Wild Lands Wild Horses - Pilot Episode - Twin Peaks

horses built this country if you look at the history horses started here they belong here they fit well here a wild horse represents freedom a wild horse is everything we wish we could be they're beautiful they're strong wild and free there's nothing like watching them sail across the landscape the spirit that exudes out of their whole persona the family units the landscape they live in the united states as a nation and the citizens owe it to these horses to provide them with adequate care on and off the range there are more than 30 000 untamed horses and their numbers are increasing thankfully there are people doing everything in their power to keep the wild west alive the bureau of land management is now offering to pay you one thousand dollars to adopt a wild horse wild horse advocates are calling for a formal investigation what horses what shooting a lot of money is being spent yet there are no solutions to this very real problem in the west because as often happens on western lands they're caught up in the crossfire there's just so many stories so many different agendas who do we believe who are we supposed to believe my name is jamie baldanza and i'm a wild horse photographer and advocate and i'm just a jersey girl who fell in love with the wild west my name is deblie carson and i'm actually from minnesota but my passion is wild horse photography we're here as two wild horse enthusiasts to show you another side of the story which side all sides through beauty and conversation we believe we can help promote awareness and provoke a much needed change in the wild horse world even though our biggest priority is keeping wild horses wild we understand there is a much needed balance between all stakeholders so come with debley carson and i two wild horse photographers looking to make a difference as we take you through the wild west and show you the world of our beautiful american icon the wild horse long before your highways your planes trains and cars i carried you for miles and i gave you my all and together we created an empire to share so now i need you to remember i was there just watch me fly [Music] where i was born so wild and free the way i need to be a fight for freedom yes it's time to run with everyone told us not to do twin peaks and the reason why they said you're not gonna find horses the weather is always bad and driving through could be really difficult at home i drive a 350 dually pickup so this is a big walk [Music] but deb and i was just like screw it we're gonna do it anyway we're gonna do twin peaks and we'll either fail miserably or we'll get some really beautiful stuff on her that doesn't really have any documenting we knew that it wasn't a very well followed hma and it would be a challenge and we really were up to that challenge we really wanted to experience an area that we hadn't been in didn't know anything about and see what we could find and the hma has very limited access so you can't just drive wherever you want to go the terrain is really tough it's really big and to go in there blind is really humbling because dev and i are used to herds on much smaller acreage and habituated to humans so when we went to twin peaks the horses would bolt the seconds they'd see us we had no idea if we were going to find horses it's like hunting for gold in this unmined landscape and there they are so the topography here in twin peaks is so diverse from the south side to the north but as you go south from the south you have this kind of wide landscape of sagebrush and as you move toward the north you're going to find where you start to see a few jupiters start to develop you're gonna start to see like more mountainous areas more peaks and then as you get all the way north you end up in like almost solid juniper areas and so the elevation as it changes it changes through twin peaks this hma is a really really unique area it's at the southern end of the modoc plateau it is the western end of the great basin we have both the the uh sierras and then the southern end of the cascade mountains that all kind of converge here and create a very unique climate and a very unique landscape actually the whole this whole part of the edge of the great basin which was created by volcanoes leaves behind these flipping rocks and it's covered with sagebrush and flowers and filled with lizards and it's just really a cool place we really fell in love with it twin peaks is located in northern california and shares a boundary with nevada twin peaks is the largest herd management area in california and consists of 758 128 acres that are shared among livestock wild horses burrows pronghorn coyotes mule deer sage grouse and tons more however there could be anywhere from 1500 to 3500 wild horses and burrows in this hma depending on who you ask the predominant land uses within the hma are livestock grazing wilderness recreation and general recreation including hunting twin peaks is different from other hmas in the western united states in that it's been divided into five large areas they call home ranges observation north home range twin peaks north home range skedaddle home range dry valley rim home range and observation south home range in addition twin peaks has nine different areas for livestock usage as you can see they overlap with the home ranges the hma isn't all public land though approximately 133 000 acres inside this hma are private well historically the horses on the twin peaks hma trace their roots to ranching families in this area an important part of their history is the fact that local ranchers were raising horses on the range for remounts for the cavalry the horses and twin peaks were absolutely stunning i'd never actually really seen horses like them they were hearty they were colorful some of them had this beautiful metallic sheen on them and they were just so curious so the fact that they would run away from us when they saw us