Taming a Part of the Wild West

Fauquier Trainer Tries To Be Part of the Solution for Mustang Problem

He calls her Valentine for the white, heart-shaped patch on her forehead. It stands out on the chocolate-brown coat of the filly retrieved from the wild.

For weeks, Shane Mortenson has been working with 6-month-old Valentine at his farm just outside Manassas. He considers it the ultimate challenge for an experienced horse trainer: to take a wild mustang, fearful of humans and used to running free, and earn its trust. He has taken it slow, approaching her quietly, talking in a calming voice. He has gotten her to let him lift her hooves, an essential breakthrough because he needs to trim her heels to gradually heal her slightly clubbed feet, which she developed in the wild.

"She's still very leery of me," Mortenson said. "It takes time, patience. You spend the first few weeks just approaching them and letting them get used to you."

Mortenson is one of more than a dozen people in the region who became owners of 26 wild horses and burros at an adoption event last month in Lorton.

The event was part of a nationwide effort to control the wild horse population. Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar highlighted the problem and unveiled a plan to aggressively sterilize wild horses and transplant thousands to new public preserves in the Midwest and East. The plan has met with mixed reaction among animal advocates, many of whom are relieved that the government will not turn to euthanasia, which has been proposed in the past. Others said the wild horses should be allowed more land to roam.

For decades, adoption has been the government's way of addressing the wild horse population problem. The adoption program, run by the U.S. Department of Interior, was born out of a dark period for America's mustangs. With the spread of combustion engines early in the 20th century, horsepower became less needed. Ranchers who couldn't afford to keep their horses turned them loose. Profiteers began to hunt the mustangs, capturing them for their hides and to turn their carcasses into dog food and glue. The country, with its longtime love affair with horses, passed legislation to protect them.

But with the mustang population growing at an estimated 20 percent a year, officials worried the horses would force other species out of their habitat and overgraze lands. So in 1973, the Interior Department began adopting out wild horses, said Terry Lewis, a spokesman for the department's Bureau of Land Management.

The adoption of more than 3,000 horses a year hasn't kept the wild population from growing. It has reached an estimated 69,000: about 37,000 in free-roaming herds and 32,000 in holding facilities. Officials say the roaming land can support only about 26,000.

Every year, government workers round up hundreds of wild horses from western federal lands, corralling them by helicopter. The animals are treated by veterinarians, freeze-branded with liquid nitrogen (a more humane method than traditional hot brands) and shipped throughout the country to adoption events. Some events are conducted as auctions; others, like the one in Lorton, are strictly adoptions, with a $125 fee per horse.

"We find them good homes and reduce the population at the same time," Lewis said.

Many people who go to the events have adopted other wild horses. Mortenson, for instance, has adopted six horses and a wild burro.

Horses, Mortenson said, have been a passion his whole life. He grew up in the Midwest, riding bulls at rodeos and earning a reputation for riding and rehabilitating the wildest horses. When he moved to the Washington area to work as an officer at the Army National Guard bureau in Arlington County, he wanted to keep caring for and training horses with his wife. So two years ago, they bought a 25-acre property in Catlett and began a side business training and boarding horses.

When Mortenson heard of the wild horse adoptions, he decided he had to look. "As a trainer, you can train all the domesticated horses you want, but a mustang, that's a true test of who you are," he said. "To train one and have it bond with you, it's like taking part in a piece of American history."

At the 2007 adoption in Lorton, Mortenson said he thought he would get just one horse but ended up taking home four. One in particular caught his eye. His face was a deep red, and his color turned more silvery toward the tail. He looked wild and clearly was afraid of human touch. Mortenson named him Geronimo in honor of the strong-willed Apache leader. It took Mortenson months to earn the horse's trust, but now he is the pride of Mortenson's farm.

Last month, Mortenson returned to Lorton, not planning to adopt another horse, he said, but intending to look and talk to fellow owners for fun. Within minutes, he fell in love with the small brown filly Valentine. His wife spotted a second horse, a gelding, and persuaded Mortenson to adopt him, too, as well as a burro.

"We weren't planning to get anything, but you go to these things and see them at their most wild state and you just want to work with them," he said. "In a way, you feel honored to be in their presence."