Mounted search and rescue

[Kate Beardsley <katebeardsley@hotmail.com>]

Well, I hope to cheer up a few people with my note.

My training partner, Laurie Adams, and I teach MSAR at all our regional SAR conferences, so we are quite aware of  the issues facing many MSAR teams. We've spoken with many participants who have been very frustrated.

We train our students hard and ourselves harder, but have not been on a mounted team in a few years due to our move to another county that only has a hasty team with no mounted component.

We were recently surprised when our Hasty Team Manager and the Sheriff announced that Laurie and I are now the head of our NEW Mounted Team! Now imagine our shock, next, when the Sheriff himself recently directed us to develop a regional Air Scent Equine Team!!!! Our horses will finally be officially back on an air scent team!

It's not a walk in the park yet - getting established takes some effort. But with these stories of MSAR units being disbanded, I just had to share our local success story.

Safe Trails,

Kate

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> I?m sorry to say that our local SAR, Sanders County Search & Rescue mounted team was disassembled.? I never got a written notice, but heard through the grapevine.? I had been on the reserve list for a while due to a lack of mount.? The vet said my old horse could not participate any more.? Then I purchased two horses to ready and heard the bad news.? I was very disappointed, to say the least.?From: Una Smith Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 2:26 PMTo: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [MSAR] Mounted SAR news in your area??How have you been?? I'd like to hear!
>
> Here in northern New Mexico USA all the mounted SAR teams have been busy.
> Several of our state police districts have been running far above average
> in number of SAR missions.? We even have a new team over in Farmington.
>
> Mounted teams are so valuable for the greater distance and speed they can
> travel compared to a searcher on foot, potential for the rider to focus
> on detecting clues while the horse negotiates the terrain, and potential
> for the horse to detect (air scent) the subject.? It helps that our state
> SAR Resource Officer is a former mounted SAR responder.
>
> Una Smith
> Los Alamos, New Mexico
> ____________________________________
> > *From:* Marie Lester <marie.lester@gmail.com>
> > *To:* Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
> > *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2015 9:02 AM
> > *Subject:* Re: [MSAR] Mounted SAR news in your area?
> >
> > Central Ohio Mounted Search Unit also disbanded, Una. There are some
> > states in which motorized vehicles are more efficient than mounted units,
> > and the terrain can accommodate them. Infrequent call outs eventually
> > discourage members who do a great deal of training, but are never given the
> > opportunity to use their skills.