We’ll Do It, But We Don’t Have to Like It
The history of the Ochocos is sometimes embedded in the bark of Ponderosa Pines, and strung chest-high to an unsuspecting rider. When it was still legal for anyone to catch wild horses, traps were built at strategic locations throughout the Ochoco National Forest. The rusted remains of these wire traps were shrines to the cruelty our wild horse knew, conceivably even perpetrated with an unofficial nod from authorities, and the traps have continued to threaten wildlife and the public.
Too, on the Forest boundary, and on former homesteads within the Forest, barbed wire fences kept contested property lines starkly evident. The wire still on the ground, or growing out of tree trunks, is vintage early-twentieth-century, and is tougher than anything made today.
With permission from the Forest Service, we began to remove these relic hazards within the Wild Horse Territory. It often required bolt cutters to extricate wire from decades of enveloping tree growth, and it fought like a wolverine as we tried to tame it into rolls. The horse trap wire, a more unforgiving version of modern field fence, was of such tensile strength that the horizontal strands could not be bent; only negotiated with, until the verticals could be unwound. There was a tormented and vengeful spirit in all this wire, with the hair of elk and the wool of sheep still clinging to its razor-edged barbs.
But we prevailed. Hundreds of pounds of wire have been packed out of the Ochoco National Forest; much of it repurposed into harmless decorative forms that remind us that every shadow can give way to light.
The beasts of burden for this wire recovery project have, in large part, been the very wild horses who had likely tripped over the savage wire, perhaps suffering cuts and gouges like every other citizen of the Forest. Fargo, Duncan, and Otter were key players. Duncan and Otter, owned by Kate Beardsley of Mustangs to the Rescue, went on to illustrious careers on her packstring, anchors on the string that packs supplies to smokejumpers high in the Cascades. We hope to see stories from Kate’s mostly-Mustang packing adventures in this magazine. Fargo will also be very present here in HERDsentinel, prominently in our Kids section “Fargo’s Band”.
It must be addressed, however, that in the photo neither horse appears to be a gleeful participant. Ironically, this is one of the Ochoco horses’ endearing qualities. We prefer to call it “tenacity”. We have all known stubborn horses, especially those Shetlands which our parents thought would be perfect first horses. But mere pony antics pale shamefully when compared to the self-assurance and royalty-complex of the Ochoco Wild Horse. To resist is both futile and counter-productive. Instead, we have come to know that the wisdom and fortitude of the Ochoco Wild Horse are to be honored, and to be considered instructive.
Note: At least one entire wild horse trap, and miles of fence, still need to be removed from critical habitat of wild horses and countless other species. If you are interested in helping us rid the Forest of this persistent hazard, let us know!