actually made me happy it made my film crew very upset but it made me happy because it meant they're still pretty wild i felt that they were distinctly different on the southern tier versus the northern part there are five home ranges in the peaks which i believe truly has created some genetic traits that are specific to certain areas i can't say that with scientific certainty but definitely we saw some different types of horses from north to south since twin peaks is an hma that deb and i have never been to we decided to actually fly over and really learn the land we did it so that we would understand the hma better from the topography above because we'd spent an entire week getting to know twin peaks from the ground we also went up with jessica to find out where the horses were so it would make it easier for us to get the crew into the horses and then the other reason we went up was to learn how herd counts are done and to experience that so i've done seven aerial counts out here in a high wing plane since 2010 to track the population growth so the method that i use is called a transect strip method and the purpose that i use that one for is because i can randomly select the transect lines and then when we fly those lines we use those as a density observation and so what we do is we survey both sides we use the scientifically proven double observer method we have four independent observers in our aircraft and each one has an independent probability of detecting the group we also use transect spacing based on the topography out there it's also based on how many what type of vegetation is out there so the actual it's a grid that's flown across the landscape and it's not necessarily a north south east west grid it might be based upon more on our topography out there most of the lines that we fly these transect lines that we fly out here in twin peaks are about a mile apart we look for horses and burros on both sides of the aircraft it usually takes eight hours of flying five days a week so the blm and jessica have very different counting methods but after going up there and seeing it it was really hard because jessica doesn't exactly take the whole route but she does it over one day and then the blm does it over several days so it could be double counting and how can you actually do a herd count when you're going 120 miles an hour at 500 feet above the ground and you're looking at little specks like this and you have to discern whether it's a burrow a horse or a cow or a sheep or a prong horn or anything that might live on four legs out there so you have one study saying there's 1500 horses and burs and the other saying there's 3 500. i mean who are you to believe who is right we need a more efficient way to determine this number anyone ideas suggestions so deb and i really liked skedaddle area it's the south side of twin peaks we've seen horses there before so when the crew arrived we really wanted to take them there to get some really beautiful footage we saw horses on the south side of the road so we decided to take lunch and just kind of hang out with them and as we're staring at them deb like points me on the back and is like look behind you and we look behind us and there must have been like what 50 horses just kind of all up on this giant mountain just absolutely stunning so then the challenge was not scaring them um we did end up scaring them so we weren't successful at that moment but we hiked in and found a bachelor band that took off but we followed them for a little ways and we're photographing them even though they kind of kept moving away but they were putting on a show for us we saw some of the most beautiful bands and we saw you know a stallion protecting his family from another stallion as the beautiful buckskin stallion stood watching us another stallion was watching him watch how in the back left hand corner you see another band stallion leave his family and run out of frame the buckskin takes notice and turns his attention to him we are now the lesser threat to his family the bay stallion quickly trots back into frame to challenge the buckskin stallion the buckskin meets him out halfway they both sniff posture and spar to size each other up then the buckskin fiercely starts to protect his family the only way he knows how by fighting after a short moment the buckskin then moves his band to try and get them away from the base stallion but that doesn't stop him from following close behind the base stallion is still too close for the buckskin's liking so he gives him one last warning with a final fight of rearing and biting [Music] and then they all run off when they were done i had to walk away from jamie because i didn't want to see ever see me crying because it's just so profound when you get to witness that so i was glassing below and we saw this beautiful cremello band which we nicknamed the blondie band kind of hanging around a dry area so we were downwind so we had a better opportunity of approaching them so we cut across the valley got herself in a position where the horses couldn't smell us but they could see us and then that's when that kind of agree he's a gray stallion just put on this really cool show brought his band up to us and the stallion kept snorting at us because he want he couldn't tell what we were because we were downwind so he would circle us and then come back and circle again and his band would follow him and it was just really beautiful to watch what was really cool about this band is that even though it was a large band you could really see the family structure you see free roaming horses in america are a part of the equid species that are harem forming and exhibit long-term stability of social groups the main social unit referred to as a band or harem consists of one or more adult males one or more adult females young animals of both sexes not yet having left the band in the fulls of that following year the primary social roles of a band stallion