Canku Ota
	(Many Paths)
	An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America
	October 20, 2001 - Issue 47
	Wild Horses Return to Cheyenne River
	by Pauline Webb - Eagle Butte News -October 3, 2001

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe will receive 120 wild horses from the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (ISPMB) later this month. The horses will run on the former VE ranch near LaPlant, as part of the Lakota National Park under development there. They will be managed by the CRST Game, Fish and Parks Department. Twenty mares and twenty stallions will be in the first consignment, to be delivered on October 10. The horses are coming from a historic site in Storey County, Nevada, out of Virginia Hills, Virginia Range. They are descendants of the first US wild horses to be identified and protected in 1952. The 1,000 horses there range on 350,000 acres, in three bands. Extensive records are kept on each herd, and the herds are kept totally separate from each other and from tame horses. Cheyenne River's wild horses will be managed in partnership with the ISPMB for the first year, to take advantage of the organization's expertise in the field. Future plans for the herd will bring students and tourists to see them in a natural environment, along with buffalo, elk, and other wildlife. CRST Game, Fish and Parks is working to develop and market a destination resort program emphasizing the natural beauty of the prairie and its inhabitants and the ways the Lakota people lived in harmony with their environment. The Society (ISPMB) hopes to develop a history of the Lakota people and the horse and encourage research on wild horses through partnerships with universities across the nation, as well as locally. Most current research is centered, not on their conservation, but on their competition with cattle and big horn sheep. They are also hoping to build a national wild horse center, although no location is selected. Although the horses must remain isolated for the first few days after their arrival, a public blessing ceremony is planned for October. The ISPMB works to preserve and protect free-roaming wild horses and burros, nationally and internationally. It was founded in 1960 to assist Velma Johnston (Wild Horse Annie) in her effort to prevent inhumane treatment and eventual eradication of wild horses and burros on western rangeland. Johnston's efforts on behalf of the horses brought tremendous attention to public lands in the western US and led to legislation protecting not only the horses and burros, but the lands themselves. In 1999 ISPMB became the first privately funded organization to manage a wild, free-roaming wild horse herd, located on a private ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

www.expedia.com

International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros The International Society for the Protection of Mustang and Burros is an effective international leader in our field because we have earned the respect and credibility of the many diverse participants in the Wild Horse and Burro program. Our main thrust is one of education and of becoming a model, a way of “being” on this planet we call Mother Earth. One can make no greater impression than to lead by example. ISPMB honors the wild horse and burro and realizes the interdependence of all living things in this universe. http://www.ispmb.com/

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