Wild horses to be auctioned via satellite

Sandra Chereb

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 3:41 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is going high-tech to promote its Wild Horse and Burro Adoption program and find willing owners for animals in need of a new home.

On Tuesday, the agency will hold its second satellite auction in less than a year, putting up for bid about 130 of the free-roaming mustangs and 10 wild burros removed from Western rangeland.

Most of the horses were gathered from Nevada after last summer's wildfires destroyed 1.6 million acres of rangeland and the horses' stomping grounds.

Superior Livestock Auction of Fort Worth, Texas, will handle the bidding on the animals, most of which are at the BLM's wild horse adoption center in Palomino Valley north of Reno.

The auction will be televised live to C-band satellite subscribers who may view the auction in real time and make bids by telephone.

"It's a new market," said BLM spokeswoman Maxine Shane in Sparks.

The stars of Tuesday's show are previewed on the BLM's Web site. Since pictures of the adoptees were posted in mid-April, the site has received more than 5,100 hits, Shane said.

Melanie Jackson of Front Royal, Va., bought a gelding during the BLM's first satellite auction in August.

"I just thought I wanted to give a home to a horse that needed a home," she said of the pet she named Shadow. "That's why I wanted a mustang."

Jackson bought her first mustang the year before on a BLM Internet auction, when the bureau first moved the adoption process out of the corral into the emerging world of new technology.

The idea of auctioning horses via satellite was posed by cattlemen's groups to help rid the range of an overabundance of wild horses that compete with livestock for fodder.

There are roughly 1.6 million C-band users in the United States, said Joe Lichtie of Superior Livestock. The company uses satellite transmissions to auction up to 30,000 head of cattle, "from Florida to Washington state and all places in-between" on a single day.

"You hit a lot of folks," he said.

The BLM, which manages the estimated 44,000 wild horses around the West, said promoting the adoption program on the Internet and having live auctions has increased awareness and made it easier for people to adopt the animals.

The BLM even will deliver animals purchased from the Palomino Valley site to one of the agency's horse facilities closest to home: Ridgecrest, Calif., Piney Woods, Miss., Elm Creek, Neb., Pauls Valley, Okla., Washington, Penn., Cross Plains, Tenn., or Milwaukee.

The first eight animals of the group to be auctioned were gathered in Wyoming and have been saddle-trained by inmates at the Riverton, Wyo., honor camp. Those horses must be picked up there.

This week, BLM employees in Battle Mountain were busy fielding calls to a toll-free number from potential bidders around the country, who must be preapproved to participate.

"We've gotten 300 calls so far and have sent applications to about three-quarters of those people. That's all over the country," said Shawna Richardson, a BLM employee.

Minimum bid is $125, the BLM's standard fee for wild horse and burro adoptions. But the animals can go for much higher.

During last year's test run, one gelding sold for $1,000, Shane said. A mare and colt went for $950 as a package deal and one stud sold for $750.

They were among the 87 animals sold from a lot of 80 horses and about 50 pairs of moms and colts.

All the money goes back into the Wild Horse and Burro Program, Shane said.

Jennifer Nelson, of Bloomington, Ill., acquired a colt a few weeks ago when the BLM offered mustangs for adoption in her area.

Expecting a scruffy, short-legged nag, Nelson said she got much more.

"I was surprised at the quality," she said. "This is a very elegant, beautifully built little horse.

"It was neat to be able to adopt something that has some history with it."

Nelson has her eye on another one in Tuesday's auction.

Richard Burton, of Lucasville, Ohio, also is registered for the auction.

"I intend on getting one for sure, maybe two," he said.

Burton, who has adopted six mustangs over the past several years, said they're a cut above other horses he's had.