free running

Thanks to Jami Wallace for alerting me to this documentary (clip above) to air on the Documentary Channel tomorrow evening. The film can also be purchased on their website (link in the sidebar). Here is the text of the article from TheHorse.com:

"Sheryl Crow is urging people to get involved in saving America's wild horses.

'I think it will be a real shame when we look back and we don't have these incredible species, and I guess my best hope would be that people, individuals, step up at this point and really protect these animals,' the 46-year-old Grammy-winning singer says in an upcoming documentary, 'Saving the American Wild Horse.'

The program airs 9 p.m. EST Monday (July 7) on the Documentary Channel. Directed by James Kleinert, it's narrated by Peter Coyote and features Viggo Mortensen.

Crow, who lives in Tennessee and owns a wild mustang named Colorado, says the animals are part of American history but are being sacrificed in big business' drive for Western lands.

'We're starting to get really, really far away from our heritage and what this country is based on,' she says.

The documentary examines the Bureau of Land Management's policies regarding wild horses on public lands and includes interviews with ranchers, historians, animal rights activists, environmentalists, and others.

'If any of these politicians visited these sites where our indigenous animals are being slaughtered in an inhumane way and being sold for meat, I feel that there would be a different take and a different approach to what's happening,' Crow says."

America's horses

An email from one of my riding friends begins: “I know this sounds like a small thing compared to Zimbabwe, Darfur, etc., but we are all parts of the whole . . . the wild horse is an endangered species.”

From the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign:

“The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board met on Monday. In our pre-meeting alert, we had expressed grave concerns over BLM’s plans, asking whether “kill authority” was next on BLM's misguided agenda. Lo and behold, BLM came out and announced it is now considering simply putting to death 'excess' wild horses! How did it come to this?

In 2001, BLM obtained a 50% increase in annual budget for implementation of an aggressive removal campaign. 24,000 horses were slated for capture, with no long-term plan for their welfare. Now, predictably, the federal agency finds itself in the untenable positions of warehousing over 30,000 horses (more than remain in the wild); the funding it wants to save by euthanizing our wild horses was wasted on years of unnecessary round-ups to cater to special interests.

6 million head of private livestock graze our public lands and BLM wants us to believe that 25,000 wild horses are overpopulating the range? Removals are based on flawed and biased data; BLM itself admitted at Monday’s meeting that not even its censusing techniques are accurate. In 2005, while in the process of rounding up thousands of horses supposedly due to poor range conditions, BLM eased public land grazing restrictions for private cattle.

BLM’s irresponsible approach to wild horse management created the problem, and the agency is now asking the American public to swallow a very bitter pill, all the while continuing to round up horses by the thousands (2,000 are slated to come off the Nevada range in the coming weeks alone).

America cannot let this stand. Congress is in recess for Independence Day week, but stay tuned for a national action plan next week. On behalf of America’s horses, thank you for your support at this critical time.”

--From The AWHPC Team

Sign the petition here.

The photo above comes directly from the website of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. It's a gorgeous photo, and I wanted to make sure to depict the real thing.

the wild ones

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary sends me a bi-monthly magazine, since Helene sponsored a horse for me and I was moved to do some sponsoring myself. It is beautifully produced -- filled with inspirational stories and many wonderful photographs.

In it I discovered an article about an exhibit documenting wild horses in Idaho by photographer Elissa Kline. Her website has a link to the Best Friends article (under the News section) along with the full range of her amazing images. The exhibit “Herd But Not Seen” consists of nearly life-sized images of wild horses which float on translucent cotton panels throughout the space. She is hoping to show this awareness-raising exhibit in all 10 states with wild-horse populations, as well as somewhere near Washington, DC “where people who make the laws are.”

My own awareness of wild horses was re-kindled recently by a friend who mentioned that he walked by an exhibit in Soho he thought I would enjoy: The Wild Horses of Sable Island. The Green Horse Society website chronicles these individual horses and the life of the herd on the the tiny sand bar of Sable Island, 160 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Abaco Island in the Bahamas also has a wild horse population.

Informational links from the Best Friends article:

Return to Freedom American Wild Horse Sanctuary

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

Wild Horse Sanctuary

Let ‘Em Run Foundation, Inc.