January Happy Tails Rescue

Horses on the move

With winter setting in during a drought year, horses are on the move looking for forage. They are quite good at locating feed, however as development continues to increase around the range, they sometimes find an easy meal along roadways and in residential yards and community landscaping. As wild horses, they will naturally choose the easiest forage to conserve energy. But that can lead to horse-human conflict, especially with motor vehicles. LRTC’s Technical Large Animal Rescue team, at the request of Wild Horse Connection Range Management, moved several bands of horses over the last month to safer parts of the range. 

Some of the moves involve setting up a corral baited with hay to enclose the horses, then loading them onto trailers for the move back to better range areas. Wild horses do not know what trailer loading is, so calm and firm energy by the team members is required to get them all safely on board.

Other moves involved moving horses on foot back to the correct side of range fencing due to gates being left open, and/or back to open range. The same calm energy is required to prevent them from spooking and taking off in other directions. These types of moves are included in the very first training that responders take.

Together, we can all keep horse/human conflicts to a minimum. Follow the law - don’t feed wild horses, close any range gate you open, and fence horses out of property if they are not wanted. And if you see an issue with horses on roadways where they are at risk, call the Wild Horse Hotline at 775-352-3944.

See the photos below for some of the rescued and relocated horses!