William Simpson of the Wild Horse Firebrigade on Mustangs

https://www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org/   

https://horseofnature.com/

(Bill's song--).  https://youtu.be/uRTVGd5CkxU

Bill and Michelle have been living amongst and in this wild herd for 11 years-hear their science and storries in these next episodes. You can contact them from the webpage above.

THE MISSION

Wild horses have been part of our American heritage for hundreds, even thousands of years. Help us get them to their FOREVER home in Critical Wilderness areas.

Extensively published scientific studies show that this collapsed herbivore (loss of large herbivores) results in abnormally excessive grass and brush wildfire fuels. The same published scientific research shows that on every continent, when the herbivory collapsed, catastrophic wildfires evolved. (See our 'Resources' page for links to the published science)

 Wild Horse Fire Brigade is the name of our nonprofit and also that of our Nature-Based solution for the plight of American wild horses. In its essence the Plan is very simple; rewild and relocate wild horses away-from areas of conflict and confinement and locate them into wilderness areas where they benefit flora and fauna as they reduce and maintain grass and brush wildfire fuels.

Transcript

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Hi, I am Ishy Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix. Today I have with me William Simpson from the WildHorse Fire Brigade and I'm really excited to talk with him about all the stuff he does with Mustangs. Welcome William. Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it, Ishi. Yeah, I'm so excited. So I wanna give the audience a little bit of background. A couple of years ago I was rock hunting with a friend of mine and we came down your way and there is a place, Iron Gate Lake and there was some controversy about the lake and the water and everything, if I remember right. But we were rock hunting there, and I saw horses and I knew they were wild horses. I just knew looking at them that they were, and I was like, wow. I had no idea. There were wild horses near Yreka, I was mesmerized. And so I tried to get close to them and I got, about 40 feet away, which really surprised me that they let me get that close. Of course I know the thing about their bubble and backing up and waiting for a sign and watching them closely. Wild mustangs, I was looking for. That herd and what they were called and if it was BLM or what have you. And I ended up making contact with a group in outside of Cottonwood where there's a WildHorse sanctuary and she was able to give me your name and tell me a little bit about the fire brigade. So then I was able to call you and we got in touch. And it's just sort of an interesting story when something happens two years ago and it leads you down the path of you know, where you are today. That always is, that's always a fun thing for me. So you've been working, living with these horses for 10 years, is that right, William? Yeah. 11 now. 11 years. And tell me about why is it called the WildHorse Fire Brigade? Well, okay, so when I first came, I just, I have to give you just a little bit of background. Sure. Grew up on a ranch, had domestic horses. My brothers and sisters had horses, actually had two horses, mm-hmm. And so I understood those horses pretty well. You know, I worked with my, I had a Palomino and I worked with him every day. We rode, you know, we moved animals, we rode fence, we did everything together. He was my pal. And so then when I went to Oregon State, I was a pre-med science major and I studied quite a bit of science, physics, chemistry, botany, biology, meteorology, all that stuff. And, and that was back in 1971. So when I came up here, when I retired and I started seeing these horses on the landscape, I was watching what they were doing and. You know, when I was going through college, I worked logging and occasionally we had a little fire and I fought some fires and I understood a little bit about fire ecology and you know, the chemistry of combustion and pyro chemistry, all those things. So when I started watching what they were doing. I, I immediately realized that they were mowing the lawn underneath the pine trees. And, and I was looking,'cause fire was also also kind of, it's a ubiquitous problem. It's always out there. Everybody's thinking, you know, if you live in Florida, you, you're always in your, somewhere in your mind you're thinking about a hurricane. Mm-hmm. Here, you know, fire is kinda like out there all the time. And so I'm watching what they're doing and I go, wow, that's really cool. You know, they're. They're really reducing the fire fuels. So I started doing a lot of work on that and I actually wrote a plan and started studying the horses and documenting exactly what they were doing and how they did it and when they did it and where they did it. And, and I wrote a study and then I made a plan. And the plan was actually called the Natural Wildfire Abatement and Forest Protection Plan because of how they are a keystone herbivore in the forest. So the trees and the horses have this beautiful symbiotic relationship. The trees offer homes with the horses. They spend all their time under the trees. In the summer when it's too hot, they go under the trees and they take a nap. They go under the trees and the heavy weather, they go under the trees, and the trees benefit greatly from that relationship. I mean, it, the, it's so beautiful to see this. I mean, you can't even hardly articulate. How amazing the balance is between these animals and the trees and, and the trees get, you know, give the, of course give shelter and so forth. But then the horses give their fertilizer and they mow the lawn under the tree and they break off the fire ladders.'cause they're big, scratchy, powerful animals. And deer can't do what a horse can do under a tree, right? And so essentially when they're done with a tree, that tree is fire resilient.'cause there's no fuel under it, and the fire ladders are broke off. And I, so I, I started documenting all of this stuff and I said, you know, this is this natural wildfire abatement, a forest protection plan that's too big of a name, you know, for scientists. They like that. I go, you know, we need to call it something else. And I realized they're a fire brigade. So we started calling it