Well, I’ve finally brought myself to write about the most depressing day I have ever had photographing. It occurred on December 5, 2019.
For those of you who know me and my passion for the Onaqui herd of wild horses, you know that I loved photographing “The Ghost”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ghost, I first photographed him April 2015. I had hiked about ¼ mile with only my longest telephoto lens (big mistake) and found the herd was grazing in the rocky foothills directly South of Dugway.
At first, I did not notice that I had never seen him before (with over 400 horses in the herd it is hard to identify/remember specific individuals). But it was soon apparent that this was a new to me, and a very special horse. He was super aggressive towards every stallion in the herd that dared give him a glance. He was full of testosterone, neck amazingly arched, prancing, snorting and provoking every stallion he could. He was entirely stunning in looks and in his actions. I was mesmerized with him. He was absolutely incredible as he taunted the rest of the stallions.
(first photograph I took of “The Ghost”)
I photographed him all afternoon. I must have thousands of photographs of him from that afternoon. Late in the day, he just lost interest, and disappeared over the edge of the hill we were on. I hiked up to the ridge only to see him running due South, at full speed. He just kept running until he was out of site.
Days later I asked another photographer that is much more familiar with the herd (Kent Keller) about this horse. I described him, his markings and behavior. Kent informed me that the horse I had photographed was named “The Ghost”. He is named that because he appears out of nowhere, taunts the stallions in the Onaqui herd, and then disappears for years at a time. Then he re-appears, repeats the taunting (and likely succeeds with some of the mares), and disappears once again! This was my first encounter with “The Ghost” and this was 2015.
I did not see him again until Dec 11, 2018. I had a hard time locating the herd. I had driven further South than usual in an attempt to find some horses. I was probably 4 miles North of the Dugway geode beds when I spotted a small family band nearly a mile from the road. I proceeded to walk to them and as I got closer I recognized the band to be my all-time favorite family band. The lead stallion is a magnificent cremello (crème colored with blue eyes & pink skin), the mare is a beautiful pinto and with her were her two latest offspring. The older colt is a pinto with one blue and one brown eye. The younger colt is a beautiful pinto filly with two blue eyes. I have been watching this little family band for several years, and now ghost is shadowing them! At that time, I was hoping that he would stick with this band and eventually make a move on fighting the cremello for that pinto mare.
(Blue-Eyed mare in background with her two offspring in Dec, 2018)
Well, I was right. Ghost shadowed that band for the entire year. He had become a “1st lieutenant, meaning; he will hang around with the band and help fight off the stallions that investigate the band. These first lieutenants then wait for the right time to mate with the mare, or fight the lead stallion for the mare.
Ghost was shadowing the band constantly wherever they roamed. I last photographed him with the cremello’s band on August 29, 2019.
(this year’s foal has Ghost’s markings)
On that trip I photographed this year’s foal from the beautiful pinto mare that ghost had his eye on. I believe that he was successful in mating with her. As you can see the offspring has all of ghost’s coloring, not that of the cremello. I was looking forward to see if there was going to be a fight between ghost and the cremello for the band, or if ghost would disappear again.
Unfortunately, as in life, things sometime do not go as planned. As you can see by the photographs I took at the BLM holding pen in Delta, Utah on December 5, 2019. The ghost and the cremello were rounded up in late September by the BLM (the BLM broke their promise NOT TO ROUND UP ANY OF THE ONAQUI HERD IN THE VALLEY). During that “gather” they rounded up over 200 of the Onaqui wild horse herd. They claimed they were only rounding up horses on Dugway Proving Ground land and those few horses that were living high in the mountains. With ghost and the cremello as part of those unfortunate horses rounded up, they obviously did not live up to their promises. Despite being notified that they HAD gathered up at least two very famous horses from “the valley”, the BLM refused to return ghost and the cremello to the wild. Many wild horse groups volunteered to return them at no cost to the BLM. They refused to have them returned under any circumstances.
(Ghost and Cremello stallion in BLM holding pens, Delta, UT)
On the day we visited the holding pens we learned that both of them had been castrated and branded and would be put up for auction as soon as they are out of quarantine. A sad day for the Onaqui herd. Genes from both ghost and the cremello are forever removed from the Onaqui gene pool. Thank you, BLM. Sadly, this is just the beginning. The BLM is taking the position of “gathering” (and putting them in pens for the rest of their lives along with the 50,000 wild horses already in pens) the Onaqui herd and other wild horse herds throughout the West rather than getting aggressive with fertility control.
Although technically ghost is not dead; he is dead to the remaining Onaqui herd and based on what I witnessed in the Delta holding pens, the ghost’s spirit is, in fact, dead…
