Wild Horses: Wealthy rescuer creates eco-sanctuary

WELLS --

At the end of America's most popular Western movies, the celluloid cowboy in the white hat always rides to the rescue.

Madeleine Pickens remembers watching John Wayne flicks with her father and rooting for the late Hollywood hero to save the day.

"I was always sure that I would meet John Wayne and that he would fall in love with me and we would live on the range," Pickens says. "I did better. I met Boone Pickens. And we're living happily ever after."

The Texas billionaire's wife wants an equally happy ending for the nation's last wild horses, too. And she wants to be the hero riding to their rescue.

She has purchased two ranches in Elko County, about 25 miles south of Wells, to build a "living museum" for mustangs, an eco-sanctuary where they can roam free.

Her Spruce Mountain and Warm Creek properties cover roughly 18,000 acres of private land and 570,000 acres of public land, including breathtaking desert valleys and one peak above 10,000 feet.

Pickens hopes to run at least 1,000 wild horses on the rugged public land, which came with grazing rights for the same number of cattle.

And she wants to let people come and view the horses, visiting an educational center that would teach children and adults about America's heritage. Visitors could sleep in tee-pees on the range and take covered-wagon rides along the routes that settled the West.

"My dream is starting to come true," says Pickens, three years into tangling with red tape and local ranchers. "I want it to come true for the American people, for everybody to see these incredible horses."

Pickens fears the mustangs will disappear without her help.

Preparing for a helicopter tour of her place, Pickens settles her rescued dachshund, Tommy, on her lap. Once airborne, she starts counting small bands of wild horses already running on the range.

"Not too low, I don't want to scare them," she tells the pilot.

The rumbling sound of the rotor sends the mustangs on their way, fleeing each time the helicopter passes high overhead.

Three horses run down from the pinyon pines while another half dozen pound across the valley floor. Silent puffs of dust lift toward the sky. Two more mustangs appear, then a dozen. Pickens spots nearly 50 during a 45-minute flight on public land the BLM says is overpopulated by several hundred horses.

"I don't see them," she says. "It's 10 percent of what they say."

She stares back out the helicopter window, watching flying manes and tails trace across the desert, chasing the next hill.

"There's something magical about the herds," Pickens says, lamenting that she didn't try to save the mustangs sooner. "Why did I wait so long?"

'LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE'

Pickens, 64, came to America in 1969, drawn partly by the cowboy and Indian culture of the early U.S. that she saw on the Big Screen.

Born in Iraq of a Lebanese mother and British father, she says that she had always dreamed of coming to America and seeing horses everywhere.

"When I arrived here, there weren't any and I was disappointed," she says.

For years, she didn't know horses were killed for meat.

During her first marriage, Pickens was a thoroughbred racehorse breeder with her husband, Allen Paulson, founder of Gulfstream Aerospace. The California couple owned major winners, including two-time Horse of the Year Cigar, who won 16 consecutive races.

"Whenever a horse would be hurt on the track, I would say, 'Where are they taking her or him?' " Pickens says. "And somebody would laugh and say, 'The glue factory.' And I thought, 'Oh, they're just being silly.' "

A Humane Society representative set her straight. It happened after Pickens had rescued 800 dogs and cats from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, airlifting the animals to safety in 2005.

Pickens says she was ashamed she hadn't known about the slaughter of American horses, including thousands of wild horses over the years.

"I was devastated," she recalls. "It was a life-changing experience."

By then, she was married to T. Boone Pickens, and they advocated the end of the U.S. horse slaughter industry, even testifying before Congress. The House outlawed the practice, but the bill never passed the Senate. Instead, lawmakers cut funding for U.S. government inspections, which eventually helped shutter the industry. Now there's a move in Washington to restore that money.

Stopping the slaughter of wild horses also kick-started the private portion of Pickens' sanctuary on her Warm Creek property.

A year ago, wild horse advocates pleaded with her to rescue 500 mustangs that were likely headed for slaughter in Mexico.

The wild horses were among 900 rounded up by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's sovereign reservation, northeast of Reno.

Those horses weren't protected by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and weren't managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Tribal Chairman Wayne Burke said the Paiutes' first concern was to get the horses off the reservation because they weren't native to the area and were destroying the range "almost like a wildfire."

"Some of them might be getting slaughtered," Burke said, adding he didn't question a horse dealer taking them to auction in Fallon.

Ranchers, horse dealers and so-called "killer buyers" frequent the auction houses, including one in Fallon.

Pickens remembered getting a frantic call around Christmas last year.

"I said, 'What am I going to do with them? I have no place to put them,' " Pickens remembers. "And I prayed. I said, 'Oh, God, tell me what to do. I don't want blood on my hands.' Then it occurred to me that I can put them out here at the Warm Creek. They would have a home."

A wild horse rescue group from California bought about half the captured Paiute horses on her behalf. The tribe then began dealing directly with the group, including donating captured foals.

Ole Olson, a 76-year-old horse trader in Elko, says he was present when some of the Paiute horses went up for auction. He says Pickens' buyer outbid everyone, paying $36,000 for 73 horses on one day he was there.

