An emaciated horse belonging to a member of the Havasupai tribe, photographed in 2015. Courtesy: SAVE Havasupai Horses
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When Californian Diane Phillips returned home from her trip to the Grand Canyon last year, her first impulse was to put up billboards to let others know about what she saw.
“I just thought if we showed everyone what was really going on, we could stop the mistreatment of these animals,” she said of the pack mules and horses used by the Havasupai tribe to transport property, supplies and other cargo of tourists in and out. from Havasupai Village at the Grand Canyon.
Instead of expensive billboards, Phillips called and wrote Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, but didn’t hear back. The Department of the Interior, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, did not respond to the Current’s requests for comment.
The abuse and neglect of Havasupai pack animals is not new.
“They starve them, they whip them and force them to run up an eight-mile, very steep, very rocky trail. They are tied so tightly together that they can’t even put their heads down to see where they are putting their feet,” said Susan Ash, founder of SAVE Havasupai Horses, an organization dedicated to helping horses and mules . “And when they get up there, even when it’s cold, they’re dripping with sweat and they can’t get water. This has been going on for fifty years and everyone turns a blind eye.”
The tribe declined to provide information about its animal welfare policies.
“The Havasupai Tribe is a sovereign nation, with its animal welfare code and enforcement policies,” Abbie Fink, a public relations person hired by the tribe, told the Current. “The tribe will not provide a copy of the animal welfare ordinance.”
Ash, like Phillips, believes that without federal protection and isolated by tribal sovereignty, pack animals are the collateral damage of a nation reluctant to further interfere with indigenous culture.
Most Americans recognize that the U.S. government has historically treated Native Americans unfairly and disagree with its decisions regarding Native tribes, according to a new YouGov poll.
According to historians, the Havasupai people began farming and hunting in the Grand Canyon more than a thousand years ago, largely unhindered by explorers until around 1880, when the U.S. forced the tribe to give up almost all of its land, with the exception of several hundred acres of land. . almost inaccessible land at the bottom of the canyon.
The tribe fought for much of the next century to regain its territory through the courts. In the 1970s, the Grand Canyon National Park Endangerment Act was passed returned approximately 185,000 acres to the tribe. Since then, Havasupai people have turned to tourism for economic survival. They charge an estimated 30,000 visitors per year to camp, visit the famous waterfalls and be transported to and from Havasu Village.
Today, about 600 tribe members work mainly in tourism,”packing and working for tribal corporations,” says the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona.
The Arizona Office of Tourism says about 6 million tourists spent $536 per tour group at the Grand Canyon in 2019. After their excursion, approximately 13% of Grand Canyon tourists visited Las Vegas, more than any other destination.
In fiscal year 2023, some 21 Grand Canyon concessions managed by tribes generated just over $200 million and paid about $19 million in fees to the National Park Service.
‘Trail of blood’
The Havasupai “draw their strength from the land, which is sacred,” says a website for the Inter-Tribal Council. “Visitors are asked to preserve the splendor of the Havasupai homeland and respect their natural resources that contribute to their spiritual direction.”
But the horses and mules that carry as much as 200 pounds up and down the steep trail are often given little food or water, let alone respect.
Phillips says she was shocked by the “blood trail,” the crimson stream left in the sand by horse hooves that are no match for the rocky path that goes in and out of the canyon. “In the village there was a corral with horses – skin and bones – just standing there. No food. No water.”
Packers liken the horses to work wagons, according to animal experts who care for them. With 300 transports per day, there is little time for rest.
“The tribe itself does not enforce any animal welfare laws,” said Annoula Wylderich of Animal Protection Affiliates. “They have an animal control office, but officers have come and gone through the revolving doors. It is alleged that those who try to enforce laws are intimidated by the owners of pack animals.”
Jurisdictional issues complicate federal authorities’ efforts to oversee the treatment of pack animals.
The Serious Crimes Act, issued in 1885 during the administration of Pres. Grover Cleveland provides federal criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes if the suspect is Native American. The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over murder, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and most tribal sex crimes.
Ash and other activists want the law changed to include animal cruelty, which they say would make enforcement of laws against abuse and neglect easier. But given Congress’s paralysis, they have little hope.
An employee of Rep. Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican whose district includes the reservation, told the Current that she had personally witnessed the mistreatment of pack animals along the way. “It was a little concerning,” Julie Schreiner said. Schreiner, an employee of Crane’s local office, told the Current that she had forwarded Ash and other activists’ concerns to legislative staff in Washington, D.C.
Congressional representatives don’t seem particularly eager to get involved. Members of Nevada’s delegation declined to discuss the matter or did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2016, the federal government successfully prosecuted one case of animal cruelty on the Havasupai Reservation against wrangler and tribe member Leland Joe.
The government charged Joe with four felony counts of animal cruelty and knowingly failing to provide care after an FBI special agent visited Joe’s property and found no food or vegetation for five horses. One horse appeared “extremely thin, malnourished and had open sores and wounds,” the organization said news reports.
Joe was sentenced to probation and prohibited from owning horses.
“It made the tribes so angry that by the end of that same year they formed their own tribal court,” Ash says. “If the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) files charges, they have to go to tribal court.”
In 2017, a Havasupai packer charged with animal cruelty in both federal court and tribal court was offered a plea deal by the tribal court, eliminating federal government jurisdiction.
The defendant was given a probationary period of six months and the opportunity to reclaim his horses.
“We are working diligently to identify those few tribal members who engage in this type of behavior and enable our tribal justice system to prosecute such individuals,” former tribal chairman Don Watahomigie told the Associated Press in 2018.
Three subsequent cases ended in convictions, but Ash says the consequences are minimal. Ash and other activists want Congress to put pressure on Haaland.
“If the BIA and some members of Congress were to say to the tribal council, ‘Enough is enough.’ You have a seat at the table,’ which could deliver results much faster than changing the law,” she says, adding that the animals don’t have time to wait. “Their lives are so horrible.”
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