RACE TO SAVE NATIVE HORSES GROWS MORE CRITICAL

By Miriam Raftery

Photo:  Kupa, one of the last dozen descendants of San Diego's heritage herd, has died of a rattlesnake bite. His owner is asking the County to protect  the remaining herd descedants under the County's MultipleSpecies Conservation Plan.

April 17, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) – Kupa, one of only a dozen descendants of San Diego’s heritage herd of wild horses, has died. Kathleen Hayden made the announcement “with a breaking heart” on Facebook yesterday, stating that “during the night, our four-year-old Coyote Canyon stallion, Kupa, was bitten in his eye by a rattlesnake and died.”

Hayden is cofounder of Coyote Canyon Caballos d’Anza, a nonprofit in Santa Ysabel.  For years, she and her foundation have been fighting to gain protection for the heritage herd. The federal government has long refused to recognize horses as native species worthy of protection, believing they were brought here by European explorers.

But on March 23, 2023, Science published a report by 84 researchers who concluded that horses evolved first in North America and later crossed a land bridge over the Bering Strait to Eurasia. There are ancient fossils found in the Anza Borrego desert and Carlsbad  predating the early Spanish and English explorers to bolster that claim, as well as references to Native American horses in writings of Sir Francis Drake in 1580.

Those findings have reignited the urgent call to save wild horses and try to repopulate San Diego’s heritage herd on public lands, before it is too late.

Now extinct in the wild, the San Diego Heritage herd has at least 11 descendants documented through DNA testing verified by Dr. Gus Cothran. Hayden has five of those – three mares and two stallions. She’s  asked the County to add the last descendants of San Diego’s wild horses into San Diego County’s Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Program.

The last of local tribal horses were removed from the federally designated Coyote Canyon Wild Horse Herd Area by state parks on the Anza Borrego Desert in 2003.  Hayden states in a letter submitted to the County on April 7, “This action was determined to be a violation ofCEQA, NEPA, Sec. 106 of the1966 National Preservation Act, Consultation, the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act,1973 ESA, and 1976 FLPMA.”

She adds,”Now extinct in the wild and a sa Native American and cultural resource,San Diego has the opportunity to designate habitat and restore the Coyote Canyon Herd to genetic viability.”

Besides the five horses on  Hayden’s property,  there are six more at undisclosed locations.  But Hayden told ECM, ”If the Multiple Species Habitat includes the Heritage Herd as a special status and protected Resource, we have been assured that the location of the remaining descendants will be disclosed.

The California Legislature in 2015 added a requirement to include tribal cultural resources in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) but there’s evidence that San Diego’s tribes were consulted about the Heritage Herd as a resource.

Although horses are not included in the Endangered Species Act, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was enacted by Congress to ensure survival of these species on public lands.

In March 2016, Karen Minder at California Fish & Wildlife stated, “When and if available scientific information convinces the experts that determine the checklist of native species to North America that Equus caballus should be considered as an indigenous species, they will make the change in the next revision to the list.

Restoration and preservation of the Coyote Canyon Wild Horses herd has previously been endorsed by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Congressman Darrell Issa, and other politicians as well as state and local equestrian organizations.

Most of the horses’ historic ranges are now in the public domain and subject to preservation of native and cultural resources mandates as well as preservation/restoration mandates. These include the Santa Ysabel Preserve and nearby wildlife preserves in Ramona, Volcan Mountain in Julian, San Felipe Valley, Warner Springs and more. 

Even after burying the stallion, Kupa, beneath an oak tree on the lands of his ancestors, Hayden remains hopeful. A new foal is due to be born soon, sired by Don Coyote,son of the original Coyote Canyon Stallion.

But Hayden notes, the future of the species” is dependent on government agencies to ensure habitat, so that they don’t go extinct.”

Hayden concludes that is is “imperative now to incorporate them as a federally protected special status species in the Multiple Species Habitat Plans.”

Clarification:  After this  ran,  Hayden sent clarification indicating she has found no evidence of the mandated tribal consultation.