"I think they're crazy, that's what I think," Olson says of the mustang rescuers. "One of these days we're all going to have to eat horses."

Olson has a reputation as a "killer buyer," but he says he won't touch a horse with a BLM freeze brand because there's too much controversy.

"What the BLM needs to do is hold a public auction and let the do-gooders buy those horses and pay to feed them," he says. "And if the highest bidder is a slaughter buyer, then they ought to buy them."

Olson said he buys about 1,500 horses a year, including at auctions in Nevada and Montana. About half go to a feed lot in New Mexico, which ships them south of the border for slaughter.

The market price for horse meat has dropped from 70 cents to 12 cents a pound since the U.S. horse slaughterhouses closed, he says.

"They're hurting the horse market so bad," Olson says. "I like money and I like horses. They've been my living all my life."

SUPPORT FROM CITY

Though Pickens has faced plenty of opposition to her save-the-mustangs project, she has support from the city of Wells. At a crossroads of Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 93, the city and its more than 1,300 citizens could use the business.

She's already created a few jobs by putting in about $500,000 worth of improvements on her land, including fencing. Pickens says she paid at least several million dollars for the Spruce Ranch and likely less for the smaller Warm Creek, although she refuses to provide a figure: "It's way too much money for something that should never require this amount of money just to make an impact."

Her biggest opponents are ranchers and the Elko County Commission, which voted against the eco-sanctuary, although it can't block it.

Demar Dahl, commission chairman and a second-generation rancher, has long fought encroachment of wild horses on public land, including court cases he filed in the 1970s and 1980s.

His main objection to Pickens' project is that it will turn a working livestock ranch that contributed tax dollars to public coffers into an operation that will be supported in part by U.S. taxpayers.

"They have to take livestock off the range, and they end up changing the custom and culture of our counties when they do that," Dahl says. "Instead of a viable economic enterprise paying the taxpayers for use of that land, what Mrs. Pickens wants is for the taxpayers to pay her for running horses on there. It's just backwards."

Dahl says the best solution is for BLM to sell the excess wild horses it rounds up and to lift the prohibition against them going to slaughter. He's supporting a plan for the National Association of Counties to file a lawsuit against the BLM to force the agency to remove more mustangs and use its authority to dispose of the animals it can't adopt out.

"The idea that you can't destroy a horse because they're the symbol of the pioneering West flies in the face of reason," Dahl said.

If Pickens succeeds, more range could be set aside for sanctuaries.

Pickens has a grand vision for her nonprofit Saving America's Mustangs Foundation, which she launched for the project. She wants to eventually open a series of eco-sanctuaries for all unadoptable wild horses rounded up by the BLM. Currently, more than 11,000 mustangs are in short-term holding, at a cost of $2,500 per horse per year.

Pickens argues she can save taxpayers $2 million a year by taking in 1,000 wild horses now and as much as $30 million annually if she eventually provides sanctuary for up to 15,000 mustangs.

Under her proposal, the BLM would pay Pickens about $475 per horse per year, about the same as it pays for the 30,000 excess wild horses living out their lives in long-term pastures in the Midwest.

The eco-sanctuary herds would not reproduce since the males would be gelded, and mares might be vaccinated for birth control as well. Pickens also envisions starting a breeding program one day with select herds to preserve diversity among the wild horses.

ECO-SANCTUARIES

Approving Pickens' project would require a major shift in how the BLM manages the wild horse program. Initially, the agency rejected it.

Last January, BLM Director Bob Abbey turned down her first plan, saying it wouldn't save taxpayers money and that her land didn't include enough water and forage for the wild horses. He also said it would require environmental analysis, and that the BLM would have to change grazing allotments from cows to horses, a first for the agency.

Pickens reacted with anger, quoting Abbey as saying publicly just weeks earlier that her project "has merit and deserves serious consideration."

Then she went back to work. She pressured the BLM through members of Congress, who threatened to cut BLM's budget unless it worked to get the wild horse and burro program under control.

The tactic succeeded.

In March, the BLM announced it was seeking to form public-private partnerships to create eco-sanctuaries for wild horses.

One type would be on private land only and could be anywhere in the United States. The second type would be located on combined public and private lands around the wild horse herd management areas in the West -- a description that fit Pickens' project perfectly.

Pickens put in proposals for both types of eco-sanctuaries. The BLM asked for more detail, and she supplied it with specifics on a grazing plan and other items on Oct. 31.

The BLM could announce by year's end how many projects have qualified.

Pickens is confident her eco-sanctuary will be approved. Even then, it will have to go through a rigorous assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act, which could take up to 24 months.

Ken Miller, BLM district manager in Elko, has been working with Pickens and says the process could even be expedited since hers is the only eco-sanctuary proposal in his district. The agency won't say how many proposals are under consideration in Nevada and nationwide.

As for Pickens, she says her eco-sanctuary will become a reality with or without the government's help since she has private land and a few bands of wild horses already are roaming her public rangeland.

"I would have been done by now, but you know having to deal with red tape is very difficult," Pickens says. "Frustration? Yes. You know, I want to get on with it. I want to be alive before this is finished.

