March 31 - April 1, 2011 My Horses Are Recovered

Several weeks ago two of my three horses were stolen... I do not like to complain when things happen to me, but sometimes I do... This was a case, where I didn't... Until now, that I have recuperated them...

Two of my three horses grazing peacefully in my pasture...

Notice how fat and happy they are?

This is how I found my horse... The thieves used him to haul firewood....  

Stolen from local forests.... 

They must have piled the wood on him using no protection for his back.

For 2 weeks I investigated until I found out where the horses were.  There is one good thing or bad thing about Honduras... depends on how you look at it... people talk!

After asking questions and driving around the hills of Honduras for several days, I had several leads as to where my horses might be.  So I loaded my car full of male friends and went for a ride to the spot where they were last seen...

I went up into the hills surrounding La Montanita, on the road to Danli and sure enough I found people who had seen the horses... and they were willing to help me...

Now understand this is at least 40 miles from my farm.

So another guy joined us and now there were 8 of us.

My horse and one of my neighbor's horses recovered Thursday night.  We then took them to the police post and took photos in order to PROVE that we had not stolen them.

We drove down the dirt path, it absolutely can not be called a road and into a forest which had just burned. If you are in Tegucigalpa, you know that there has been a terrible smoke overhang all this week.  It was caused by fires intentionally set by these same horse thieves.  You see, they cut wood illegally, so they set the fires to kill the trees where they can then cut the wood legally.

Finally we arrived.  Houses surrounding several canyons and no way to see into the canyons from the road.  We posted guys on the tops of several of the steep hills and then some of the guys went down into the canyons.  

Then they saw a guy running with an AK-47... That's a gun for those who don't know...  He began shouting, but there was no need to dialog, so we didn't.  We were after the horses and not out to discuss anything...

Undaunted, they continued and pulled out my horse as well as another neighbor's horse.  They also counted 11 other horses and 10 mules and burros, ALL STOLEN.  All with different brands on them.

We also saw another neighbor's horse, stolen the same night.

That night we were unable to recover my other horse.  So they guys returned the next morning.

After some persuasion, (the police handcuffed them and were going to take them in) the kids who had lied to us the night before finally admitted that they were paid to water the horses.  Then a guy came over the ridge with my horse.

Look at my horse's back... This was my fat and happy horse in the first photo.  He was hardly recognizable.

Then the guy had the gall to say, he was the one who was watching the horse and taking care of him.  So now you see him, one of the horse thieves. 

Then they walked the horse, which could hardly walk down to the police station and then to my church where we loaded him in the horse trailer and took him home.

Yes, I have filed charges against him... Yes, I am prosecuting him... Yes, he should go to jail, for animal cruelty and for stealing horses and for setting fires in the forests.