are the following reproducing offspring tending to his harem which includes defending them from potential predators and invading stallions recruiting more harem members and herding or snaking his harem when approached by intruders or other bands the primary social roles of a dominant mayor are the following hurting and defending the harem in the absence of the banned stallion and taking over the group activity such as relocating for forage or water finding wild horses can be a total crapshoot just because a horse was in one area the day before doesn't mean it's gonna be there the day after you can go in there with a plan but you're gonna just have to throw it out because you're at the mercy of wildlife landscape and weather we're getting hails on so you just have to go in there with an open mind and get what you get so we went back to skedaddle and instead of making everyone go up the hill i volunteered to climb a really tough high hill um but i went up there i walked out about a quarter of a mile with binoculars and i didn't see anything and so you know sometimes you win sometimes you lose i came back down and we just decided to call it so once again we went back to skedaddle we went up blind and it was taking a chance and it paid off because we did see them but it was really really difficult to get to them because typically when deb and i like to go photograph wild horses we like them to know that we are there we like them to smell us and be comfortable with us before we start filming them but with these horses we had to take a totally different approach where we had to stalk them like prey we had to find cover we had to be downwind if we wanted to get anywhere close to them so we found a watering hole and we just sat there and the horses started to come one by one a band came to the bordering hall and we had smiles ear to ear because it was just so cool to see we saw three folds playing we saw our blondie band again we saw two mules and everyone was just having fun at the water hole and i think deb started crying it was just really emotional because you don't typically get to see that especially at twin peaks brewers are typically more solitary than horses um they're pretty independent they're also quite a bit more curious and unafraid it seems of humans oh my god deb really wanted to see a burrow and we finally got to see one and it was a little uh jack just kind of by himself and but his ears were like broken and we had no idea why but he was the cutest little thing and it's so perfect because it was the sun was coming down he was in amongst the yellow wild flowers and he was just peacefully just munching away and he was really cute bonus we also saw tons of baby burrows you haven't lived until you've seen a baby burrow you just want to squeeze them and love them until their little head pops off but then you kind of remember they're in the wild and you can't go anywhere near them also every once in a while you'll see a burrow with a band of horses which will then result in a mule going up to dry lake was a bit of a challenge we tried to drive up and we got 25 yards off the road and we got a little muddy and that's when i realized this isn't going to happen even in for low so we backed out of the area and hiked up a different way trying to make it easier and i'm not sure that we did but we got to the top weren't seeing any horses when jamie's like hey are those ears behind those rocks over there and i'm like where and you look and here comes this horse running at us i'm like yeah those are ears and then pretty soon out of the trees all these horses start pouring out and they that's what they do in the northern part of the hma they hide under the trees in the heat of the day and then we followed them a little bit further and there i find jamie with this audience of pronghorn staring at her so it was really cool because we got to see pronghorn interacting with horses completely showing that yes all species can cohabitate in all kinds of environments there was like 16 little females and one male a buck i guess and they were just totally into us and we got some great footage of them so dev and i really like dry lake we found ourselves going back there a lot and we finally were able to drive up and hike up and when we went up there we saw this lone bachelor stallion and he was beautiful deb called him clint black and you could tell she had a connection with him and we just kept watching him and watching him and he was kept sticking around and letting us film him and we were so into filming him that all of a sudden our camera guy bobby goes hey guys look that way and we all turn and there's these two bachelors and they're just like they're like and we're like and uh we all scared each other and we all ran away i hear debunked because everyone ran away and we lost our loan bachelor we lost these other two bachelors and once again we felt defeated but they came back and they gave us quite a show and they just kept running back and forth and challenging each other and then they would run right by us and then they'd run away and run by run away and run by the sun was going down and these bachelors were you know they were puffing their chest and they were prancing and it was just such a beautiful moment i bet it was like five minutes it seemed like forever and deb cried again we went north to dodge reservoir and right away we saw two bands and they were absolutely stunning and it was a joy because these horses were obviously more habituated instead of walking a hundred yards or five miles we only had to walk like 25 yards because basically they're right there on the road and we spent some time with them but it wasn't until later when deb was looking at her pictures we realized one of the stallions had these piercing blue eyes and so we kind of became obsessed with finding this band again at the same time we were going to do some drone shots of the hma but it wasn't working so as we were on