BLM Runs SoCal Wild Horses to Extinction

In a letter to BLM Ramona DeLorme, Kathleen Hayden of Coyote Canyon Caballos d'Anza writes:

Dear Ramona,

Please distribute the following communiqué and attached letter from Mike Pool to the Wild Horse Advisory Committee.

Dear Members of the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Committee,

We, Coyote Canyon Caballos d'Anza Inc. have provided volumes of documentation to enable BLM to redefine and designate the native ranges of the Coyote Canyon Herd Area that was under-inventoried in 1971. It was defective then as it is now. By operation of law, management plans may be revised to correct this deficiency and make restitution.

We would remind the Committee of the previously provided and numerous preservation avenues within the National Historic Preservation Act Sec 106 and distinct population segments of the Endangered Species Act that support critical habitat designation.

The Coyote Canyon Wild Horse Herd is extinct now in the wild. We have possession of, and BLM retains title to, the 4 remaining stallions. Only through our efforts have this herd been saved for restoration.

It is necessary and imperative to re establish a Coyote Canyon herd to the Native American historic ranges of Beauty Mt (currently BLM)

We rely on BLM's offer of cooperation, assistance and partnership to manage this herd.

We have been informed that BLM instructed the Committee not to make a recommendation and believe that the Committee exists for this purpose.

Your positive action and response would be most appreciated.

Thank you,

Kathleen Hayden

PO Box 236

Santa Ysabel, Ca.

Coyote Canyon Caballos d' Anza

Southern Californians -We Need Your Help Reintroducing Wild Horses Back Into SoCal

Please forward to interested parties who would be interested in serving on a committee for the Coyote Canyon Heritage Herd Area (permanent sanctuary) and make calls and visits to local congressional/ Board of Supervisors.

Need chair persons and committees.

Passage of ROAM by the House was a huge step in the right direction and was supported by Congressmen Billbray and Issa. Hunter must be convinced now to take steps to establish the Beauty Mt permanent herd area for our Heritage herd, a distinct population segment for which habitat is mandated. Those are the operable key legal words under the Endangered Species Act that gives our elected officials the foundation to proceed.

Intermediate, and immediate options to be considered

Need Volunteers for a committee to meet with

1. the Orange County Scout Managers of Lost Valley. Either pasture lease or project partnership Lost Valley has Coyote Canyon wild horse documented free roaming history and good pasture but not fenced.

2. Mataguay Scout Reservation , either pasture lease or project partnership

The 600 acres at Mataguay is also close enough for easy management. mostly fenced( project manager David.Hodges@scouting.org)

3. Vista Irrigation District for Barrel Springs pasture includes intersection at Hyw S2 and S22. Lease should be minimal, fence repairs needed, can get grant.

Previously VID managed the Barrel Springs pasture for cattle. Since the last burn the pasture is in real good shape and close enough to manage with supplemental hay in the winter. I attended a VID Board Meeting several months ago and the board mentioned this as a possibility. Need committee for follow up. Contact David.Hodges@scouting.org, Board Chair Paul Dorey.

4. San Diego Board of Supervisors ...request Board to make Declaration of Coyote Canyon Heritage Herd. Would probably help to have a committee member rep for each district. Petitions have been submitted for this purpose.

5. Congressionals Hunter, Issa, and Bilbray to proceed with Beauty Mt. I am assured by BLM last week that this is doable.

Please distribute to all contacts to see who is willing to take a committee chair for CCCDA and organize a committee for each of the objectives as outlined.

Kathleen Hayden

CCCDA@Znet.com

In a letter to Congressman Darrell Issa, Kathleen Hayden of Coyote Canyon Caballos d'Anza writes:

"Dear Congressman Issa,

I have visited your Vista Office and sent many letters regarding this issue and have not received any response from you . I hope to hear from you now regarding these issues that are near and dear to me and our multiple user groups.
More wilderness means less access for all of us to our pioneering heritage of old ranches, mines, homesteads and to the ranges of our free roaming Coyote Canyon Heritage Herd of wild horses.