WildHorse Fire Brigade. And then when we named our organization, our nonprofit, we decided to call it the same thing. You know, why, why have a name that doesn't say what you're doing? You know? So that's how it all came about. So, have you ever been able to do anything with this plan? Have you submitted it anywhere? Have you tried to get some like fuel behind it to get people to take notice of what's possible? Yeah, we're, we're working on many fronts. We're working, you know, pol we're not allowed to do political work because we're a 5 0 1 C3. Okay? So you have to be a 5 0 1 C four if you're gonna do political work. So we don't, we don't wanna violate the terms of our, our our charity, right? So we can present to scientists, but we're not allowed to politicize or work one side or the other, or whatever side. I don't know how many sides there are now'cause I just don't do politics really. But the thing is, is there are people behind us. There are people that are learning and listening government. Basically moves at the speed of, of glacial ice. They're very slow. The government is the last one to adopt the new technology. See, that's why I'll give you a really good example that many people many of your listeners and viewers may have seen. When you watch Elon Musk's spacecraft land, it looks like an alien spacecraft. It comes out down onto the sky vertically, and it goes, and it lands right on a little spot. Uhhuh, US government can't do that. US government can't do that. We have to have a big landing strip or splash down or whatever. We don't do that. And the reason is, is he has a much better computer than we do because the government is slow if somebody on the outside comes up with a great idea, if you're outside the box and you come up with a great idea or a new find, like Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall discovered that Apes made and used tools and they rained on her, you know, in 1960s. Terrible with, you know, they called her. You're, you're just a woman. You don't have a college degree, you don't know what you're doing. And all the PhDs have already been there and there's nothing new. And, and they, and they really were mean to her. Mm-hmm. And these are, these are academics doing this. Right. These are academics with PhDs doing this to her. But then after. She revealed the movie, you know, because she did what we actually call what we're doing here, the Goodall method, in honor of Dr. Goodall.'cause Jane Goodall broke the mold. I mean, in many ways her way of studying animals was you build a relationship and then you get to hang out with them and really see how they live and do and what they do. And, you know, she really changed observational ethology and, and ecology. So she did and for the better. Like, it, it's, it's amazing. And now that is, that is pretty much a standard for observing animals now, isn't it? Isn't it pretty mainstream? No, no, it is not a standard because when you're studying wildlife, it's extremely difficult to embed yourself with wildlife because they don't trust. Humans, they run away. There's been a couple of people out there that, there was a man, I'm trying to think of his name. He had took him a two years to befriend this herd of mule deer. Mm-hmm. And I think it was up in Wyoming or Colorado, two years. Mm-hmm. And then they finally trusted him enough where he could be in the herd. That takes a lot of time and money that people will not finance universities are not gonna finance somebody to go out and live full time for years because you have to go through all the different cycles. If you're gonna study an animal closeup, you gotta know what they do at night, during the day, in the winter, the summer, the fall, the spring. You know, what do the babies do? What do the adults do? How do, how are they being killed? How long do they live? There's just so many things where the family dynamics, the band dynamics, you know, you've got a lot to learn. So you have to be there. They have to be there. I've been here, they have to be comfortable and, and regulated, especially a prey animal. Like maybe Jane had it a little easier because there's more of a parallel between primates and humans than, you know, prey animals and humans. But you have been with these horses, so you know them and they know you we're like family now. I mean, Michelle and I walk among the stallions and the mayors and the family bands and, you know I mean they're, they are, they've adopted us and now we get to see the secrets. How many of the equine, yeah, how many are there? Our herd is 200, roughly. Roughly 200. And so they're in smaller family bands, but like at mating season, they're all together or how does that work? Well okay, so that's a really great question. Typically you know, you'll have a family which will be a stud and one marere and maybe a baby when they're first getting, getting started. They're a lot like humans. You know, you, you date and then you get engaged, you get'em married, maybe in a few years you have a baby. Oh, it's just parallel. The exact same thing. They, we've watched them dating. It's really funny. And, and the second part of your question, and we will, I'll get into the dating just a little bit, but you know, we've got a roughly 27 families here. And they range from a, a stud with a mare and a baby to a stallion with 22 mares in his family and some babies, so yearling and two year olds. So so. At certain times of the year, usually springtime they'll come together.'cause usually in spring is when most of the mayors will have, will go full. So a lot of things happen. First of all, they move to the southern exposures early in the spring because those areas are warmer. There's more grass because there's been more sunlight. And the southern exposures here on the mountain where we are tend to have larger siding, radiuses. So they can see predators coming from a long, a long distance. You know, they're not up in the forest anymore. They come down and they all tend to use these big large areas. You know, that might be 50, a hundred acres. And several families will come together there. And during that period of time, the yearlings and two year olds will kind of meet. They'll come outta their family bands and, you know, meet each other and play and, and you know, the girls will look at other stallions and go, gee, you know, he's a handsome guy. You know, Michelle was telling me about this