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  • From: Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>
  • To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] NASAR MSAR Practical standards
  • Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 17:53:10 -0600

Chris Pennington wrote:
>On California being a big state- One of the problems I have with Calif.
>MSAR standards is that the members of the committee are all from similar
>areas and I don't feel they adequately address all the different issues
>the wide spread teams have.
>
>Tomi- could you please elaborate a bit on exactly why you feel that
>having two members from CA is not ideal?

I can tell you what *my* view on this is. California is one of many
states in which SAR is the province of each county sheriff's office.
East coast states that are former colonies generally operate on a
different model. And there are a few other special cases, the most
notable being New Mexico, where SAR is the province of volunteers
who report to a single SAR Resource Officer employed by the State
Police. The New Mexico model is highly admired and I sense that it
is the direction in which SAR resources in many other states are or
would like to be moving. These differences of "environment" drive
expectations for how far the team will travel from home, and hence
preparedness. Eg., must have hauling papers, must have current
Coggins (define "current"), must have veterinary certificate of
health (and team should have some standing arrangement with a vet
in order to get said certification as needed en route to a mission).
Must be equipped to operate out of mission basecamp X days without
return home or delivery of food/water. Just consider the routine
disagreement here vs who is responsible for providing water: base
came logistics teams, or the SAR resources themselves?

Then, consider standards needed by those who do mostly suburban /
park searches vs wilderness area. A *minimum* national standard may
have to treat only the suburban park scene, leaving out entirely the
basic requirements for wilderness areas. But a standard written
with suburban park environment in mind could be made unworkable for
units operating in wilderness. Eg, some of us may be hard pressed
to find *anywhere* a strip of pavement marked as a pedestrian
crossing, or cement curbs, or speed bumps, or centerline swells.
All these are common elements of suburbia that present a challenge,
being scary or slippery for horses.

Anyway, if the MSAR minimum standard seems thin, please let's not
artificially inflate it to make it "big enough" to justify charging
$$ for a manual, a training course and a certification test. Let's
not inflate it with trivial pony club horse husbandry bumpfh.

Look to the formal standards for SAR dogs; there is a set, common
to NASAR and an external pure standards organization. (For reasons
of history!) That seems ideal to me, except that if I am involved
(and I intend to be) then any pure standard will also be *free* to
download and print.

The NASAR MSAR standard has to require NASAR general SAR training
because that is NASAR's business model. Too bad, but no fault of
NASAR's committee writing its MSAR standard. Of course, a pure
standard should not contain dependencies on other standards, nor
should it re-implement other standards. Hence the recommendation
would be that MSAR volunteers have appropriate basic training and
certification in SAR...without dictating what that consists of or
what provider it should be obtained from.

Una Smith
Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, in New Mexico




  • Re: [MSAR] NASAR MSAR Practical standards, Una Smith, 06/07/2004

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