It’s a good thing wild horses can count on us! So many mustang and burro round-ups are planned for this spring and summer that I’m reminded of the days of Wild Horse Annie, before she and kids around the world managed to get the Wild Horse and Burro Act passed.
I force myself to witness wild horse and wild burro round-ups, even though it hurts my heart. One of the bravest things I’ve ever seen was a small jack burro turn away from his fleeing family to stand, legs braced, challenging a lowering helicopter. The chopper pilot buzzed the determined burro, but he refused to back down. Eventually, the helicopter left the jack behind and chased his family into a trap.
Many of you can only witness these round-ups in videos and books, so I bring them to you with my writing. In DARK SUNSHINE (my mother’s favorite among the books I’ve written), a little buckskin mare is a round-up victim, but not the way you’re thinking. She’s a Judas horse.
What is a Judas horse? Some call them Prada or Guide horses. When wild horses are terrified by loud, low-flying helicopters, they may lose track of their band mates and follow a domestic horse that’s purposely turned loose in their path. The Judas horse gallops with such confidence; mustangs don’t know she’s headed for a trap. The Bureau of Land Management says the Judas horse is trained to lead her wild kin into the pen, but I’ve seen a bucket of sweet grain waiting there. She wants it first!
In DARK SUNSHINE, the Judas horse wants more than food. She is starving, but she also yearns for the comfort of other horses. She’s rescued — well, actually stolen from her abusive owners — by Sam Forster, whose dad isn’t happy she’s brought home an untamable wild mare in foal to the Phantom Stallion.
WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT ROUND UP WILD HORSES?
The “explanation” for ending the freedom of wild equines is often that they’re taking over the range.
Here are two images taken by photographer Marty Wright, who gives wild horse tours to people from around the world. These photographs prove wild horses know how to share. They’ve done just that for thousands of years, before humans interfered. Marty photographed this “extremely wild” Lahontan herd as they grazed with pronghorn and cattle. She saw the mustangs mingle with deer and coyotes on the same day.
The Bureau of Land Management plans to “zero out” this herd in July. Click here if you want to tell the Bureau of Land Management what you think about this.
Calendar
Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington KY
October 17: Las Vegas Book Festival
CELEBRATING MERMAY
MERMAY began as a challenge to artists who loved showing us their versions of mermaids that began swimming through folktales and fantasy in the Middle Ages. Today, Mermay is celebrated by authors and environmentalists, too, and mermaids share the spotlight with mermen and even Celtic shapeshifters called selkies. I’m happy to join the Mermay party with my book SEVEN TEARS INTO THE SEA, which spotlights a selkie who drifts between seal and human forms, totally mystifying a girl named Gwen who has a major crush on him on the days and nights he appears to be a teenage boy.
MAY 27: Live Mermay Author Panel 2 p.m. ET
The beautiful wild mare Kalima lived on a part of the range called Silver Springs with a band led by a cremello stallion named Silver Ghost. Their band was peaceful. Human observers often talked about their displays of affection. They stood close together, sometimes leaning on each other. They groomed and nuzzled each other.
Kalima was with foal, and it seemed like a good band for her baby to be born into; she showed no signs of yearning to move on.
Then, Kalima disappeared. One of Silver Ghost’s yearlings vanished, too. A second colt went missing, and then a filly. This was not a territory known for mountain lions. Wild horse advocates hadn’t ruled out human predators, and it turned out they were right.
The three foals were found in a pen, despite the fact that capturing wild horses as a private citizen is illegal. Not long after that, Kalima and her colt returned to Silver Ghost’s band.
“Silver Ghost was thrilled to see her!” says Marty Wright, a photographer who gives wild horse tours to people from around the world. “But he didn’t want the colt. Perhaps he didn’t recognize him as his son.”
Mustang stallions, like many other animals from lions to prairie dogs, kill young that aren’t from their bloodline. When Silver Ghost attacked the colt, Colson, Marty was there.
“He had Colson by the neck, bringing blood, shaking him like a ragdoll,” she said, and immediately called a quick-response volunteer organization.
Kalima and Colson were separated from Silver Ghost. Colson’s wounds were treated, and the mother and son were relocated to the hills behind a small town named Stagecoach (the setting for the Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable movie “The Misfits”).
There, Kalima chose a band led by a bay stallion named Marius. Unlike Silver Ghost, Marius adopted and protected Colson. Kalima and Colson settled into their new home. Now that Colson is a young adult, he has joined a bachelor band where he’s learning the skills he’ll need to build a family of his own.
Kalima still lives a contented life with Marius and her sister mares Africa and Gambit.
Want to know more about Kalima, Colson and other wild horses,? Vsit photographer and tour leader Marty Wright at Wild Horse Carry Me Away on Facebook.
WILD HORSE ANNIE IS STILL STANDING UP FOR WILD HORSES
I’m thrilled that fellow authors are already weighing in on HORSE GIRL: HOW VELMA BRONN JOHNSTON BECAME WILD HORSE ANNIE AND OUTSMARTED THE MUSTANG KILLERS OF THE WEST! Here’s what they’re saying.
“This is the little-known history of how the American mustang was saved from slaughter and extinction largely by the determined efforts of one woman. But beyond that, it is a story of a young girl’s coming of age, and a window into a way of life that, although not far in the past, has now almost entirely disappeared from our world. I was completely taken with it from the first page.”
—Molly Gloss, award-winning author of The Jump-O Creek and The Hearts of Horses
“With unprecedented access to Annie’s family and years of her own experiences on the Nevada range, Farley acquaints readers with the origins of the ongoing battle to save America’s last wild horses, and deftly shows how one dedicated individual, no matter the difficulties in her own life, overcame them and went on to save our great partner and icon of freedom—the mustang. As protections are being unraveled today, this book arrives at the perfect moment.”
—Deanne Stillman, author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West
“At a time when environmental news seems to be nearly all bad, here is an uplifting, inspiring story about a compassionate, intelligent, ethically centered woman who rose above her personal challenges to achieve meaningful protections for fellow creatures in the Intermountain West. Horse Girl is a compelling, well-written narrative about a remarkable Nevadan whose accomplishments deserve to be more widely known and celebrated.”
—Michael P. Branch, author of On the Trail of the Jackalope and Raising Wild
“Successfully relating the very true tale of ‘Wild Horse Annie’ required a capable historian, wild horse advocate, and masterful storyteller. Fortunately, Terri Farley is all three, and in her hands, Velma Bronn (Annie) springs to life.”
—Ellen Hopkins, New York Times bestselling author of Sync and Crank
See you next month!
Happy Trails,
Terri
Want to learn more about keeping wild horses wild? Check out these organizations:
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.