Despite the news release BLM continues to acquire private property in this area from "not so willing sellers", and certainly not for multiple use either. The last management plan for this area was fatally flawed for failure to protect historic cultural values and activities, in addition to removing Congressionally protected free roaming wild horses and burros. The next plan will circumvent even more. Do you remember the petition to rescind the Desert Protection Act? All predictions were accurate and we continue to suffer the consequences.

The Beauty Mt area, as well as Coyote Canyon, was once the historic range of our free roaming Heritage Herd and should be designated as permanent wild horse habitat. See attached history, please.
Since both Riverside and San Diego County Boards of Supervisors adopted RS 2477 resolutions please be reminded that more wilderness conflicts with pre existing historical access including Ca. historic Riding and Hiking Trail ( CRHT) aka Cienaga Truck Trail. Wilderness Designations result in route degradation and would inhibit multiple use campgrounds/horsecamps along the trail as provided in the original 1945 Ca. legislations.
I respectfully await your reply
Kathleen Hayden
POB 236
Santa Ysabel Ca. 92070
Coyote Canyon Caballos d' Anza, manager"

Just Say "No" to Rep. Darrell Issa's Proposal

"Issa proposes 21,000 acres of wilderness" (North County Times, 7/11/09)
"Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, is proposing to build on the foundation of recent wilderness additions in Riverside County and protect more than 21,000 acres of chaparral, canyons and forest next door in northern San Diego County from development and vehicles ... Both areas are directly across the county line from the new Beauty Mountain Wilderness and newly expanded Agua Tibia Wilderness in Riverside County east of Temecula."

RELATED: "Wilderness areas" (BLM-California)
Includes recently-designated Agua Tibia and Beauty Mountain wilderness areas.


Please contact the following Congressmen and let them know that more wilderness means less access for all of us to our pioneering heritage of old ranches, mines, homesteads and historic range of our free roaming Coyote Canyon Heritage Herd.

Despite the news article BLM continues to acquire private property in this area from "not so willing sellers", and certainly not for multiple use either. The last management plan for this area was fatally flawed for failure to protect historic cultural values and activities in addition to removing Congressionally protected free roaming wild horses and burros. The next plan will circumvent even more. Please remind Congressman Issa that the Beauty Mt area, as well as Coyote Canyon, was once the historic range of our free roaming Heritage Herd and should be designated as permanant wild horse habitat.
Since both Riverside and San Diego County Boards of Supervisors adopted RS 2477 resolutions please be reminded that more wilderness conflicts with pre existing historical access including Ca. historic Riding and Hiking Trail ( CRHT) aka Cienaga Truck Trail. Wilderness Designations result in route degradation and would prohit new campgrounds/horsecamps along the trail as provided in the original 1945 Ca. legislations.


Contact Beauty Mountain Mail
and cc Congressman Issa local Chief of Staff Phil Paule
or Congressman Issa directly.

(Address:Washington D.C. Office 211 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 phone: 202-225-3906 fax: 202-225-3303)

Also cc Congressman Brian Bilbray staff Mitch Murray
And cc Congressman Duncan D. Hunter staff Michael Harrison

Thanks,
Kathleen Hayden

BLM has Mismanaged Coyote Canyon Wild Horses into Extinction

A letter written to the BLM Romona Delorme:

"June 9, 2009

Dear Ms. Delorme,

Please submit the enclosed comments into the official record and to the Wild Horse Advisory Committee for immediate action.

For re submission, I have enclosed my 2004 comments regarding the Coyote Canyon wild horse removal and pertinent documents.

Five years is far too long for BLM and the Advisory Committee to ignore this culturally historic distinct population segment of free roaming horses mis managed into extinction in the wild.

USFS and DOI have set higher priorities for other public land uses despite the negative impacts those decisions are making on all herds.

The Coyote Canyon Herd is a microcosm of the wild equid problem and solution.

Numerous mandated cultural historic and wildlife preservation laws and processes were circumvented in the facilitation/application of management plans that removed the Coyote Canyon free roaming wild horses (and Clark Mt Mojave burros). These plans are fatally flawed. The federally mandated herd area was grossly underestimated and misrepresented. The FREE ROAMING WHBA clearly mandated and intended permanent herd areas to be designated as areas of permanent critical habitat to sustain viable herds.

