Wild Horse Roundup on Painters Flat
September 25, 1949
A roundup of wild horses by plane is in progress on Painter’s Flat about 20 miles southeast of Ravendale.
About 150 horses were rounded up and corralled Saturday and Sunday. The job is under the direction of Bill Meyers, ace flyer and rancher, from near Lovelock.
He has brought three light planes for the roundup. Ranchers of the area and the Bureau of Land Management are cooperating to reduce the number of wild horses which are damaging the forage for stock.
The horses bear little resemblance to wild stallions of film and fiction. Most are scrawny, underfed, poorly developed animals.
The few normal, large horses are kept for rodeo stock or other use, the others are being hauled in big trucks to Santa Rosa, where they are slaughtered and made into chicken feed.
Two of the small planes work together on a roundup. With a noisy chain of tin cans on a rope about 70 feet long, the planes herd the horses towards a corral built for the purpose.
They run the wild horses into a number of tame ones which then lead the band into the corral. The tame horses immediately run out, and the gate is closed before the wild horses can figure out how to escape.
The flying cowboys have a dangerous job. The planes fly below 100 feet and occasionally bounce the rope-laden cans off the ground.
Once Meyers wrapped one of the ropes around a horses neck and his plane cracked up in Nevada. Another time the cans bounced up through the windshield of the plane.
If they happen to corral a branded horse, they return It to the owner for a $6 fee.
The flying cowboys will move to Smoke Creek are shortly and plan to corral about 600 horses in the next weeks.
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