As wild horses proliferate, a controversial adoption program continues

Overpopulation of mustangs is a problem across the Columbia River Basin. A federal program addresses the issue by incentivizing adoptions

By Bill Bradshaw, Wallowa County Chieftain. June 29, 2021. It’s not the average horse that you’ll find at Dawn and Eddy Medley’s ranch in eastern Oregon’s Imnaha Canyon. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago many of the horses were running wild as mustangs throughout the West.

“I love doing this because they (the mustangs) have no choice,” says Dawn Medley, co-owner of Medley’s Mustangs. “They lost their families, and that’s what these horses are all about—family. I want to be able to connect them to a ‘family’ and to love them for as long as they live.”

Medley’s Mustangs is an operation just downriver from Imnaha (population about 160) that helps train and adopt out mustangs gathered from the overpopulated herds descended from once-domesticated horses brought to the New World by the Spanish. They’ve since reverted from their domesticated state to become feral animals—and their numbers are growing like crazy.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“This is a living symbol of the pioneer spirit of the West. But you also really have to look at it as overpopulation.” —Dawn Medley[/perfectpullquote]

“The herds can double in four to five years if not managed properly,” Medley says. “You could have 1,000-1,200 horses where they say you could only manage 150-250 horses. Horses eat (available forage) straight down to the ground, unlike cows, where they’ll leave some of the grass. Horses are pretty hard on the ground.”

Roaming largely on land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management, regular attempts are made to cull the herds and find owners and trainers to take them under the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The Medleys’ nearly 18-acre operation is one of those where they currently have a half-dozen or so horses.

“We originally started in September 2018,” Medley says. “I became a TIP (Trainer Incentive Program) trainer and we got our first (mustang) in October, so through the Bureau of Land Management, I’m basically a self-contractor. The BLM partners up with the Mustang Heritage Foundation and they help fund the program throughout the United States.”

Overpopulation, slaughter

It’s the rapid growth of the herds that makes for an issue involving the government, horse lovers and a number of watchdog groups.

Medley says at the Beatys Butte Herd Management Area near Lakeview, Oregon, the last gather was in 2015. The BLM gathered 100 horses, removed 50 and returned 25 mares using fertility control. Medley adopted one in 2015.

In another herd, 1,500 were gathered in 2015 and returned only 100—60 studs and 40 mares—to the range.

“Now, six years later, they’re gathering them again,” Medley says, though she’s unsure of the herd’s current numbers.

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“There are a lot of horse advocates out there for the wild mustangs, too, who say, ‘Hey, this is an American heritage, a living symbol of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.’ But you really have to look at it as overpopulation,” she says. “It’s just like with people. You have to manage it somehow or it’s just going to get out of control. I don’t want to say I believe in slaughter, but …”

Medley says she’s aware of three horse slaughterhouses in Canada and five in Mexico. The last three in the United States closed in 2007 under pressure from animal-rights groups.

But some wonder if that was the best solution.

“Even the loving horses that you’ve raised from birth, people will take quarter horses … and unfortunately, there’s a bad rap going on for the (BLM’s Adoption Incentive Program) right now,” says Medley.

Sounds good. Is it?

That “bad rap” Medley mentions stems from a wave of negative coverage from animal rights groups to major media, including a scathing New York Times report earlier this year that alleged the government pays $1,000 a horse to adopters, who turn around and sell “adoptees” to slaughterhouse brokers known as “kill buyers.”

“This is the government laundering horses,” the Times quoted Brieanah Schwartz, a lawyer for the advocacy group American Wild Horse Campaign. “They call it adoptions, knowing the horses are going to slaughter. But this way the BLM won’t get its fingerprints on it.”

The BLM denies the allegations.

In past decades the BLM has used helicopters to round up mustangs. But the agency has never been able to find enough people willing to adopt the untamed broncos it removes. “There are now more than 51,000 animals in holding, eating up so much of the program’s budget—about $60 million a year—that the bureau has little left to manage mustangs in the wild,” reported the Times.

Medley finds herself divided on the issue of slaughterhouses.

“I can’t say ‘yea’ and I can’t say ‘nay’ because of where my heartstrings are,” she says. “I have my Palomino here. He’s 20. What if he goes lame and gets hurt? Do I want to send him out to pasture? Can I keep him financially?

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“I mean, seriously, I’ve got another guy out here I took from the county, in Joseph, he’s a pasture pet. He came to me crippled after I did my evaluation and he’s a domestic-born Paint and, unfortunately, the person before me messed him up. I can’t do anything with him so he just eats my pasture and just looks pretty. Do I have money and time for that? No. But am I going to send him to an auction house? No, I can’t. That would probably, most likely for him mean slaughter, and it’s not fair to him, so my heartstrings say, no.

“Now, what other people do in their own time, that is not my concern. Everybody has a choice and if they choose to do that, then it’s their choice.”

Preparing for adoption

Under the BLM’s Adoption Incentive Program, the horses remain government property and an adopter signs a one-year contract to ensure they properly care for the horse. Adopters must show they have sufficient feed, water, pasture, a trailer and can pay veterinarian expenses.

Under the program, an adopter pays $25 for the recently captured mustang and in about two months receives $500 from the government to help cover costs of training. Medley says about two months prior to the conclusion of the contract the government gives another $500.

“It’s an incentive to get more people to adopt more mustangs that are completely wild,” she says. “The government would really like you to take that $500 and send that horse to a trainer rather than just spend it—put it toward the animal instead of toward your personal gain.”

She charges $125 for a horse that goes to an adopter.

“It may be the most expensive $125 you spend, but I’ve got three and I will never go back to domestic,” she says.

What about burros?

The Medleys stick with horses, they say, since true to their reputation, burros can be stubborn.

“I don’t really like them. I did one,” Medley says.

“You’re on ‘donkey time,’” says her husband Eddy says. “You do it when they want to do it.”

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The Medley’s ranch is about five miles downriver from Imnaha and the 18 acres have hardly a flat spot among them.

In the three years they’ve been training and taming mustangs, the Medleys seem to have found their calling.

“We have a motto: To get as many wild-to-mild mustangs out of the corrals and find loving adoptable homes,” says Medley.

She also finds it fulfilling “to watch something so majestic and ‘wild’ become your partner and become one with them.”

Columbia Insight is publishing this story as part of the AP StoryShare program, which allows newsrooms and publishing partners to republish each other’s stories and photos. Additional reporting by Chuck Thompson of Columbia Insight.