"But we will make a home for the horses. And we will move forward."

Trending topics:

• BLM
• wild horses
• Elko County
• Madeleine Pickens
• Spruce Mountain
• Warm Creek
• mustangs

Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. IgorPurlantov Feb. 27, 2012 | 11:44 a.m. Report Abuse

   Interesting article. Hats off to to Madeleine Pickens for helping these animals. Las Vegas is and always will be the wild west. -Igor Purlantov

2. Chen Jan. 14, 2012 | 9:24 a.m. Report Abuse

   As a taxpayer, I agree 100% with Ole Olson! Sell them and let the highest bidder buy the horses. If it is a horse lover, great! If it is a killer buyer, great! At one time I thought the government had an obligation to manage the taxpayers' money wisely. That has gone out the window today. Has anyone burst Ms. Pickens bubble by letting her know the horses she saw in the movies were domestic horses? Or is that like her not knowing that horses are used for meat? If you marry the kind of money that she has, I guess you can afford to live in a fantasy world. But in the real world, life is life and it ends in death one way or another.

3. billy bob.mcgillacuddy Dec. 22, 2011 | 7:19 a.m. Report Abuse

   I am insulted by this person & her avarice - all about her getting what she wants for her, nothing more, nothing less. Pure greed coupled with a sinister knack for crafty ways to live off others. There is no way the BLM/congress will ever go down this creepy road. Get a job "lady" !

4. Zara.Zev Dec. 21, 2011 | 11:05 a.m. Report Abuse

   This is wonderful news Ms. Pickens! I plan to do this in Canada too - rescuing ALL types of horses.
   
   I want to rescue the Magnificent Thoroughbreds discarded off the tracks. These breathtaking magical horses can be re trained with natural horsemanship to a point where they are relaxed and happy rather than terrified right brained animals running on instinct.
   
   I wish there were more people with open compassionate empathic hearts - like yours.
   
   Z

5. bearhorse Dec. 20, 2011 | 5:57 p.m. Report Abuse

   KUDOS to Ms Pickens..This is a dream come true for many. To many of you they are considered pests to us they are to be cherished. The ranchers have been allowed to lease land and run their cattle. Who makes the profit here? Are all Americans recipiants of their profits? Has anyone heard of overgrazing? The time has come to protect all American horses and other equines. Wild Horse Annie was despised by many for her continued efforts in saving the Wild Horses and Burros. If the BLM exerted as much energy working with the advocates as fighting them, we all would be better off. The type of identification system used is out dated and warrants better documentation. Just how many horses and burros are located across the country? Does anyone know? Its shameful that these roundups are conducted in such disasterous ways causing death to the horses and especially the foals/long yearlings. How long would my horse last when run down with a helicopter? And for that matter how many ranchers and Legislators could last that abuse. I am tired of the gravy trains because my taxes have been used as well for your cattle. Leave them on the range and stop killing the predators and perhaps there would be a balance. Its tragic also that their water supply has been cut off in some places and acess to certain areas. Just think of the number of jobs that will be created by these sanctuaries and the number of people who would be visiting them. Madeleine get your place ready because I would love to visit with my family and view the wild horses/burros.

6. floyd.simmers Dec. 19, 2011 | 8:17 p.m. Report Abuse

   if she wants to save the so called wild horses she should pay for them herself and not ask for money from the goverment.these horses are not native to this country,or indians would of had them along time before the spanish came to this land.when her horse ranches are full where does she plan on the other horses to go,back to feed lots and use my tax money to continue feeding them.

7. jennifer.reeves Dec. 19, 2011 | 5:25 p.m. Report Abuse

   i dont think the blm has the right to kill the wild mustangs they have been here for hundreds of years so leave them be. please quick killing the horses i grew up watching the wild west like roy rodgers and trigger and i dont want the wild west to die out so please let the people that wants to take the horses to there own place to live out there lives please let them im a horse lover my self and i cant stand to see unwanted horses killed and ive seen how they kill them and it pisses me the heck off.....

8. StephenLV Dec. 19, 2011 | 1:59 p.m. Report Abuse

   I would pack up and move to Help Pickens run her ranch- GOOD job ---at least someone cares about the horses in Nevada

9. Laura.Belllaurabell Dec. 18, 2011 | 11:02 p.m. Report Abuse

   Just like the ranchers, most all of the killbuyers like Ole Olson do is whine and complain about what they do for a living and having to work so hard, tell lies that only anti-wild horse and pro-slaughter believe like its gospel from God, and think they're really fooling people with their crap about the price of horsemeat dropping and none of us noticing that duh! the economy of the world has dropped in most sectors..... What a dope, but luckily for all of us, Ole is old and hopefully God wants to have a chat with him very soon regarding why he was so cruel to horses, and Ole will have to answer to a higher power. I'd love to be a fly on the wall during that meeting! :-)

10. Horseshoe Angel Dec. 18, 2011 | 3:28 p.m. Report Abuse

    Kudos to Madeline Pickens! Way to go! Someone doing something bold and good here in America! I completely support protection for something that once gone can never be replaced and would be a huge loss to our country and heritage if not protected and respected.

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