the side of the road trying to figure out the drone whenever a camera ops had to go tinkle and i hear her run up behind me she's like i was peeing and this bay horse was staring at me and were like oh my god is this the horse with the blue eyes so we all went back and we thought it was one horse and then we saw another one pop out and then another one and then another one and we saw this beautiful band kind of emerge from the trees and what i really liked about this band is that the lead mare did not take her eye off us for a second and the stallion was just super chill so like two hours later we get this amazing footage of the blue-eyed stallion and his harem and jamie goes away to eat lunch and that's when i like come on we're gonna stay with these guys because this stallion's gonna take this stallion on and they did and jamie missed all that because she was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich how's my hair look [Music] so when we first started this project it was also more of a like an expose on all the different things that the blm is doing badly or could improve upon this baby was probably born today and we don't know if it's going to move this project is taking a different approach because we have to work together and lay aside our differences to really accomplish what needs to be accomplished for our wild lands and our wild horses we want to talk to the stakeholders involved the ranchers the blm the advocates the scientists whoever has an opinion on wild horses we want to talk to we spend so much time trying to figure out what someone else has done wrong instead of figuring out what someone is doing to make it right and with our social media outlets today it's really easy to sit in a chair behind your computer and judge what's going on versus stepping out into the landscape yourself and experiencing it so we would constantly ask questions like what is the aml how many wild horses are actually out there are they native are they non-native and literally we would get different answers to every single question and i'm just like i'm tired of not knowing where to find the correct answer let's put it like that because everyone i talk to i get a different response from government will tell me one thing advocates will tell me another and then there are all the people in between so yeah seeking truth and finding what truth is is the hardest part about this whole project my name is jessica johnston um i work in the state of california as an environmental scientist and planner there's a lot of evidence that maybe horses didn't leave north america there's a lot of fossil evidence there's still evidence like science is continually growing a lot of that is not taken into consideration so i see the wild horses as a native species and if you spend time out here you see how they really fit into the ecosystem they really play a strong role here and so when you're looking at that designation it's really important because then they could be potentially protected by endangered species act there's a lot of different reasons why they wouldn't want that designation i'm laura snell i'm the modot county livestock and natural resources advisor working for the university of california so i conduct research on forest service lands as well as blm and private lands and help them with their wild horse program there was a species of equine that was in north america but if you look at the pictures and the bones that they've recovered this is a completely different species of animal than what currently exists a much smaller three-toed species that was more you know like an anteater than like our traditional horse we have today the horses that are now here were brought by the spanish and then later you know used for farming agriculture cavalry but horses were not native to north america so i have one scientist telling us wild horses are native and another telling me that they're not who should we believe what do you believe my name is amanda gearhart i'm a wild horse and burro specialist for the bureau of land management i am responsible for 14 hmas in the northern california district which is approximately 1.5 million acres my name is jeff fontana i'm a public affairs officer for the bureau of land management in northern california our district covers the northern third of california we manage about a million and a half acres in far northwest nevada the great basin extending all the way over to the pacific ocean the redwoods on the coast on the north our district starts at the oregon border and continues down into the northern san francisco bay area so a big diverse territory different people have different needs from this land this is public land i completely understand that charge i understand that and appreciate it in in more than one way i think that we need to balance that out it seems to be tilted and driven mainly by the livestock industry especially in this area and into nevada so you know part of the recommendation i would have just to start out with is let's how do we balance that let's take a step back let's look at our resource management plans what is the science telling us about the land that we are managing i always want to tell everybody like we can do better than this this is what i just found we reach out to a variety of groups whenever we're making land management decisions oftentimes some of our best ideas come from the public this particular field office is often thought of as fairly progressive and right now we're in the process of developing water out here working with some of our non-profit partners and our private landowners to develop water out here for everybody wildlife livestock and wild horses and burros collaboration is absolutely needed it's needed with the you know scientists that are willing to step up and there's there's a handful of us not just scientists but the public there's so many people that have knowledge that could really contribute to that effort but