Heber Wild Horses - Heber Wild Horses

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 21

1/12/2023

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.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 20

1/12/2023

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.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 19

1/3/2023

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.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 18

1/2/2023

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.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 17

1/2/2023

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.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 16

12/21/2022

March 2007 Open House/Public Meetings

The Forest Service estimated there were 25-30 people including public lands ranchers and Heber herd advocates in attendance during the March 12, 2007 meeting. What was intended by the Forest Service to be an open house format with one on one interaction with the public turned into a sit down public meeting. Fourteen comments/issues and questions were recorded during the meeting. The questions and concerns covered various things such as what will be done with the horses that are removed, how will they be managed, will the Territory be fenced, and the Territory is too small. Other concerns and questions regarded costs to grazing permittees and concern over permittees losing their grazing pastures that are on the Territory.

The March 22, 2007 meeting drew a larger crowd of 50-55 people including public lands ranchers and Heber herd advocates. The Forest Service began by establishing the rules for the meeting procedures, a brief description of the process of NEPA and the background of the development of the Territory plan. Kendell Hughes recorded comments/issues and questions that had not been brought up during the previous meeting or were offered in a different context. Among them were concerns over the fencing between the Forest and the White Mountain Apache Reservation, the need for a balance between horse needs and that of livestock and wildlife, and the timeline for the completion of the NEPA process.

One of the Heber wild horse herd advocates gave his account of the second meeting in an article in a newspaper that is no longer in publication. He and his wife passed information to our group after they moved from the area. Here is part of what he said:

“The ink on the judge’s signature was hardly dry when Kate Klein, District Ranger on the Black Mesa District of the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, advised folks at a March 22nd Open House in Heber/Overgarrd, AZ, that she disavowed the plea agreement governing the wild free roaming horses currently on the Apache Sitgreaves Forest.” He said the Forest Service rejected the law and resorted to a regulation of the Forest Service which they claimed overruled the law. District Ranger Klein maintained her opinion that the horses were “feral” and not wild. Her opinion was without evidence. Klein had a history of wanting the free-roaming horses of the Sitgreaves removed from the forest and the Heber Wild Horse Territory dissolved.

Excerpt from Part 6 of our Chronicles:
On June 21, 1993 District Ranger Klein sent a memo to Forest Supervisor John Bedell with the subject line “Territory Withdrawal Recommendation”. In the memo Klein mentions the 1991 report and how it said the Heber Wild Horse Territory should “not be recognized at all”. Klein’s final sentence of this short memo was: “I recommend it [Heber Wild Horse Territory] be removed from the records as a territory and that the animals be removed by the State Livestock Sanitary Board.”

One of our current members of the Heber Wild Horses Freedom Preservation Alliance (HWHFPA), Robin Crawford also attended both meetings in March of 2007. She said at times things got a little intense between pro and anti wild horse attendees. She heard an eyebrow raising admission by one of the cowboys to the brand inspector who literally slid down in her seat from the embarrassment of having the disclosure made in a public meeting.

Another pro Heber herd advocate said she was completely disgusted with the way the meeting was handled. She said her comments as well as those of other pro Heber herd attendees were ignored. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the Court’s decision in the case were both disregarded as well. She said mismanagement of the meeting by the Forest Service only created more animosity between the pro-horse people and those against (cattle growers).

We have all the names of the people we referred to. For their privacy we elected not to use them.

A Heber wild mare looks curiously towards the camera. This photo was taken in 2007.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 15

12/21/2022

In 2007 a public notice was released from the Forest Service announcing a “series” of Open House meetings.

The Forest Service knew what was going to be expected from them regarding NEPA compliance and public input for the Heber Wild Horse Territory management plan. They wasted no time initiating the required steps in their attempt to eliminate the Heber herd through managing them to extinction. In fact, the first of the two meetings was scheduled for March 12, 2007, a day BEFORE the Court Stipulated Settlement Agreement was signed.

Excerpt from the Forest Service Public Notice regarding their “Open House”.
“A series of two open houses will be held. The first will be Monday, March 12, 2007 from 3 pm to 6 pm. The second open house will be Thursday, March 22, 2007 from 4 pm to 7 pm. The purpose of these open houses is to provide opportunity for interested persons to exchange information, identify issues to be addressed, or express concerns with feral horse management.”

The mindset of the Forest Service was made clear in the notice when they referred to the horses as “feral”. Court documents indicate the Forest Service could provide NO evidence that the horses were indeed “feral” and not free-roaming wild horses protected under the Act. Yet the very government agency tasked by law with the protection of the Heber wild horse herd continued to perpetuate their myth that the horses were “feral” possibly in an attempt to set the stage for their capture and removal.

Photos of Heber wild horses taken in 2007.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 14

12/21/2022

March 13, 2007:
The Court issued an order adopting a Stipulated Settlement Agreement between the Plaintiffs (Heber herd advocates) and the Defendants (Forest Service).

It was considered by many wild horse advocates to be a historic settlement and one of the most significant victories to preserve wild horses in the United States.

Included in the agreement were the following:

USFS agreed the Heber Wild Horse Territory still exists and has not been dissolved.

The USFS agreed that the wild horses are by law an integral part and component of the natural system of the public lands,‭ ‬as expressed by Congress in the Act.

The USFS will work with the public in the development of a written Heber Wild Horse Territory Management Strategy.

USFS will refrain from any gathering or removing of horses within the Heber Wild Horse Territory and the Black Mesa and Lakeside Ranger Districts until the USFS completes,‭ ‬with public involvement, an analysis and appropriate environmental document that develops the written Heber Wild Horse Territory Management Strategy.

USFS will involve the public in scoping for the analysis.

Beautiful Heber band stallion "Hairdo" 2017

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 13

12/21/2022

January 2007 Heber Wild Horse Massacre

Six Heber wild horses were found mortally shot in the first week of January 2007 near Pinedale, AZ. Another was seen limping with a wound in his side and was believed to have been the seventh victim of the same shooting spree. In August of 2006 a young wild stallion had been found fatally shot in the Pinedale area. All the victims were unbranded, free-roaming horses in the Sitgreaves National Forest therefore they were under the protection of the December 2005 preliminary injunction.

The Animal Defense Council (ADC); Animal Welfare Institute (AWI); International Society for the Protection of Mustangs & Burros (ISPMB); Humane Society of the United States (HSUS); Tucson horse advocates; residents across Arizona; and In Defense of Animals joined together to offer the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person or persons responsible for the shooting deaths of at least 7 wild horses in the Sitgreaves. To date no arrests have been made.

From the Chronicles of the Heber Wild Horse Herd Part 12

12/13/2022

The Forest Supervisor was adamant...the horses can’t stay in the forest.

Less than a week after the 2005 Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) was issued to prevent the roundup of Heber wild horses the Forest Service was doubling down on their intent to remove the horses from the Sitgreaves.

Forest ecosystems staff officer Deb Bumpus made the following statement:
“That [TRO] will keep us from both awarding the contract and proceeding with any gathering activities until we’ve had time to sit down and negotiate how to work through this.”

Forest Supervisor Eileen Zieroth said, “We don’t consider them wild horses; they’re stray horses.” She went on to say, “If some or all of the horses end up being sold, the best way to keep them from being slaughtered is for horse lovers to purchase them and give them good homes. There’s always the potential that if they are sold at a public auction they could be bought for slaughter, but if groups are real concerned they can come and buy the horses. We have to recoup our costs. We can’t give away horses. We can’t put them up for adoption.”