one little marere. She's a 2-year-old and she's getting ready to leave her family and the stallions don't mate with their own daughters. They won't do that. So what they do is they'll sit there and at that time of the year, they'll watch one of their daughters go over to another family and, and basically flirt with another stallion. Now, other times of the year that won't happen. That stallion will chase the other stallion away. But at this particular time, usually it's about three months, four months early spring, right into, you know, early summer. There's a lot of that going on. And then late summer, then you'll see all of a sudden, oh, look at that little ma she's with a, with this other stallion. Now that's fascinating that you've gotten to see all of this. Yeah, they date. That's amazing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really cool. And, and you, you know, we're learning so much. I mean, every day we go out there, it's just something new. I mean, so I, I didn't realize that they had such a highly evolved society. They, they really, I know, I know watching cows for a long time, they have such an incredible social structure too. And I, I, I did that before horses came back into my life. So it doesn't surprise me. And it's, there are not very many places where you get to see that because of the way the domestication is, there are very few people that have multiple stallions and just wild horses to be able to observe, you know, the way we keep them. I'm curious have these horses always been in yreka? What is the history of the herd? Do you know anything about that? In this area here on the Oregon California border there are horse fossils. So we, we've got fossils of EQU cabals that go back, you know, 2 million years. And we have some interesting cultural archeology that supports the nativeness of these animals here. So, for instance, so Francis Drake was on a military mission for Queen Elizabeth, and he sailed up the west coast in 1580. Mm-hmm. So, and they named Drake Bay after him. And you know, he came all the way up and he went to Vancouver Island, I believe, on that voyage before he then went across the Pacific. And so he was collecting information. His job was to find out, is this a good place to settle? Can England go there? And. And put colony there and, and is there farmland? Is there water? Is there gold? You know, what's there? So he went, and so they came up and they looked around and they lo they saw the indigenous living with horses. And he, that ended up in a journal in Great Britain, in the museum. And so basically he said he was surprised because the Spanish were telling them that they're the only ones with horses. Of course, that's kind of a, back then that was a Spanish thing. You know, they felt that they, and the Spanish culture back then only noblemen could ride horses, any, anybody. And they called the native and the indigenous peoples here, they called them savages. And so they never wanted, you couldn't have, you couldn't have that story because it would be incongruent. Exactly right. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna circle back because this is important to the ecology and to the plight of the Mustang for a minute, if that's okay with you. So Sure. Whatever. So as you, as you're pointing this out, you said that there are, there're skeletons and artifacts that go way, way back, and yet there are arguments currently with BLM and other ecology things that tell a very different story that are possibly the information may be biased or actually inaccurate. To create an outcome that's not favorable for these horses. Do you know where I'm going with that? Sure. So what's going on right now in America? You know, in 1971, president Nixon signed the Wild and Free roaming Burrow and Horse Act. All wild horses were protected where they were as of December 71. They set up all these herd management areas, and I believe originally there was 53.8 million acres assigned to the horses in 71. Can you repeat that? Could you repeat that number again for me? I just didn't catch it. Yeah. I believe there was 53.8 million acres Wow. Of land assigned to the horses by President Nixon. And, and they, and they were little boxes, you know, some of'em were pretty big boxes, like, you know, a hundred thousand acres, 200,000 acres, and they called those boxes. Herd management areas, right. Or hmas for, for short. And so as, as we went through time, the population in the United States between now and, and back in 71, we got a hundred million more people. There's a hundred million more people since 1971. And we're trying to provide a lot of things for those people, including, you know, products that come from livestock, meat, milk, you know, lambs all that, calves, all that stuff. So the livestock production business has grown considerably. And if you're in that business, the best way to make money if you're in the right place, is to get a grazing permit from the BL. Because if, let's say, you and I were in the, in the livestock business and we needed to, and we were in Oregon and there's very few areas where you could get a grazing permit. So we'd have to go to private pasture to graze our cows and to graze a cow in private pasture right now is about 28 to$30 a month for a cow calf. Mm-hmm. Yep. And a calf can be up to 500 pounds. So so the BLM offers grazing for a dollar 35 per month for a cow calf, which is a screaming deal. It's a deal of the century and Right. It's important that at first we kind of iron out how the BLM works and what the pressure on the horses is, is. Okay? Sure. Yeah well, the reason the BLM. Wants to get rid of the horses is because they wanna sell more grazing permits. They calibrate the grazing capacity and, they determine how much area provides one a so that's a grazing. It's a unit. So that makes more sense. Yeah. And one a is one month for a cow calf, for a buck 35. And so, so, so it's a time increment. It's not a land increment. Oh, it's a land. It's time. Yeah. You get to be out there and graze so many. If they give you a hundred AUMs, you got a hundred cow calves. And then you could be out there. It's a buck 30, buck 35 a month and, and, and it's a great deal. No, that is a, that is a great deal I don't think you can feed a gerbil for a dollar 35 a month. You, you probably can't. I'm, I'm curious though, like that makes sense why they're doing it, but I don't