Madeleine Pickens, Heroine of Wild Horses
18 November 2008 8:55 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
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I’ve got a love of horses going back to my teenage years when I used to ride
a lot. In college, the head of the dance department saw me riding once and had
a fit about it. Wrong way to use your knees. I once was introduced to horse
racing, going to Santa Anita and various upscale races. Then I started reading
about the horrors of horse racing and what some people do to these majestic
animals. It’s not pretty. I’ve had a fantasy of owning land to rescue race horses.
Just a dream. This is a bit different, but you can imagine how I felt when I read
this story today.
The
BLM was nearing the moment where they were going to euthanize 2,000 wild
horses. Then along came Madeleine Pickens.
[...] Then yesterday, at a public hearing in Reno, Nev., to discuss the issue,
a solution arrived on a white horse, so to speak.Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, made known her intentions
to adopt not just the doomed wild horses but most or all of the 30,000 horses
and burros kept in federal holding pens. Lifelong animal lovers, the Pickenses
just a few years ago led the fight to close the last horse slaughterhouse
in the United States.Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate
home for the horses.She is working with the BLM staff to adopt the horses, said Henri Bisson,
the bureau’s deputy director, while the agency persuades Congress to shift
$20 million in funding to feed and protect the horses now in captivity for
another year….
There are also backup plans in the works just in case.
This issue isn’t solved. Under Bush, the roundups became
very aggressive. There needs to be a long-term humane solution, because managing
these animals is expensive.
But right now, Madeleine Pickens and her husband T. Boone Pickens are old fashioned
western heroes riding to the rescue. For someone like me, what they’ve
done takes my breath away.