you have to feel like you're being heard what deb and i really wanted to do was find someone who was unbiased who could really talk about how the land can thrive and basically the conclusion was the land could sustain all animals or wild animals cows horses sheep as long as it's managed properly and that's the key it doesn't have to be a range war on the cattle and the horses they can both live there and the land prosper and they can prosper it's just what we do and how we control the land you know it's never been the fault of the cow or the horse it's always been human error so we need to start getting on board and learning techniques so everyone can thrive my name is spencer smith i'm a rancher in northeastern california and then we also operate the jefferson center for holistic management assisting other farmers and ranchers develop management pans that yield regenerative outcomes i believe managed grazing can be situated to both horses as it is to cattle management is the big thing you know it's the amount of animals it's the timing of those animals that are used on the landscape because animals have a really important role to play in nutrient management and in reducing fine fuels maybe a better question and a question that isn't ever asked is what do we want these landscapes to be like we can't manage for health and prosperity if we don't define what health and prosperity is once we identify what our ecosystem goals are then we can start to manage for ecosystem function in a way that will respect the needs of everybody and all parties that are engaged with it we can destroy a landscape if we keep animals completely off of it we can equally destroy a landscape with you know everything from rabbits and chickens to sheep and goats to horses to you know wilder beast it doesn't matter what matters is that since we have taken that role of predator and we are now the ones that are keeping those animals bunched we need to be more deliberate with our moving so that we create those dynamic results on the soil surface that will allow the water to infiltrate well-managed horses can without a doubt be a part of a healthy rangeland and then the management of a healthy rangeland there's no no reason so long as the they're a well-managed population that they can't be a part of a healthy bio what i took away was that horses can coexist on a thriving landscape if it's managed properly our last wild horse and burro gather in the twin peaks hma was in 2010 we gathered and removed about 1600 wild horses from the herd management area that got us down to about just slightly over the high end of the appropriate management level so now the blm is considering the need to control populations again the borough of land management eagle lake field office is proposing to gather and remove excess wild horses and burrows from within and outside the twin peaks herd management area in order to achieve the established appropriate management level over the next 10 years my name is bill phillip and i started working with the blm up in primeval oregon in 1958 went from there to burns oregon worked for 20 years and it came down here and retired in 1995. running horses with a helicopter can be the best thing in the world or the worst thing this depends on the pilot you can totally abuse a set of horses with the helicopter by pushing too far too fast i understand why the blm would use helicopters to round up horses especially in twin peaks but personally i could never get behind it trap is the most dangerous place in my mind i mean if you get two or three stead horses in this trap same time they immediately go to fighting and they booger each other up and and if there's little cults in there they might get kind of trampled on so the last gather that they did in 2010 they did actually do fertility control any mares or jenny's that are released to the landscape typically have had fertility control applied this particular herd is a really large herd compared to some of the other herd management areas i think that any sort of fertility control program has to be multi-faceted and multi-pronged and have partners that help you out on that as well the most successful pzp stories come from herd management areas that typically have smaller numbers of animals that are more uniquely identifiable and that they're sort of geographically isolated my name is doug satika litchfield facility manager pretty much manage all the day-to-day corel operations anywhere from animal care to shipping to incoming new animals we're a quote temporary facility we ship horses all over the united states so they come here we prep them adopt out of our facility and then some of those horses probably go east coast wherever for adoptions when they come to adopt if they say i like horse number 8004 then that's how we id them without having to shave their freeze mark and figure out what number they are so we want to show you firsthand what it's like for a wild horse to go down the chute to get prepped come on let's go holding pens are scary but what i liked about litchfield was that it was big and the horses did have room and they did a good job of trying to make it a natural landscape for them we got to see a couple twin peak burrows that were up for adoption and they are so cute up close we have probably approximately 130 twin peaks boroughs and then there's more every day because they're falling so you guys will see but there's probably another 10 babies after we brought them in we need to get the 45 000 wild horses that are currently in the corrals adopted to loving homes it's gonna be really hard not to uh bring one home with me i think we can do it eventually hopefully over time we can do it but we're not gonna do it without everyone working together i think adoption is one of the least used tool in the toolbox that the blm has it needs to have the most money at this point in time dedicated to making sure all these horses get into homes that are forever homes