By Caleb Gossett

Source: James Marvin Phelps

This is my first time writing a blog for Wells Bring Hope, having been a volunteer doing online research this summer before I go back to college. Recently I did some work with another organization that works to save wild horses. Although they are two very different organizations, the work that they do is more alike than different. Working with the horses helped to open my eyes to the severe conditions Wells Bring Hope is trying to alleviate.

When I was first approached about helping lead a youth expedition to assist in saving wild horses in the desert of Nevada, I was a bit bewildered. My first thought was: Are they serious? Are there even wild horses in Nevada? So I asked that very question.“Yeah, of course there are! We’ll be traveling just outside of Eureka, Nevada to an HMA.”

Eureka, Nevada? HMA? What are they talking about? I was way out of my depth. So I did some reading, asked some questions and I learned about the challenges facing supporters of wild horse preservation – a conflict that I had never even heard of, prior to this expedition. HMA is a Herd Management Area, basically an area of land for cattle that is regulated by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

What I learned from this as I journeyed into the sparsely populated (Population: 610), scalding hot desert (100 degrees every day), is that horses can survive in some pretty extreme heat. While I haven’t been there to experience it firsthand, I know that the people of Niger live and work in the same brutal climate, with sandstorms sometimes making life even harder.

I also learned that the horses are brutally mistreated, underfed, and are not getting enough water. And, although the drought currently affecting the West Coast is partially at fault, much of the blame lies with people.

Essentially, it’s a conflict between the ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The ranchers want to use the BLM land so that they can graze their cattle less expensively and for more months per year.

What do you do with the horses you might ask? Good question! You kill them, according to the ranchers. From their perspective, horses don’t really DO anything. They’re just there.

But they are living creatures. And if you have ever had the pleasure of meeting a horse, you know that they’re something special–majestic, gentle, half-ton animals, you can’t help but get attached.

Having been moved by the suffering of horses, I became more in touch with the pain of the people of Niger who have no safe water, whose children die from contaminated water far too often. They’re suffering in ways far greater than the horses of Eureka, Nevada. They’re people like you and me and they need our help. Clean water is an integral part of survival and the wells that Wells Bring Hope provides are helping to save lives and bring happiness to so many people.