And they say there is no Horse Saint!

California winery owners and Madeleine Pickens came through in time to save 174 wild mustangs headed for the slaughter house.

Wild Mustangs are a mixed lot of wild horses that have no ownership!

These horses were subject to being acquired by slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada . Before being put up for auction they were roaming free on the open range where they and their ancestors had survived for perhaps a century, yet the BLM did not consider them a protected species and were allowing slaughter houses to acquire them for meat. Today with the various breeds and mixes of wild horses the BLM does not consider any horse to be protected, but all are considered fair game for slaughter.

Stephanie Hoefener of the Lancaster, Calif.-based Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased 172 horses for $31,415. The other two horses were acquired by private individuals for their personal use, she said

Excited that so many people came together to save the horses Hoefener said. "This is amazing, and we all feel joyful."

The horses were rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last month with helicopters that scared many to death; this was near the Nevada-Utah line. The horses in the roundup were then turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture for disposal, with the operative word being disposal. Slaughter houses were provided a list of the horses and were welcomed to present their bids.

Agriculture department officials acknowledge the stray horses could have wound up at slaughterhouses because they did not have the federal protections afforded to wild-roaming horses, (even though they were ‘wild roaming horses’). In analyzing their statement, I feel like my head just did a 180 degree turn. It makes about as much sense as Snow White marrying Dopey.

The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover , which is how most horses became wild!

Many were set free by the Union army after the Civil War and another grouping were set free after WW1, now the mix is known as Wild Mustangs!

With the no child left behind act, a failure, we can fully understand the new government hiring practice!

Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers, said the purchase of the horses at the Fallon auction was made possible by the financial backing of Ellie Phipps Price, owner of Sand Hill Durell Vineyards in Sonoma , Calif. Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, also contributed financially to the rescue.

Starr said high bidders of such horses usually are representatives of slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada . The meat of the horses is processed for sale in Europe and Asia , where it fetches as much as $25 a pound, she added.

"We showed the BLM and the Nevada Department of Agriculture that we will not let them throw our wild horses away like yesterday's news," Starr said. "They are important to every American and hold high value as part of our country's history." This author adds their heritage beauty, grace and intelligence must be preserved and many are more intelligent that government workers.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said her agency didn't consider the 174 horses as federally protected mustangs because they came from a valley with more than 200 landowners. But her argument lacked intellectual balance where the heritage of these animals is considered.

The truth; The BLM has launched an effort to remove thousands of wild horses from the range across the West, saying the roundups are necessary because the mustang population is growing so rapidly that the animals are running out of food and damaging the range. How do you damage a range?

NOTE: BLM open ranges are used for cattle grazing, and there are currently more than 2,000,000 cattle grazing on BLM land in the Nevada Utah area, this is shared with some 30,000 wild horses!

The real truth is; Activists have sued over the roundups, contending the agency is removing the mustangs to make room for more than 2,000,000 head of cattle currently grazing on BLM land, and other interests such as the BP’s gas pipeline under construction.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."; - Mahatma Gandhi; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi [October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948] What more needs to be said?

The US government is determined to exterminate the mustang simply because they are in the way of the cattle barons, just as the sheep herders of a century ago.

We as a nation must take a stand to save our own heritage; the wild horse is a beautiful and graceful animal that must be preserved not exterminated!