understand how they're doing it. If that land was set aside for the wild horses, what gives BLM the right to put it in double jeopardy and sell it again? I mean, you, how many times can you sell the same piece of land? There's, there's like a problem with that, right? Well, the, see, the BLM is run by politicians and some of these politicians are ranchers. And so they administratively have rolled back the amount of land available for horses from the original 53.8 million acres assigned by President Nixon in 71. Mm-hmm. And they've rolled that back now to, we're, we're down to 28 million acres and now on 28 million acres, the horses only have 7% of the grazing. So currently on public lands where there's grazing permits allowed, there's 50 cows for each horse, yet the BLM will accuse the horses of overgrazing. Now that's ludicrous. If you have 50 cows grazing and one horse who's doing the overgrazing. Yeah. That's, that's not a hard, that's not a hard math problem at all. How did they do that? How is that possible that, like, who allowed this? When you say they rolled it back, they made these changes, did they make them with an amendment through, through the law? Like what's do you under Yeah. They go to Congress and they say, Hey, you know, we need more grazing. And, and horses are non-commercial herbivores. And, and they're, and, and then they spin their yarns to the congressmen. Okay. So they tell the congress in riding and, and in testimony they say they're an invasive species, they're not native and they're destroying the range land. So they, they tell the Congress three lies. Then Congress goes, oh, and they're, these are East coast people, so they don't know, they don't know what's happening out here. They believe these guys the bottom line is this, they've misinformed our elected officials, and they've been able to basically swindle American public out of their iconic horses. And now we're in genetic bottlenecks because on the, I talked about the little boxes on, they're not little. They're, some of'em are, you know, 300,000 acres. The hmas on some of these hmas, we have substandard herds genetically. Now what, what do I mean by that? The, there's the International Union and Nature Conservancy, which is a body of scientists like the Academy of Science. We also have a. Other scientists looking at how many horses need to be in a herd to maintain genetic the genetic vigor of the herd, it has to be sustainable over an evolutionary scale. Here's where we get into the BLM gets into some trouble. They, they actually published a handbook, and you can find it online. It's the BLM Handbook for WildHorse and Burrow Management. And on page 28, they re reiterate everything I just said. You know, the genetics is important. The preamble says that they, they're an integral part of public lands. They're important, there are cultural heritage, treasure, et cetera, et cetera. And in order to preserve the genetic security They say, you need 150 to 200 horses in a herd. By the way, that's the absolute floor with certain criteria, 150 to 250 horses to maintain genetic vitality. But the guy who wrote that is Gus Cotran at Texas a and m University. He's a geneticist. So he got hired to write that part of their book. Mm-hmm. And they, and they went to him and they said, Gus, what is the absolute minimum number of horses we could put out there? And the reason is, is they want more grazing for livestock, the BLM has a book, okay? They pay tax dollars to get it written, and a geneticist put in the whole section on genetic vitality. Gus Coran from Texas a and m. Okay. Gus Coran put in Elm's handbook. It's their handbook. I'm not saying anything. I'm telling you what their book says, and anybody can check me. They can go on Google and find the book. Mm-hmm. It says it. The minimum number, and this is the absolute floor according to Gus Coran., There's specific management criteria. This isn't a natural herd anymore. We're talking about, we're talking about 150 to 200 horses, and you gotta maintain a stud book according to the management book. You have to do genetic testing every year, and even if you do all those things to study what's happening with that herd, you're still gonna get a 1% rate of genetic erosion every year. So you're still losing if you do everything that that management book has now Full stop. What I'm now with that in mind, the BLM has established herd areas with under a hundred horses. It's in violation of their own book, is what I'm saying. I see if you. Their book says they need to have a minimum of 150 to 200. And even that is good item. And, and to your, and to your knowledge, they're not meeting the criteria. I mean, I've never heard of any'cause these are wild horses that are not being managed and observed and, and bred. They're just left alone. Right. That's the definition of the wild horses. Is that correct? Well, that's, that's how it's supposed to be. That's not how it is. The way it is out there is they're managing herds at sub genetic levels because they round them up and they're also sterilizing mares. So if you ever herd of 200 horses and half of'em are sterile, it's equivalent to a herd of a hundred horses. So now you're also, you're back down to way below the book and the book. The numbers in that book are too low because according to the Academy of Sciences and IUCN, the International Union Nature Conservancy, if you do those things, if you have a stud book, and if you do genetic testing, you need a herd of 500 according to them. Now, if you want an all natural herd where you're not doing anything, the herd has to be 2,500 horses. Oh my goodness. According to, so we don't have, there are, are there herds that large anymore in the United States? No. And nowhere. No nowhere. Okay. Yeah. That, that makes sense. With the numbers that I've read, I mean, I read somewhere that there are only about a little over a half a million wild horses left in the United States. Is, is that correct or do you know that's not correct. Okay. What, what, what figures do you have for that? I have the BMS numbers, and right now there's 70,000 horses that are sterilized in off range holding. So they ca they gilded the stallions and they sterilized the mares with Nikon injectable sterile. They're in off range holding, and we pay 150 million a year to feed'em hay. And then there's about 50,000 left on the range running around, and they're distributed across the large area. They're not in one herd. There's 50,000 in the groups of a hundred here, 50 there, 20 here. So they're all scattered. So you don't have a viable herd really anywhere. And of those horses, half of'em are sterilized already because the USDA has these, if it's hundred. So they're, they're headed to extinction. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt, like after what you've said, there is no doubt that the government has a covert plan to sterilize and create extinction. Yeah. We're in a serious genetic bottleneck right now. And, and so when you think about it, okay. There's a big reason why they're doing this, and the reason is simple. Okay. There's a thing called the Endangered Species Act. Mm-hmm. Okay. When a, when a native species drops under a hundred thousand animals, they get red listed, okay? And they, they, they can be put on the list and protected, I mean, totally protected, right? Well, guess what? We have under a hundred thousand horses. They have 11 month gestation period, which makes that even worse. I mean, they put the sage grouse on the list, and the sage grouse have 20 or 30 babies, okay? When they drop at a hundred thousand, everybody had a big panic attack. Why? Because the hunting industry loves to shoot sage grouse. That's why. But horses don't have that kind of economic advocacy. See, they're, they're considered a non-commercial herbivore, and the BLM spends a lot of our tax dollars lying to the public and the, and to congress. And telling them that they're not native, they're invasive. They have no natural predators. I mean, they're ridiculous lies. Anybody who lives out west who has this, a token of, of common sense and science knows Yeah. Everything is, everything is a lie. Yeah. I mean we, I, I saw that on, on part of your website where it's highlighted that they have no natural predators. I thought that is the most ridiculous statement. All of horsemanship like is based on horse behavior from a predator standpoint. Do you drive them? It is a fraud. Isha, it's in there right in the executive summary of their handbook on managing horses. Mm-hmm. On paragraph, I think two it says in writing, we paid to write this taxpayer dollars in writing. While horses have no natural predators, they gave that handbook to Congress. Their plan, their management plan. They lie in writing. That's fraud. That is fraud right there. It is. Fraud. I'll give you another example of the fraud. So there's this guy named Ken Salazar, may have heard of him. I have heard that name. Yeah. Ken Salazar was appointed to be the head of the Department of Interior by Obama. So President Obama appointed Ken Salazar, who's a rancher, and he got in power and as soon as he got in power. Amazingly, his neighbor, a guy named Tom Davis, suddenly got 1800 American wild horses for a buck each and disappeared'em over the border to Mexico. And they never got in trouble. Now they got investigated and the office of the Inspect General did a report. It's in the Huffington Post. Even. You can just Google. Ken Salazar, 1800 horses. H Huffington Post comes right up. He had a step down in the middle of this scandal'cause he was involved with his, you know, there was connections to this neighbor. Mm-hmm. And this was under his watch. He's, the head of the DOI, you're in charge of the BLM. You're the big chief. Okay. Well, these horses were protected American wild horses, treasured iconic horses owned by the American people. Were, were converted into private revenue for Mr. Davis. Now, neither man got punished. Now Salazar stepped down because of the scandal and what happened? He became the head of, Clinton's transition team. And of course she didn't get elected. So, oh, well what are we gonna do with him? Oh, let's make him the ambassador to Mexico. So he was the ambassador to Mexico up until May of this year. Now he is retired and he is back at his law firm. Never got fined. I mean, that is a federal felony. What this, these two guys somehow were involved with each other. We know Davis got the horses for sure because the Office of Inspector General looked at it. This is a published deal. This is published. This isn't myth, it's not rumor it's published. You know, Tom Davis got those horses. It was the largest round, a lot largest theft of American wild horses known, you know, 1800. All dead. Gone. Gone. Nobody, they disappeared'em over the border. So, you know, the the problem is, is they're worried. The big corporations that want to use public land for minerals, gas, oil and livestock grazing are worried. They know that they're native, they know they're endangered, and that's the last thing they want to do is have them get listed ESA, because the minute the government admits that there are native species and that there's under a hundred thousand, then they get listed and then guess what? The, the landscape on public lands change the hoops and the, and the, and the things you gotta jump through to do anything. Then grazing oil, gas, that all changes. So what happens is there, the, the hill, lemme back up and make sure I'm understanding. So what you're saying is there's gonna be a, a huge change in policy if they're declared an endangered species and it will somehow counter the WildHorse and Bureau Act of 71 that gave them land to begin with. Is that what I'm understanding? Well, no, actually, it would put them in the position that the act intended. The, the preamble to the 1971 Protection Act says they're not supposed to be rounded up, harassed, branded, or, or killed. And so if they get endangered listed as an endangered species, suddenly it'll be hands off for the bbl. M they're, they're not gonna be able to round'em off or do any of that. So, so you're saying it's actually a strategy to protect them by lowering their numbers low enough, but we're losing the genetic viability. So the plan is really kind of bogus. Is that what I'm getting? Well, there's no, well, what's happening is, is because of the way they're managing'em, they're kind of creating their own pitfall. But they're in a race. See, they're in a race, okay? They are removing the horses. And the reason they're doing it is they want to, they wanna sell more leases on public lands. Now, in the process of doing that, they have to keep everybody fooled into thinking they're an invasive species. Because if people wake up and realize they're native. Everybody's gotta