and i believe that adoption is the key to managing our wild horses to a point where my goal is to have zero horses and pens and a long waiting list if you want american wild horse tip program is funded through blm but it's ran through mustang heritage foundation and they have qualified trainers to come take an animal from our facility take it home and they have 60 90 days to work with it and find that horse a home and then they receive a thousand dollars if they find it a good home my name is abigail curtis and i'm currently from standish in california which is near susanville i became a tip trainer for the mustang heritage foundation in the year 2015 and i've adopted 40 animals one person can make a big difference [Music] my name is ed fitzhenry my experience with wild horses and burros is as basically an assistant to abigail so i do the trailering i assist with training for their new home so that when they get out there they're amenable to being handled so finn is a twin peaks mustang and he was adopted and then before the year was up they returned him so i went to the litchfield corrals and i saw this big horse standing there and he seemed to be quite down i know that's a human emotion but he did seem to be quite lethargic and quite down so i asked about him and he said that he'd been returned so i said well we'd like to pursue adoption of him finn's attitude is basic laziness when you're out on the trail he is there's no sign of his being lazy he just wants to go uh but when you're working him in the arena or around the house here he kind of gets a little bit sin is really cheeky and playful he's very caring yesterday he had two little girls ride him and we just walk very very carefully we also got to meet cleo who is a twin peaks burrow and she just loves to be loved on she would give you kisses she just is adorable i just clear's just wonderful for me so an adopter wanted to adopt her and they did it didn't work out so the person took her back to the corrals and when i went there i just heard this yell she was way back in this crown there was just this braying it was clear it was a ring i was like oh my god it was clear and i just said oh no oh no then i yelled again claire whatever oh could hear it yeah cleo yeah yes so that was it they're borrowed they're going to pray it's an effect of life you don't get a dog and think it's not going to bark so that was it like it was kind of that was it she was going to come home and that's going to be my life so it's just going to be here accept it some things you can't change adoption stories are always my favorite because you think of a horse getting rounded up in the wild you think their life is over and it really does something to your heart but when you get to see that second chance and when people take the time to really give them that second chance it's it's amazing danny california there's just something about danny that tugs at your heartstrings she wasn't flashy she didn't have lots of color she was just beautiful chestnut mare with a story to tell and we wanted to tell it skydog saved her skydark sanctuary is based at four ranches three in california one in oregon but this being our main one we have nine thousand acres here that we use predominantly for the wilder horses to basically give them their freedom back and uh so they live pretty wild and free we basically rescue mustangs from at-risk situations across america so that could be neglect abuse starvation mexican rodeos as tripping horses we take special needs horses from the blm we've tried very much to take mustangs from all kinds of situations to educate and raise awareness for different situations that they can end up in skydog is magical you step on to this land and you're totally transformed you're amongst all these wild horses you know they might be a little bit gentled but they still have their wild spirit i get sent nowadays we get sent you know 20 emails a week or messages on facebook or whatever which is really difficult because most of them end with you know and if you can't take them they're going to be euthanized or sent to slaughter or stay in a really bad situation and it gets really hard but there are certain horses that just get me in the heart and it doesn't matter what i do if i close my eyes at night i can still see that horse or there's something that i just feel um they need to come here like this horse needs us and i think it's always been that and i have a very very strong sense that every horse here came here for a reason you know and that that it was right for them and right for us danny california is um she is such a special horse and it's really funny because i can't think of another horse that i had um such a visceral reaction to and i was i remember i was in my office down in malibu and i had my computer open and there was a kind of that they do a sort of a live feed there was a rescue at an auction and they showed a little bit of video footage and someone kind of stuck their phone inside a trailer and all i could see was actually a trembling dreadlock in maine and for some reason i turned to the person that was in the office with me and i said that's a mustang and she's coming to skydove she actually had turned her body horizontally in the trailer and there's three horses behind her all of them were drenched with sweat and she was trying to protect them and the guy that brought them to the auction dragged her out by her tail and she was standing there shaking and i heard the girl that was there say this is a branded mustang and i literally just messaged the rescue and said we'll take her. and um we went and picked her up that day and she came back to the ranch in malibu and um i could tell now that she was blind in one eye so she was incredibly nervous and jumpy and reactive and i just stood in her soul and unmatched her mane for like five hours that night and i just talked to her and tried to soothe her and she kind of stopped weaving and