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Wild horses up for auction Photo from Quincy Warner Photography A wild horse that was tamed at the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility in Adel runs through a corral. Monday Mar 26, 2018 at 2:01 AM By Lee Juilleratfor the Mail Tribune ADEL — A first-ever competitive bid adoption for professionally tamed wild horses could help shape future management plans on the nation’s public lands. A two-day competitive adoption is scheduled April 13 and 14 in the small rural southeastern Oregon community of Adel. The event includes training demonstrations at the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility in Adel, where mustangs captured from the Beaty Butte area have received training. Bidding for 10 horses will begin 2 p.m. April 14. “It’s the first sustainable wild horse program in the West, and if it works, it will change the whole notion of how the horses are managed in the West,” believes Mary Bradbury, who hopes the inaugural event will be successful. “We have no idea what will happen. Adel is pretty far out.” Bradbury and her husband, Dick, are Adel area ranchers involved with the Beaty Butte Working Group, a coalition of ranchers, horse advocacy groups, Native Plant Society representatives and environmentalists, including the Oregon Natural Desert Association. They began meeting and working with the Bureau of Land Management in 2015 to find solutions to prevent resource damage at the Beaty Butte Herd Management Area. Located 65 miles east of Lakeview, the area spans more than 437,000 acres of federal and privately owned land. “A few years back Beaty Butte became so overpopulated with wild horses, as much of the rangelands in the West are, that grazing was being threatened as well as other wildlife habitat,” Anna Kerr of the Intermountain West Joint Venture said. “This truly is an amazing program that is receiving national attention. The program produces a win-win situation in the wild horse arena that doesn’t happen in most cases.” The upcoming competitive adoption, and horse demonstration and training sessions, will be held at the Adel training facility, which was built by BLM and is managed by the locally run, private, nonprofit horse training program. Although BLM, which manages most of the Beaty Butte management area and has extensive lands throughout the American West, has developed other agreements on managing wild horses, “This one is unique because it provides a holistic approach,” said James Price, the wild horse and burro specialist for BLM’s Lakeview District. If successful, Price said, the program could result in significant savings. It’s estimated the lifetime cost for keeping unadopted wild/feral horses in a holding facility is $47,000 per animal. “It’s pretty substantial.” In addition, Price said, overpopulations of horses result in extensive resource damage. Along with causing reductions in cattle grazing allotments, damage to riparian areas adversely impact sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bighorn sheep and other animals, birds and raptors. The program to capture, train and sell wild mustangs is part of a possible new management plan. The BLM’s wild horse captures at Beaty Butte, as elsewhere, have typically been done about every five years when populations are extreme. During the last Beaty Butte capture, 1,070 horses were gathered. The “appropriate management levels” for Beaty Butte is 100 to 250 horses. Because the Beaty Butte mustang population is now more than 200, plans envision yearly captures of 20 or more horses and then training them for adoptive bidding at annual sales at the Beaty Butte Training Facility, which is overseen by facility manager Jim Hiatt and head trainer Catlin Martin. The upcoming adoption event will have 10 mustangs, including Flash Gordon, Chuck Wagon, Napoleon, Lefty, and six others, for sale following two horse-handling demonstrations. Other related activities will include cowboy and Western arts vendors, an auction to benefit the training facility, and an April 13 no-host dinner at the Adel Store. “It’s new and there’s a lot of excitement about it,” Price said of the event and sale. “I think being part of the solution is a good thing,” agreed Bradbury. “I’m thrilled to be part of a solution that keeps horses out there.” Reach freelance reporter Lee Juillerat at [email protected] or 541-880-4139.