WILD HORSES UP FOR ADOPTION AT CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL CENTER

They've spent the summer in training, and now 14 wild horses are ready to leave the California Correctional Center corrals with new adoptive families.

The horses will be offered for public adoption Friday, Sept. 15, in a U. S. Bureau of Land Management  competitive bid event that gets underway at 9 a.m. at the prison corrals,  nine miles east of Susanville.

"All of these horses have been under saddle and most have trail experience," said Tom Chenoweth, the Correctional Center's horse training program instructor.    "Inmates in our training program used limited resistance training techniques to teach these horses basic skills.  It will be up to adopters to continue the training."

Horses available are geldings, two to six years old, and slightly larger than average for wild horses.

Gates for the adoption event open at 8:30 a.m.  Inmate horse trainers will begin demonstrating each horse's abilities at about 9 a.m.  After the demonstrations, adopters will have additional time to look the animals over and ask questions.  Sealed bids will be accepted at 11 a.m. and the winners will be announced at noon.  Bidding starts at $125 per horse, the BLM's minimum adoption fee.

Adopters must take their horses home by 3 p.m. on adoption day.  Inmates will halter and load animals into adopters' trailers, which must meet BLM requirements.  Because the adoption event is being held at a California state prison, a number of security rules must be followed:

• Blue jeans, blue denim shirts and sweat clothes are not allowed.
• Weapons are prohibited on prison grounds, even if they are kept inside a locked vehicle.
• Drugs, alcohol and cameras are prohibited. Prescription drugs are allowed only if they are inside their pharmacy container and checked by correctional officers on arrival.

Horses in the training program were gathered by the BLM from public rangelands in northern California and northern Nevada.  Each year, about 60 horses are placed in the training program, where inmates benefit from learning horse training skills, and adopters can benefit by receiving a horse that has received basic training.

The BLM, an agency of the U. S. Department of the Interior, is responsible for the management and protection of wild horses on the public lands.  Periodically, excess animals are gathered to keep wild populations in balance with other range users and to help maintain healthy public rangelands. 

For more information on the upcoming event, contact the Bureau of Land Management's Eagle Lake Field Office in Susanville (530) 257-5381.

-BLM-