About horses and fish hatcheries
Wild horses were back in the news earlier this month when the Bureau of Land Management reported the untamed mustang populations were out of control and they were going to remove 2,000 from Wyoming, plus a few from Utah and Montana.
Nevada wasn't mentioned in spite of the fact that state has over half the estimated 33,00 wild horses freely roaming 10 western states. "Activists" were immediately critical.
The entire horse problem is unreal, needless and immeasurably costly. It will not be solved as long as the practical but repugnant solution of shooting surplus animals is stopped by emotionally motivated lawsuits.
Look at the problem: (1) The free roamers are using, and in many areas destroying, grazing range for themselves as well as domestic and native animals. (2) We the taxpayers are footing the bills for roughly 40,000 horses earlier taken from the ranges and placed in "long-term" holding pens. (3) Wild horse herd numbers on average double every four years. (4) Last year's budget just for BLM's care of penned horses was $36.9 million. Where does it end? As Larry Wilson would say, "What do you think?"
In the fall of 1938, my same-age uncle Stan Harris and I were sitting astride our trusty steeds by a dusty road running between the Bonner ranch and ours at Camas Prairie. Mr. Bonner came by driving a small herd of horses, including a pinto mare colt. He stopped to chat a minute and we asked where he was going.
Said he was taking the horses to the State Fish Hatchery at Ravalli. We wondered why so he explained, "They buy horse meat to feed the fish."
Mr. Bonner obviously saw the emotional impact on two 10-year-old boys regarding the coming fate of the beautiful little colt. He pushed his old cowboy hat back on his head and said, "Tell you what boys. All of us ranching folks are hurting these days, but I can get along without the money for that colt. If you open the gate, I'll drive her through and you can have her." There was great joy on that day long ago, and "Dixie" grew up to become one of our favorite cattle ponies.
That is just one story to illustrate my long relationship with horses, and how much they've meant to me.
The hatchery at Ravalli was abandoned sometime after World War II, and I believe the state now only has the one on Flathead Lake and another in Lewistown. All the early hatcheries used horse meat to raise trout, including the one at the inlet of Bitterroot Lake.
The Creston Hatchery was built by the National Park Service in 1934 and used horse meat for a good many years. Now they buy "commercial fish food." Don't know if there is horse meat involved, but as a side note, several years back I wrote about a wild horse roundup I was on and learned tons of that meat was used each year in pet food products.
Regarding the federal hatchery operation in Creston, it was "sold" (transferred) by the Park Service to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department in 1939. Years later, President Ronald Reagan tried to close it down because its original purpose of supplying fingerlings to Glacier Park no longer existed. Big political battle ended with continued operation and fish going to Montana Indian reservations and the state.
There are six hatchery employees now with a federal "partner" who works with private land owners on fisheries-related issues, such as bull trout protection, etc. Four federal ecological service personnel are also employed. The hatchery this year produced 743,000 rainbow trout and 213,000 west slope cutthroat, which are usually stocked after reaching 4 to 6 inches.
Wonder how much hatcheries pay out for "commercial fish food"?
G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.