Nonprofit helps wild horses cope with drought

PHOENIX — The 250 or so horses along the Salt River are usually good at taking care of themselves, but this year has been one of unprecedented drought, according to officials with an Arizona nonprofit.

Salt River Wild Horse Management Group has been tracking wild horses in the region for years, KJZZ-FM reported .

President and Founder Simone Netherlands said she has never seen the horses suffer as a result of the climate until recently.

“In reality, we never thought we would have to actually feed wild horses,” Netherlands said.

Last winter was unusually dry and thus the grasses the horses feed on withered from lack of precipitation.

The nonprofit decided to establish an emergency feed protocol by working with the Arizona Department of Agriculture.

The group created 12 feed stations along the river for the horses, Netherlands said.

Volunteers have been bringing hay out to the Salt River every day for about four months now.

“What we don’t want is wild horses associating food with people, because eventually they’d come up to all people and ask for food,” Netherlands said. “So our feed stations are designed strategically so that they’re away from public areas.”

They’ve spent about $45,000 just on the hay, Netherlands said.

Rick Blandford is one of the feed team leads who has been taking photos of the Salt River horses since the organization’s early years. He and the other volunteers bring truckloads of hay each evening and distribute the bales at several feed stations.

“We like to keep them about 5 feet (1.5 meters) apart, but we want to separate the bales so we don’t have horses on top of each other — you know whole bans because they do get a little competitive sometimes,” Blandford said

Without the usual grasses and without the feed team, the horses would eat beans from the mesquite trees. A few of those beans won’t do any harm, but if they eat too many it can cause colic. However, Blandford said in the right amount, those beans can make horses great recyclers.

“But after a rain and all these beans are in the manure, it just germinates and makes more mesquite trees,” he said. “So it’s food for the mice and rabbits and everything else out here that eats off of it.”

The group has seen some amazing progress, but Netherlands said there’s no telling how long they’ll have to feed the horses.