eventually just like took a giant deep breath and just kind of released a lot of stress and anxiety and i just started to cry because i don't know there was just something about like she suddenly believed she was safe and she had stopped shaking and it still to this day emotionally affects me to remember that and think of the connection that i made i guess that night with her and i don't know why i'm crying but she is just a really special horse to me and she kind of represented everything that you know we do in trying to bring a horse that has been in such a bad situation and has lost hope and you know just really has gotten used to abuse and kind of thinking that people are bad and they you know equal pain and and i just kind of wanted to tell her that you know a hand is never going to hurt her again danny california got her name it was kind of really really cool actually it's one of the coolest stories that i have about the naming of a horse because we put up on our website you know like a lot of people had donated for her to come to us and we said you know let's get some suggestions of names and we'll use one of the names that you suggest so people were sort of suggesting this and suggesting that and i had actually settled on one i think we called her cheyenne and i was like that's a perfect name and then someone said her name is danny california but not like her name should be or that's a good name it was just her name is danny california and i read it and i didn't understand the reference to begin with but literally 10 minutes after i read that the blm lady emailed me and said that she was from twin peaks california and she was our first california mustang and i thought isn't that funny that her name is danny california and she's from california and um so i don't know why i was like yeah okay her name is danny california if you're that sure we'll go with it and i then someone said i love that song and it was a red hot chili pepper song and i listened to the song and it was like she's a runner she's a stunner and there were words in there that kind of really fitted to her so i was like oh that's amazing you know it sounds like they're talking about her sanctuary life for dany now is really good i mean we used to have her in malibu and she wasn't an ideal horse to have there because of her kind of reactive tendencies and it was slightly nervous having people around her but here i think she really has found her place and we actually tried her in a couple of different places and she is very you know i feel like horses are always talking if you're listening you know and you notice their small cues and their subtleties and she's one that really can make her opinion heard and she'll tell you if she doesn't like the group of horses she's with or um i think she has led us to where she is now you know in a smaller herd where she's incredibly loved and sort of doted on by the by the boys she's wearing and she likes that dynamic but she also has a girlfriend that she's kind of best friends with so i think she ended up in an ideal place in a good amount of space for her given her disability and the other mayor's blind so she sort of ended up in a perfect spot where you know there aren't really any things that she can you know hurt herself on there's a big amount of space there's hell she can run on there woods she can stand in for shade and shelter and i think she she's back to kind of the life that she was born to really out on the range neither deb or i want to be a part of the drama we want to be a part of the solution we are encouraging discussion seeking all stories first-hand facts and knowledge because if we all can't come to an understanding about our wild horses who loses you me nope the wild horse it doesn't just take saving wild horses to actually save wild horses it takes conserving the land the water it takes having a conversation with all sides it takes working together to find solutions that maybe no one has even thought of before seeking truth and finding what truth is is the hardest part about this whole project i don't know that we will ever find out what the truth is unfortunately but i believe that we can make a difference by at least putting it out there for other people to decide i want to do what feels right and i want to stick to my gut and my gut says let's do this in a positive light make america fall in love and give the horses a fighting chance by showing stories their story i think the horses have always needed a voice i try to be the voice of science on their side and i think their stories definitely need to reach the public i think people need to understand what the challenges are out here and you know it's not always just about the pretty horses but how do we conserve this ecosystem we need to bring awareness to america so in 50 years our grandkids can experience what it's like out in the wild west and revel in that moment when a wild horse runs by taking your breath away mesmerized by the sheer power and beauty because if they're not here anymore we lost a direct link to our heritage our history and everything else that comes with it we are their voice we are also their solution deb and i invite you to stay strong for our wild horses to sing their praises tell their story remind each other how much they did for this country how they carried our ancestors from new jersey to california they fought our wars we plowed our fields carried our mail and now we must return the favor so our wild horses and burros will be here for the next generation [Music] you

Channel: Wild Lands Wild Horses

Views: 30,935

Rating: 4.95086 out of 5

Keywords: Jamie Baldanza, Deb Lee Carson, wild horses, mustangs, horses, public lands, skydog sanctuary, documentary, national park, california, twin peaks, docu-series, conservation, herd management area, pzp, advocates, stakeholders, roundups

Id: 5Lftvyrj4PY

Length: 50min 37sec (3037 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021