That's quit a headline don't you think? If that headline hit the media on any given day the story would go viral. It would spread around the globe and back again as quickly as you can read this post. But the government has not set fire to Yosemite. Or to any other National Park for that matter.
Yet those places are keenly familiar to us. They were given protection under President Teddy Roosevelt. He was a conservationist at heart. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to recognize the importance for what we now know as a National Park, into just that, a place our nation proudly protects and allows to be in its best state, natural and wild.
These National Parks are cared for by us. They belong to every American. Through our tax dollars they are proudly protected and we as citizens are allowed the privilege of absorbing them in all their beauty and glory. I personally have only been to two of our great National Parks. I know, I need to get busy. They are there and will always be there for me, my family and my families family. What would have happened to all the incredible land of the National Parks of America if they had not been deemed as National Treasures? I will give you one guess.
As I have been diving into the world of our wild horses, I have had a hard time connecting to my role in their preservation. I know with my horse Milagro, I first adopted him. Now I give him the best home I can possibly think of. I dote on him, I spoil him. I watch him struggle at times, and thrive most always. I love him and support him and I know he loves and supports me. He relies on me solely, we are family.
A wild horse on the other hand, is just that, wild. I feel them in my heart. I hear them in my soul. I want to reach out and give them all the love and family that I can afford to give Milagro. But, they are wild?
What I have finally come to understand is that they need me just as much as Milagro does. They need each one of us. They are all of our horses. They are yours and mine, your children's horses, your neighbors, your dentist. Just as the National Parks of America are yours and mine. The wild ones as we like to call them, belong to America. Yes indeed they are wonderfully and exuberantly wild. But that does not mean we are not all connected. We most certainly are. These creatures rely on us to protect them, offer safe haven and offer protection from callas corporate greed.
Right now, in your country and mine, America, for a better word, has started a wild fire on the wild horse population. The recent article from U.S. News where our Bureau of Land Management states proudly that they have doubled the amount of wild horses to be rounded up this year due to drought, is an affirmation on their part. The kindling was set a few years back with the passing of The Path Forward, and now with the increase in budget and the heat being turned up, they are in a full raging fire storm. The drought is just a means to an end. Horses drink water whether they are living free on a range or cooped up in a federal holding pen. The choice of where to care for them is the question here. Nor the fact that many targeted herds are having no problems at all with food and water.
The only firewall the horses have is us. The American people. The people who pay for all these wrong doings and the people who owe it to all of our National Treasures to stand up and speak out. Would we stand by and let the government and large corporate influence shut down our National Parks? Or worse yet, destroy them forever? I do not think for one minute this would be acceptable to anyone.
If you are a girl like me who grew up wanting to have a horse some day, well I am here to tell you, today is your lucky day. You not only have one, you have many. They are all looking to us for salvation. They are all looking to us to educate others. They are asking in their highest power, to hear them. To acknowledge their existence.
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