go hold it. Those are, those are native species. They should be an endangered species listed. Right. And I, I'm understanding, I'm understanding'cause I've seen several like news pieces on that, you know, like confirming that wild hor horses, the large, the large version of horse, not the prehistoric, tiny version of horse was on the North American continent. I've seen a lot of documentary, or at least three documentaries on that, and I'm told that there's some legislation and a lot of the, the advocacy for wild horses is actually currently in the courts, has filed a lot of lawsuits about this. And I'm, I'm gonna be digging into that a little bit deeper. But yeah, this is like, I, there's a lot of information here that you've given me that I did not have or completely understand, so I appreciate that. It is, you know, Isha, it's super complicated. I've been staying up till two in the morning reading every night for 11 years to catch up. That's a lot of information. Yeah. And a, a lot of, a lot ing information taking it like, where is Ben Cartwright when we really need him? There you go. Yeah. And the thing the thing is, is, is it's so it's like chess because one move on the board has many, many things that can happen once you do that. And so but what's happened, there's two things going on right now. Basically it's a race. The BLM is in a race to eliminate the horses before they get listed as an e es a species, they're in a race, they want to get rid of'em all. And then if somebody says, oh, gee whiz, look, they're really native and then they finally admit the truth, then there's none left. Anyway. There were down like the eagles, remember when we had so few eagles and condors. Right, right. I do remember. And they, they were able to bounce back, but, so, okay. Let me ask you this. How do horses that are at wild horses that are at sanctuaries feed into this count into this? How are their numbers managed and and what about the genetic viability that could be recreated or infused into wild herds from wild horses at sanctuaries? I have no idea like how many WildHorse sanctuaries there are, but to me that seems like a part partial temporary answer to encourage people to have, you know, to utilize large tracts of privately held land for WildHorse sanctuaries While this gets worked out, but I have no idea what category those are gonna fall in. Are they gonna be counted as endangered species? I don't know. No. So. Sanctuaries are problematic, and I'll tell you why. Wild horses are not wild unless they're living in the wilderness with their coval predators. Okay? That's what preserves it. Without natural selection, you're once again in genetic decline. But I thought they didn't have any predators. Yeah, right. So up here where I am, okay, the lions, the bears, the wolves, and the coyotes all eat the horses. But when you investigate why a horse got killed, you suddenly realize that Mother Nature has perfect vision. Mother Nature knows and her, these are her tools, these lions, these wolves, these bears are her tools that she uses to pair out imperfection in her creation. So, for instance, I had a little stud that died. I think he was deaf in one ear. A lion got him on that side. He was deaf in one ear. You don't want that horse breeding. He's got a genetic deafness mother nature knows how to pair out weakness, and so if in order to preserve the genetic vitality, these American horses, they have to be in a wilderness area co with their co-evolve predators. Now a sanctuary, number one sanctuaries can't have breeding horses. The reason is they have finite amounts of land. They can't have an expanding herd. Number two, the horses they usually get are sterilized. They usually are getting geldings because they're getting from the BLM. When you go to an auction or an adoption, you're getting a horse that's already been treated. So you're getting, they don't give you studs. They're not gonna give you a stud, they're not gonna give you. And the MAs are getting injected with goon during roundups now. So it's one shot and that's it. You're done. PZP, they're moving away from PZP'cause it, it takes three or four shots to sterilize them. Mare. So you gotta have boosters, and then finally the mare becomes sterile. So with a sanctuary, what's great about a sanctuary now that's the negative side. You're not gonna get any good genetics going on there because you don't have the coval predators present. You can't have predators in a sanctuary. And because they're confined, they can't do what they do. They, they're not grazing the same way. You know, our horses are covering over 30,000 acres of wilderness here. They're going over mountains and boulders and rocks and canyons and, and they eat a, you know, a hundred different things on the landscape. They're herbalist. They know what every plant does, and they know how to use'em, or no, they use herbs. That's, they're super intelligent. You know, when you fence'em in, they're, they're basically in a really nice prison, you know, and they don't have to die. The nice thing is they're not dead. They get to live out their life in relative comfort. Okay? That's the bright side of a sanctuary. But as far as the future. There's a simple saying that everybody needs to remember. No babies, no future. It's that simple. And up here, our herd, we have about, it depends on the year. 20 to 30 babies. With 20 to 30 babies, we end up with maybe a couple of, a couple of those. Two or three of those babies will become a 2-year-old. The rest, something will happen. So mother nature pairs it down very quickly. And so when you see, for instance, the Salt River herd that's been sterilized extensively. The Salt River herd down there in Arizona, they've got roughly 3, 350 horses, right? They brag about having one baby or two babies and how great PZP is, but they're, they're bragging about their genetic decline because when you're having that low, a number of offspring, you don't have any gene flow. And without gene flow, you're toast. What's gonna happen when there are no more wild horses? Die humans will pass off the planet. Say that again. We'll pass away. The human race will just disappear because there are no wild horses. Yeah. Well, we've co-evolved with them. I mean, we have, you look at the, the co-evolution overlap between humans and, and horses. I mean we have a huge evolutionary overlap with them. They're part of us. I