I was talking with a friend in Montana, recently, exchanging horse stories—as horse people all over the world tend to do. She rescued a geriatric gelding last year, who proved to be a treasure of good sense and unflappability, after he'd put a couple of hundred pounds on and started feeling better. She's calling him "Lucky" and I can't argue for a minute with her choice of name. He's a great deal luckier than the average horse in his former situation might have ended up.

Regardless of whether you want to blame it on the slumping economy, a changing cultural climate with dramatically changed ethical values, or a wholesale abdication of personal responsibility, there's been a sharp increase—some sources are calling it an epidemic—in abandoned, abused, and criminally neglected horses. When the hay bill starts climbing, doubling or even tripling in some parts of the country, some people just stop feeding their horses. Or they haul them out into the country and turn them loose, probably telling themselves romantic and comforting stories about how their horse-pal can go and be a wild mustang, "Like when Viggo sets his stallion free at the end of Hidalgo!" Which is, of course, utterly false. These people are dooming their horses to a particularly brutal fate. Also, it's illegal—and with good reason.

My friend and I exchanged all the horror stories we'd recently heard about horses dropped off at stockyards, and left tied to fences, or driven miles out a remote road, unloaded, and left. We've both been hearing way too many of those stories, in fact. When we ended the call, I was left shaking my head at the idea of people who have to choose whether to feed kids or feed horses, but opt out by abandoning these animals that are entirely dependent on human beings.

I'd mostly put the conversation out of my head. Then, today, this news story broke in New York State. Horses that have, apparently, been left to starve for months. Horses in such terrible condition that vets are having to triage, and at least one has already been euthanized, because he couldn't be stabilized enough to be treated, even. Volunteers and employees from Columbia-Greene Humane Society/SPCA are desperately seeking to raise the extra funds needed to help these animals. They accept Paypal donations, as well as the more old-school methods, by the way. The Columbia-Greene Humane Society/SPCA website is posting regular updates regarding the status of the rescued horses. Some of these thoroughbreds are already available for adoption, as well, so if you're in New York State, or within a practical distance, and you happen to have barn room for an extra mouth to feed . . . 

Abandoned horses are on the rise all over the country. Officials are quoted in a really excellent article about the subject, here:

"In Wyoming, there have been 'huge increases' in the number of domestic horses abandoned, said Jim Schwartz, director of the Wyoming Livestock Board.

“'It used to be six or eight per year. This year so far we’ve had at least 41,' said Lee Romsa, Wyoming’s brand commissioner. In Nevada, officials have found 63 abandoned horses in the northern part of the state alone in 2008 — an unprecedented situation, said Ed Foster, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture."

There's another really excellent and heart-wrenching article from Time.com, here

When I first started blogging here, I talked about how Free Horses Never Are. Rescuing a horse is often a tremendous commitment of time, energy, money, and emotion. The pay-off for that investment comes primarily as simple personal satisfaction and emotional engagement with a marvelous animal. If you should decide to rescue a horse, you have my honest and sincere respect.