The sound of an approaching helicopter can trigger a range of emotions. To someone injured or distressed, the whop, whop, whop sound of an approaching helicopter can alleviate fear and ignite a sense of relief. To someone in a war zone, the same sound can produce the exact opposite effect.
To most of us, the helicopters we have heard do not occur in either of these two extremes. The whop, whop, whop instead often comes unexpectedly and can fill us with confusion, concern, apprehension, suspicion, helplessness, insecurity, nervousness, or even anger. This is particularly true when the sound of a helicopter is sudden, nearby, and over our homes.
Sometime this month, the Bureau of Land Management will engage helicopters to remove one of Colorado’s remaining four wild horse herds on public land. Flying at low altitudes, federal agents or contractors will drive the herd for miles to an area where individual horses can be loaded onto trucks and taken to a holding center. Once removed, it is very unlikely these horses will ever return to the wild.
The BLM maintains that helicopters are a humane way of driving these wild animals across the land to points where they can be removed by land-based vehicles. Increasingly, biologists, wild horse advocates, and casual observers disagree. Every indication is that an approaching helicopter produces an equally wide range of emotional and physical responses in a wild horse as it would in a human.
Bruce Nock from the Washington University School of Medicine explains the scene: There you are, a wild horse leisurely passing the day on the open rangelands of the western United States. Life is good — congenial herd- mates, nice weather and enough to eat. Suddenly, you are startled by movement and strange sounds behind you. All of your senses instantly come alive. Your eyesight sharpens and your hearing becomes more acute. You make a flash decision … run!
The physiological reaction described by Nock is what is known as the fight-or-flight reaction, bodily changes that enhance one’s chance of surviving a frightening situation by increasing alertness, capacity for physical exertion and ability to withstand injury. Nock believes it is not “an exaggeration to say, as gathers are routinely done in the USA, if a wild horse doesn’t die straight off from the immediate devastation and commotion, it compromises him/her physically and mentally, putting him on a path of accelerated deterioration.”
Stress from the actual roundup only begins for wild horses targeted for removal when the helicopters arrive. Wild horses live in close-knit family structures, known as “bands.” Gathers disrupt social bonds formed over considerable periods of time in bands, resulting in social, emotional and physical stress on the surviving members of the band after a roundup. Indeed, roundups and removals are very stressful for the individual wild horses, which depend on familiarity with their home ranges and with each other for mutual protection, safety and comfort.
Gathers and subsequent captivity of wild horses can have long-term negative effects on these animals. Such a traumatic event can compromise a wild horse’s ability to deal with natural stressors, such as severe weather conditions. Stress from gathers can dramatically affect how an animal functions and behaves, and even its appearance. Loss or separation from lifelong herd-mates also causes additional stress and damaging behavioral changes in wild horses. Such effects can last a lifetime.
Unfortunately, the BLM has never really examined (at least publicly) the emotional, physical or social impacts to horses subjected to helicopter roundups on federal public lands.
Coloradans should demand they do so before some of our last wild horses are subjected to such devastating physical and emotional pain.
Michael Harris is director of the Wildlife Rights Law Center for the national non-profit Friends of Animals. He is based in Centennial.
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