mean, that's why we get along with horses so well. It's very intuitive and they can look into us and they understand us if we lose them. I mean there's, see, and now we're getting into an area that is brand new science. It's called biofield medicine and biofield physics, and I'm talking about e equals mc squared physics. Okay. Horses have a very powerful electromagnetic energy in the field. Yes. Einstein talks about the field. Mm-hmm. That's everything around us in the universe. We're all in this unified field. Mm-hmm. We live in it, it's like a sea of energy. And horses are very powerful, energetic beings. And they've co-evolved with us. I know. And so they're like spiritual brothers. The Lakota, the Lakota tribe recognized horses as a nation. They called'em the horse nation. And you know, they really were in tune with them and they realized they were sentient beans that had been here longer than humans. They realized that they were, that inte. The Lakota could feel that they, they didn't have to read it in a book. You can feel it when I get near a big stallion and his energy field penetrates me. I feel it. Okay. And that's not me being like. You know, often the weeds here are spiritual. No, I have, I have stories that, and pictures that back, that back up what you're saying. I have 10 years of experiences and the whole and 50 episodes of podcasts. That back up what you're saying. This is true. Yeah. Well, science supports it 100%. See, because every living being produces an electromagnetic field, including plants, and you can measure it with, with equipment, you can measure the field. And a horse has such a powerful heart wave. You know, if, and in your audience, a lot of these people are, maybe new people are listening to the podcast, so I'm gonna give'em a little bit of an explanation here. Sure. If you get in a car accident and you're unconscious and you go to the hospital, what they do is they put wires on your brain and on your heart. Well, the, those wires are measuring electricity from your heart and from your brain. And we know in science and physics that when an electron moves through space, it produces an electromagnetic field around it. And that's how a generator works. And that's how electric motors work. It's all about electromagnetics. Okay? So horses are the same way, and so that, that electricity in our bodies is in their body, but it's more powerful. So when you're with a, a horse that wants to help a human, a true therapy horse, and there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people out there that claim they have therapy horses that don't. The horse has to want to do it. It's just like a psychologist or anybody else. The horse has to wanna be empathic and help you. And I've watched that happen with a war veteran up here, a stallion decided to help him just out of the blue. He felt his energy. He went up to him, left his family, went right up to him, not me and him. The, his name was Black Fury. Black Fury. And I are friends, but he went right up to this war veteran that was with me and, and put, you know, put some energy into him and changed him. He was suicidal and turned his life around. So the, these are measurable things now. And so, you know, the, the electromagnetic field from these guys, it, it, it, there's a, there's a coherence with the, the larger field with them. And as we're shrinking this herd down, we're losing their energy in the field. And that's a, that's a bad thing because these sentient beans, equ cabals, the horses behind you and me, they've been here 2 million years and they haven't destroyed the planet. I think that's a big accomplishment. It's way better than what we've done as a species. There's no comparison there. There's not. And you know, even if people don't understand the science and the energy and what you're talking about, people can understand metaphor and clearly the wild horse is a symbol of our freedom. I don't mean just in this country, but all over the world. Our freedom. And as their numbers diminish, it's no coincidence that so does our freedom. Mm-hmm. Yeah. In Arabic poetry you know, Arabic nations are really big on horses of course. And in Arabic poetry, they say Heaven is the heir that passes between a horse's ears. Yeah. Wow, there's so much to think about here. So I don't know how anybody can have this information and not wanna do something like we need to. We need to do something. And I'm gonna be doing more podcasts. Yeah, we're working hard. Good. More, more podcasts. And we have a some filming planned and possibly some fundraising and gonna be networking with. Now I know to reach out and look for five oh fours that can do some political work and just figure out how to unify all of the movements and people in the United States to come together to make sure we don't lose wild horses. Yeah, we do. We've gotta do that. And it's unfortunate that we do have some nonprofit WildHorse orgs that are helping the M'S agenda and sterilizing horses. They tell their followers that if we sterilize the horses and stop breeding that they won't round them up anymore. But that's not true. Either's not true because it's not true. I mean, the case in point, the sand wash horses, I mean, you've got an organization over there, the Wild Horse Organization, they've been shooting them full of PP for 22 years. They talk about it right on their website. The BLM came in and rounded up 435 horses. They're all sterile horses, you know, and, and when you sterilize horses, you and the genetic flow, you are bottlenecking it, you're putting a stopper in the bottle. So these organizations are shame on them. And they're soaking up a lot of donation money telling people that it's a way to save wild horses, sterilizing them. It's ridiculous. What we can do, we have a plan that is proven, okay. There's no mystery. We have a rock solid can-do solution, and it's called WildHorse Fire Brigade. Mm-hmm. And what we wanna do is get the horses from the BLM before they're all gone and move them into the remote wilderness where they're not doing livestock grazing. Where all these wildfires are because there's so much fuel. You know, we have a collapse of the deer herds in Oregon and California. Oregon's down 500,000 deer. That's, that's, that's the vision I keep having my, my old mayor, that's the vision. I keep getting released them into the forest. I've seen that and heard that from her. That's, that's