According to Straight from the Horse's Heart by R. T. Fitch, a group of wild horse advocates and home owners in the Reno area have taken matters into their own hands to provide fencing to secure wild horses from wandering into traffic and to provide a safe path to water for the wild horses in the area.
Wild horses at BLM feeding station
A group of wild horse advocates and home owners have taken matters into their own hands to provide fencing to secure wild horses from wandering into traffic and to provide a path to water.
© 2012 by Peter Schmalzer
On Saturday, 12/8/2012, they had great turnout for their fencing project. The volunteers, the landscaper and a few folks from the homeowners association got nearly 1,800 feet of new fencing installed. It was an all day activity.
The next challenge will be to acquire a 24 ft. cattle guard that meets county specifications to place across the entrance to River Park. Once the cattle guard is installed, another short run of fence to the river will be installed and some substandard fencing between the river walk and the back of the subdivision will need replacing. The horse advocates will be responsible for hunting down the cattle guard. Materials for the fencing will be provided by the homeowners association.
The ultimate objective is to preserve horse access to the river, to the cottonwood grove and to the reserved open space while preventing them from getting onto US-50 and into residential areas. Cooperation between all of the various entities is making this project both possible and affordable. Finding a cattle guard will be key to preventing the horses from simply following the fence line and getting past the fence at the River Park driveway.
Information supplied by Willis Lamm