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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Mounted SAR to include ATV?

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: "Kate Beardsley" <katebeardsley@hotmail.com>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Mounted SAR to include ATV?
  • Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 18:10:57 +0000


Wow. I'm all for ATV use in SAR work, but including them in Mounted SAR? This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And maybe I'm just not understanding how someone would want to include them in mounted SAR work. Besides having distinctly separate training and safety issues, ATVs and equines have their own sets of advantages and my experience says those advantages are very different. Using them both on the same search may work out great, but when considering using them together in a unit as Jorene described, I think you're cancelling out each team's strong points.

We use ATVs for road searches and for the road parts of general searches. When we use them, we frequently have to radio coordinate sound blasts as the noise of other searchers' motors get in the way. ATVers can search large amounts of road or developed trails quite quickly with very little fatigue. They also can haul supplies with ease.

Horses may not clear roads quicker than the ATVs, but the riders do not have to deal with the noise pollution factor. About half of our MSAR team members bring a pack horse, so hauling equipment is not a problem. Of course, the horses themselves bring so much to the search, their role should not be downplayed. My experience with MSAR is not the same as Tomi's -- ATVs definitely cannot go where horses can go where I live. Beyond being illegal to use mechanized transport in designated wilderness areas, our mountains are rough and volcanic and anything with wheels doesn't have a chance. For us, there is nothing faster for clearing wilderness trails than our horse team.

Our horse team is just one of about a dozen teams on our larger SAR team. We've taken our training seriously and our horses and riders are as good as they get. We definitely have a niche within SAR to fufill and that niche is a different one from ATVers. (Perhaps in a different area with milder terrain and a larger, less-specialized horse team, joining with an ATV crew could work better.)

So...ATVs in mounted SAR? Well, the ATV riders do 'ride', so I suppose thery 'mount' their machines, but I think this is where the including ATVs in Mounted SAR really ends...

Kate
with Deschutes County Sheriff's Search & Rescue, Central Oregon


"We are what we repeatedly do."

Kate Beardsley
...building relationships
...developing athletes
..."driven" to excellence
Central Oregon




From: Santafearabians@aol.com
Subject: [MSAR] Mounted SAR to include ATV?

Hello Fellow MSAR,

Has any one included or thought of including ATV units with your search
groups? Our new liaison officer with our Sheriff's Office asked me the other day
what I thought of the idea. Any experience out there with the concept of
MSAR, equine and ATV?






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