Real estate law is abundantly clear that pre existing contracts/ covenants/appurtenances attach to the land. The Free Roaming wild horse and burro mandates cannot be abrogated by transferring title to the land or through conflicting management plans. Our free roaming herds are held by the government in trust for the American people in perpetuity. They represent natural LOCAL cultural pioneering history.

The public has suffered a loss that, by law, can and must be restored to them.

Since Tom Pogacnik wrote the following note to Senator Morrow, more information has surfaced. Long time BLM and retired employees, and others, have stated that they personally knew that the Coyote Canyon herd ranged far and wide outside of the designated herd area on BLM in the early 70's. BLM currently controls multiple sections of land over which this herd historically ranged. A portion of which is a vacant allotment.

8-8-05, California Wild Horse and Burro Program Manager Tom Pogacnik wrote “When BLM began revisiting the Coyote Canyon horse situation, I also worked with the Solicitor's Office who said BLM erred in relinquishing control of the Coyote Canyon animals to State Parks. The Desert Protection Act pretty much gave control of the land and all resources to National Park Service."

OVER VIEW of Wild Horses in Coyote Canyon

Colonial Spanish horses were first introduced in the coastal regions of San Diego County by settlement of missions and ranches. Further inland, Cahuillan pictographs of mounted Spaniards at the north end of Coyote Canyon (La Puerta) indicate the early expedition of Pedro Feges in 1772 or Anza in 1774.

This band of Native Americans made their home in Coyote Canyon and surrounding mountains along the NE Corner of San Diego and bordering Riverside counties. Long before western settlement, a tributary of Coyote Canyon was named Horse Canyon after the residing herd. During the infamous 1851 Garra revolt and raid on Warner Ranch, the Cahuillas added more cattle and horses to their Coyote Canyon herd. According to author Lester Reed, at the turn of the century native wrangler Carlos Moreno referred to the canyon horses as “The Ranch Ramuda”. Bands of the herd ranged east and west as far as Beauty Mountain and into the surrounding mountain valleys. Indian ranching continued in the Canyon until the late 1970’s when California State Parks expanded the Anza Borrego Desert State Park . The Federal designated Coyote Canyon herd area was “zeroed out”. The herd removed by the park in 2003.

With the assistance of California Senator Bill Morrow and BLM, Coyote Canyon Caballos d’Anza rescued four of the wild stallions with the BLM promise that the herd could be re introduced pending habitat restoration. BLM Wild Horse and Burro Manager Tom Pogacnik proposed an agency and private partnership with us. In January 2009 rare wild Spanish Foundation mares were acquired to re establish, maintain and preserve a unique gene pool. Wildlife grants are available for financial assistance.

As the only Heritage Herd of Spanish Horses in San Diego County, and the last wild herd in Southern California, the Coyote Canyon horses represent a vanishing element of our local pioneering landscape. In 1971 Congress unanimously declared that “wild free roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West that enrich the lives of the American People” They were to be managed on their historic and native ranges. By operation of law they are wild life. (Supreme Court seminal case, Kleppe v. New Mexico)

The Coyote Canyon herd’s vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, and inspirational benefits should be maintained as our heritage/ inheritance for future generations as supported by other Heritage Acts. With the 1966 passage of the Nation Historic Preservation Act Congress declared that the spirit and direction of the Nation are founded upon, and reflected in, its historic heritage. “Knowing and Understanding our Past, Inspiration For Future Generations, and providing a sense of roots and identity define motives for historic preservation.” This includes Identification, documentation, acquisition, protection, management, rehabilitation, restoration, stabilization, maintenance and reconstruction, or any combination of the foregoing activities. Enforcement of this Act is Sec 106, was not utilized in the Coyote Canyon herd removal nor was the State Historic Preservation Office consulted.