it. Yeah. So if we do that, we have million, we have millions of acres available. We just have to get the right people to say, okay, let's do this. First of all, you have to have experience managing a herd of wild horses. Now, the BLM doesn't manage'em. They just run'em around. They catch'em. They, they harvest'em and sell'em and do all the stuff that they do. They, they don't manage horses, you know, they don't study horses. I've. Run into people from the BBL m that don't know. The first thing about wild horses, you know, they're, they get these cowboys that got domestic horses. They don't wild horses still horses, dunno. They still dunno. They dunno. They, they don't. So, you know, it's gonna take empirical experience. You can't be assessed a pilot and go fly a 7 47, it's not gonna work. You're gonna crash. Mm-hmm. So I tell people, look, we work for free. Michelle and I have been working our butts off for free. We're pro bono. Everybody in our organization is pro bono. We don't want to be influenced by money. When money is influencing people, they make bad decisions. We have the ability, and we have two PhDs on our board that did their PhDs in hor in wild horses. By the way, they're not, a PhD in psychology or PhD in Indian studies, or no, these guys, you know, Dr. Murphy and Dr. Linkletter, bulk PhDs and wild equines, that's what they are. And they, you know, they're experts too. They joined our board because they know we have the only herd like this in the world. We are the only individuals living among wild horses in the wilderness. Nobody else does this. We can change that. That we can change. Yeah. It, it takes years and a lot of money. I mean, I've spent my, my entire life savings to get the land, to get the infrastructure to be here all the time. It's, no, you know, I mean, we're, you're talking about a half a million dollars just to be able to study'em properly. Okay. That's the opening nanny right there. The, the thing is, is when you go study horses, like most scientists with binoculars, they run out to an HMA and with their binoculars and their lunch bucket and their coffee, and they get set up with their camera and they, you know, some of these people got telephoto lenses on their cameras cost more than my car. And and then it looks like they're right up against the horse. They take this picture and it looks like, wow, look how close they were, like 50 feet away. Oh, they're a quarter mile away with this giant lens, you know? And, and, and so you can't learn, but they, they claim to be experts because they're taking pictures of horses on a weekend once a month. It's not the same. That's not, that's definitely not it. The same. So we've documented, we've documented a lot of brand new science up here by living with'em. We know things that nobody's ever published. We published a sum of that. Michelle and I are gonna write a book about wild horses and when Michelle takes a picture of a horse, she's sharing breath with it practically. She's like, because we're part of the herd, you know? Right. I mean, it's a whole different gig. I'm, and I'm, I'm really excited to get to talk to her about her stories. You know, the real personal stories. I know you're the science kind of end of it, and you've had so many incredible, like, facts and background and, you know, the nitty gritty of what's happening. And, and I'm excited to talk to her too, about. Yours and her personal experiences, the heartwarming things that happen with these wild horses and, and people need to know about this. So, well, Michelle, Michelle is a very special person and you know, I mean, and, and I sincerely mean that in every way. You know, I've met a lot of people. I'm 73, I've been all over the world. Okay. I did missionary work in the South Pacific. I ran a missionary medical ship. I've done a lot of different things. I'm a commercial pilot in airplanes and helicopters. I've met a lot of people. Michelle is a very special, unusual person. And, you know, I'm kind of the bulldozer in the organization. I gotta go out there and, and when people lie to me, boom, you know, it's, here it comes. Yeah. You know, I don't like people that lie we can't align. People go, well, bill. Why don't you work with these other organizations? Well, I'll tell you why. I don't work with people that are killing wild horses. That's why if they're killing them or sterilizing, I can't work with them. That, that sounds like a little bit of a warning of what I may find as I start digging out there. But we'll, we'll circle back and talk more. I know we're about out of time for today, I so appreciate you coming on and talking to me and filling in so many of these blanks and letting the listeners know what is really happening so that we can begin to do something and realize the danger and we can distinction. Yeah, we can. I love the wild forest fire brigade. We can, there's hope. There's a lot of hope. There's a lot of hope here. And Michelle will share her perspective, which is a very unique perspective as well, because she has that medical background, you know? Right. She's a nurse practitioner. Right. So I'm also curious, your horses that I met two years ago before I found you and Michelle, how much land are they on? Our area here, this is designated open range. Mm-hmm. And our Siskiyou County range is a term that means if you don't want horses on your land, you gotta fence them out. It's your duty to fence them out. Mm-hmm. So they get to go everywhere. So they could have been anywhere, but they were right where I was. Yeah, they generally orbit the cabin within oh three to five miles. Mm-hmm. You know, straight out. So if you, I see if you do that for the radius, you know, five miles, they, they could be anywhere in that area. So, and they come to the cabin all the time because they, they're truly social beings and they want to come visit us again. They want to come hang out again. Hey, how's it going? My horses love it. When people come, they're always are we gonna get to work with them today? Who's here? They get really excited and happy when they see people. But anyways, thank you again so much, William, and I'll be, I'll be talking to you soon. Well, thank you Isha. I appreciate the time and I appreciate the fact that you're trying to make a difference and that's what it takes. Yeah. We, I appreciate all that you've done too, and we'll, we'll take this forward. All right. I.