To Superintendent Spencer,

For my last ten years as an archeologist I was an employee at Mesa Verde National Park in the
Cultural Resource Division. Because of my job, I spent a good share of my time in the back
country and became very familiar with the five major bands of horses. Each band occupied one
of the five main canyons in the park and mesa tops on either side.
I had ample opportunity to observe their behavior and to observe any detrimental impact to the
resources whether natural or cultural. I have heard numerous reasons given by park personnel
on why the park needs to get rid of the horses. I will list some of them and comment.
The horses are damaging the cultural resources: That comment obviously comes from a
non-archeologist. There are two main site types which are the cliff dwellings and surface
mounds. The horses wont go into a cliff dwelling even if they could because of their natural
instinct against being in a confined space where a predator could trap them. As far as the
surface sites, ranging from A.D. 550 to 1280 goes, any animal -- whether it is a horse or rabbit -does no damage. Damage to a ruin comes from burrowing animals such as squirrels or
badgers.
Horses present a safety hazard: Every year tourists as well as personnel hit a kill over a
dozen deer and occasionally an elk. In my ten years at the park, only one accident was caused
by a horses and that was by an employee. The reality of horses being a safety hazard is
actually just the opposite. The tourists love to see the horses more so than seeing deer or elk.
The Soda Canyon band during the heat of summer will shade up under the balconies at Far
View Lodge and the tourists love to look down over their room balcony and see them.
The horses are not part of the natural landscape: This viewpoint comes from George San
Miguel, the Chief of Natural Resources. From the day I first set foot in the park he has been on
a campaign to eliminate the horses no matter the method.
The horse bands derive from many sources. The most frequently cited drivel is that they
belong to the Utes. Horses have been out on the Mesa Verde probably as early as the Spanish
when they passed by on the Dominguez/Escalante expedition. Other stock was added in the
1880s since local ranchers (Pratter, Moorefield, White, Wetherill, etc.) ran their stock out on the
Mesa in the summertime. Also early tour guides took horses and tourists up and down the Mesa
even after 1906. My point is that horses have called Mesa Verde home a long time before it was
even established as a park.
Today, there are less than 100 horses in the 53,000 acres of the park as far as I have observed.
They offer no serious competition to the other wildlife. Not providing water for the horses during
severe drought and standing by and watching them die of dehydration is not only animal cruelty
but outright stupidity. A more common sense approach would be to develop a humane on-therange management program such as the Bureau of Land Management has done so that the
bands can continue to be an integral part of the park experience or the visitor.
Thank you for your consideration,

Joe M. Brisbin
Delores, Colorado