One does not think of horses as predators, and generally, they are not. I know very little about horses, though a long, long time ago, before I was so involved with wild creatures, I did have two of them.
They obviously recognized the extent of my knowledge, and had me trained within the first month.
Sally, a small pinto, was very bossy and I did everything she ordered. When she was taken under the care of Karen Hall (all horse-involved people in this area know Karen), who understood horses, Sally became an obedient sweetheart �" to everyone but me.
Thus I suspect that maybe, deep in the heart of some horses, the predatory inclination just might exist. Just now we have a little muskrat who agrees with me.
Some people think of muskrats as miniature beavers. Although they are totally unrelated, they do share lakes and rivers. Some muskrats even burrow their tunnels into the tops of beaver lodges, and they live as neighbours �" not necessarily friendly, but tolerant.
The little muskrat presently in our nursery was somehow lost in the confusion of a big world into which he had been born only last spring. Why he was wandering through a barnyard full of horses no one can explain.
However, the horses didn’t like it �" and they closed in on him and began to push him around, to tumble him with their hoofs.
Fortunately, a person who understood horses and cared about little muskrats came along at that point �" chased the horses away and took up the badly injured muskrat, wrapped it in a warm towel in a small dark box and phoned Aspen Valley.
The muskrat had a broken pelvis. At first it could barely walk. It was examined by the vets and we were told what it was best to do: a small enclosure where it can move about, but not too much, warm bedding and a small pond where it can swim if it wishes. And quiet.
So it is presently down in the nursery, and will likely spend the winter there. It is moving around quite well, eating very well (unlike their beaver neighbours, muskrats are not vegetarians), and showing real improvement. It submits to human handling, but not with any enthusiasm.
It is missing the deep snows of this winter. It is missing being in a muskrat lodge someplace, it is missing the challenge of swimming under ice … but it is warm and well fed and spring will come.
Sometime in June we will take it to a small lake where I can watch it carefully and set it free. I have known that lake for over 50 years now and have been able to watch the wildlife around it.
I have released beavers there and known them to survive and have good lives. A couple of years ago, I put a muskrat, which came to us orphaned and which we raised, into the lake not far from a beaver lodge and �" yes �" he became their neighbour.
So early in June, I will inform the beavers there that their neighbourhood is in for a slight increase.
(Audrey Tournay is the executive director of the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and a regular contributor to the Beacon Star).
