This past Saturday, we welcomed a new resident to the sanctuary. She is a Wild Mustang Mare we named “Onaqui,” in honor of the Onaqui Mountains in Utah situated on the public lands where she lived and the famous herd she came from of the same name.
Onaqui (pronounced O-nah-kee) is a Native American word that means “Salt Mountain” or “Pine Tree Mountain.” The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) captured her and more than 300 other wild horses from that herd during a brutal 5-day roundup last July. The Salt Lake Tribune published this report about the roundup.
“Onaqui,” whom the BLM estimated to be around 16 years old, should have been returned to the range immediately due to her age. Instead, she suffered in captivity like so many other wild horses.
In addition to her BLM freeze brand under the left side of her mane, she has another brand of “BZ” on her left flank. That brand indicates that she had been darted with the PZP fertility control vaccine.
As you know, we oppose all roundups of wild horses and burros. We have three wild horses here at the sanctuary: Nelson, who had been captured in Nevada as a foal in 1999, and Hayden and Kachina, who were both captured in the Pryor Mountains of Montana at the age of two in 2007 and 2010 respectively. All three of them had been abused and mistreated, and needed to be rescued. The bottom line is that many people who adopt or end up with a wild horse or burro are not always equipped to care for them properly and often become frustrated when they realize these animals do not behave like domestic equines. For many of these animals, it is just a matter of time before they end up at auction and sold for slaughter.
The cruel, inhumane, and disastrous governmental policy called “The Path Forward,” which permits and promotes the rounding up of wild mustangs and burros from America’s vast public lands, among other atrocities, was first instituted in 2019. Mystifyingly, several national animal “welfare” groups, as well as some wild mustang “protection” organizations, joined pro-horse slaughter industry groups and became “strange bedfellows” in support of this terrible policy.
Industry groups representing ranchers, fossil fuel companies, and pro-slaughter politicians, including Utah Congressman Chris Stewart, who represents many of these special interests, have used their power and influence to eliminate these herds from their rightful homes on America’s public lands.
We thank Jen Rogers, President and Founder of the Red Birds Trust, for helping to facilitate Onaqui’s release to us. As a professional photographer, she has poignantly documented this mare’s former life on the range when at age 16, her entire world was suddenly shattered and the life she had led was taken away.
While our sanctuary is not close to the kind of environment Onaqui is used to, we are committed to doing everything possible to make her feel safe, secure, and loved. We love her already! She’s also available for sponsorship.