The Coyote Canyon Herd was sequestered for more than two centuries from other wild horse herds. As a result they evolved into a distinct population segment of free roaming horses. This evolution meets the criteria of both state and federal statutes of endangered and threatened species. “Endangered” when its survival and reproduction in the wild are in immediate jeopardy from one or more causes, including loss of habitat, change in habitat, over exploitation, predation, competition, disease, or other factors; or “Rare” when either : Although not presently threatened with extinction, the species is existing in such small numbers throughout all or a significant portion of its range that it may become endangered if its environment worsens; or the species is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range and may be considered “threatened” as that term is used in the Federal Endangered Species Act.(ESA) The currant condition mandates emergency designation of native critical habitat or ACECs. The Coyote Canyon herd is now EXTINCT IN THE WILD.

The often used “feral argument” is moot.. BLM settled the native/feral argument stating "The issue of a wild horse as an invasive species is moot since the 1971 WHBA gave wild free-roaming horses "special" status based on their heritage of assisting man settle the "west”

Coyote Canyon Caballos d’Anza was organized to restore the herd to a redesignated herd area on BLM lands in the vacant allotment area of Beauty Mt. This issue was overlooked in the 1971 inventory of historic ranges resulting in a defective land management plan. This fatally flawed plan can be corrected through the NEPA process (National Environmental Protection Act) or ESA distinct population segment listing. A emergency exists to revise the Coyote Canyon herd area. This is necessary and imperative to the land planning process for the lands within the newly passed California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act.

The 1945 California Riding and Hiking Trail, California’s first legislated trail, lies within the allotment area and provides the public opportunity to experience this unique part of California history. Restoration of the Coyote Canyon horses and the Trail would maintain both historic icons NOW, and into the future.

On behalf of Coyote Canyon Caballos d' Anza I respectfully request that Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board and BLM should act on this now in good faith and make a supportive recommendations to DOI based on the above facts.

On behalf of our wild horses, thank you."

Kathleen Hayden

PO Box 236

Santa Ysabel, Ca 92070

CCCDA@znet.com

Wanted: BLM to act Responsibly

In a letter written to the county Supervisors Bill Horn, Dianne Jacob, Greg Cox, Pam Slater and Ron Roberts; Kathleen Hayden of Coyote Canyon Caballos d'Anza writes:

Honorable Supervisors

Excerpt from following article "The BLM is eyeing two types of pasture: one for 200 to 1,000 wild horses and one for 1,000 to 5,000 animals. Gorey said the agency would pay the landowner around $475 per horse per year."

"Wouldn't our county and others benefit from this federal income as well? Certainly there are lots of historic grazing lands in the public domain that are just waiting to burn.
BLM claims overpopulation of wild equids on rangelands without telling the whole story.... that federal herd areas have been diminished and zeroed out through fatally flawed defective land management plans that eliminate wild horses and burros from their native ranges. By operation of law, wild herds are required to have sufficient habitat where they are managed for healthy genetic viability.
To date the resulting situation is criminal. However it can be corrected and effectively managed by public participation at the local level with non profit organization partnerships with land owners. "Land owners" includes most, if not all, public agencies managing historic grazing lands and conservancies.
Restoration of our local Coyote Canyon Heritage herd is a microcosm of the bigger picture. Solutions begin locally and so does setting the example for the rest of the country to see. Please take the lead.
Yours very truly,

Kathleen Hayden





Wanted: Homes for old horses
Wildlife » The BLM is seeking bids because of overpopulation on rangeland.

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 05/13/2009 10:41:48 AM MDT


Older mustangs, being held at the Salt Lake Wild... (Paul Fraughton / The Salt Lake Tribune)

