was issued preventing the Forest Service from rounding up and removing the Heber herd one of the failed arguments by those wanting the horses removed was that they were feral trespass horses from the White Mountain Apache Reservation and therefore not wild. The anti Heber herd people believed that claim would make the horses fair game for capture and removal. They had nothing to back up their claim that the horses were trespass and not descendants of horses brought in by the early explorers and settlers. However, there is plenty of historical data to support that the horses descended from horses introduced into the area as early as the 16th century. But that’s really a moot point as Patricia Haight aka the Heber Wild Horse Annie succinctly stated the following comment in 2008.
“However, the Wild Horse and Burro Act makes no distinction between an unbranded, free-roaming, unclaimed horse of Spanish descent or of any other descent as a wild horse under the law so the Spanish lineage, while clearly there in some Apache Sitgreaves wild horses, is irrelevant to their status under the Act. The unbranded, unclaimed, free-roaming horses in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forests are wild horses protected under the Act. The Spanish history of some or all of them certainly adds to the richness of the culture and history of the area but has no bearing on their protected status under the Act.” Patricia Haight, Ph.D. Old Buck’s son from a bay mare. He was 3 years old at the time this photo was taken in 2017. Continuing their efforts to destroy the Heber herd while complying with the 2007 Court order to follow NEPA the USDA Forest Service released their 2008 Scoping Summary which among other things contained the following: “Wild horse” is a legal status provided to unmarked and unclaimed horses and their progeny that were considered wild and free roaming at the time of the passage of the Wild Horses and Burros Protective Act of 1971 (see 36 CFR 222.20 (b)(13)). Patricia Haight’s aka “Wild Horse Annie of the Heber herd” subsequent response to that statement: “This is a procedural interpretation of range management in the manual of the Department of Agriculture for the United States Forest Service, part of the code of federal regulations. This is NOT the Wild Horse and Burro Act, PUBLIC LAW 92-19, as passed by Congress. The Act does not at any point limit the protection of wild horse classification on Forest Service lands to those unbranded free-roaming unclaimed horses on federal lands in 1971 or to their progeny. The Act clearly describes a protected wild horse as any unclaimed, unbranded, free-roaming horse on BLM or US Forest Service land. 36 CFR 222.20 (b)(13) simply is a policy entered into the procedures section of range, management for the Forest Service and, like the USDA policy set to allow private horse slaughter houses to hire USDA inspectors, in direct violation of the will of the Congress this policy, 36 CFR 222.20 (b)(13), can and should be challenged.” A 2017 Photo of a Heber wild horse family band. |
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