The federal government wants to find a couple of additional retirement homes for old mustangs.
The Bureau of Land Management is seeking bids to house up to 6,000 Western wild horses unlikely to be adopted because they are too old and because the agency needs to decrease the mustang population on rangeland, said spokesman Tom Gorey.
Although the BLM has 11 pasture refuges in Oklahoma, Kansas and South Dakota -- along with numerous short-term holding corrals, including three in Utah -- the agency is "maxed out," he said, with 30,000 mustangs in captivity.
The BLM is eyeing two types of pasture: one for 200 to 1,000 wild horses and one for 1,000 to 5,000 animals. Gorey said the agency would pay the landowner around $475 per horse per year.
The pasture plan has emerged since the BLM last year set aside an unpopular idea to euthanize horses instead of leaving them on the range. But critics have pounced on the latest proposal, too, arguing the high fertility rate in wild herds is a direct result of the BLM's disruption of natural behavior.
"This is a travesty," said Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in Lantry, S.D.
Sussman said her group has studied herd behavior and found that, when left to themselves, the horses don't multiply at the rate they do on public lands because the natural mare-to-stud ratio isn't disturbed.
Last year, it looked like the dilemma was solved when Madeleine Pickens, wife of natural-gas magnate T. Boone Pickens, said she would adopt 36,000 wild horses and put them on a million-acre sanctuary. That proposal stalled when she asked the BLM for a stipend that would go for the horse -- not the landowner, who might not use the money to care for the animal.
On Tuesday, Madeleine Pickens told The Salt Lake Tribune she wouldn't offer a bid to the BLM under its new proposal, but would continue to try to establish her own sanctuary.
"They just don't have any business sense," she said of the agency's wild-horse managers. "Any time you take an animal off its range you are responsible for it for the rest of its natural life."
Pickens said her refuge would be controlled by a nonprofit organization, and the land wouldn't pass down to her descendants. "This is a forever deal so those horses are taken care of."
Gorey said wild-horse herds double their population every four years. In 1971, the agency estimated there were 17,000 horses and 8,000 burros on the range. Now, there are more than 32,000 horses and about 3,800 burros. Gorey said the optimum free-roaming population is 26,000, given current range conditions.
Captured wild burros always are taken in by others, Gorey said, but horse adoptions are on the decline, leaving too many in what are supposed to be short-term holding pens. "Our goal, our ideal," he said, "is to put as many horses into private care as we take off the range. But we're not in that position."
Tammy Howell, a BLM wrangler at the Salt Lake Wild Horse & Burro Center in Herriman, said sorting out the pasture bids could take a year, because of environmental studies.
Right now, most of the horses in the Salt Lake Valley corrals are headed to the prison in Gunnison, where inmates gentle mustangs for private adoption.
Once the new pastures are open, Howell said, "we'd probably have some [mustangs] that would go there."
"I know there are people out there who believe we should just leave them out on the range," Howell added. "They would eat themselves out of house and home."
The wild horse and burro management budget is up $26.5 million from last year's $41 million, Gorey said, but it's still not enough.
Janet Tipton of the Intermountain Wild Horse & Burro Advisors Inc., a nonprofit volunteer organization in Tooele County that works with the BLM to gentle the animals, said keeping the wild horses on the range requires active management.
Arid conditions in the West force the horses to travel long distances for food and water. Some don't make it. "Starvation is a terrible way to die," Tipton said. "It takes forever and, to me, it's inhumane."
Moving aged horses to pastures is a good alternative, she said. "Give [them] a place where [they] know exactly where there's food and water all day. They graze in nice grass. They have shelter."

New Look for WHC

Had to change the template for the PETITION to fit properly in the margin. Please sign the petition!

Beauty Mountain - Great Place for Mustang Herd!

A letter and photographs sent to the San Diego County Supervisors:

Honorable Supervisors Bill Horn, Dianne Jacob, Greg Cox, Pam Slater and Ron Roberts

In regards to our previous request to support restoration of our local Coyote Canyon Heritage Herd and California Riding and Hiking Trail Camp, the attached pictures were taken of the BLM Beauty Mountain area. First picture is the California Riding and Hiking Trail. This countryside was historically open to the vast wanderings of the Coyote Canyon Herd. One can go nearly everywhere the herd went by following historic routes including the CRHT , PCT , and Anza National Trail. As you see this would be a great place for a CRHT campground/wild horse herd area and is all public accessable from both San Diego and Riverside County.

Thank you for your consideration to this urgent matter.

Kathleen Hayden

Coyote Canyon Caballos d'Anza Inc

CRHT BCHC Task Force leader