Saving The American Wild Horse

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Horses are my passion, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.  Their beauty, grace and strength have been celebrated throughout time in history, religion, mythology and art.  Horses first landed on American soil in the early 1500s with the Spanish conquistadors who brought them aboard ships destined for the New World.  Over time, the horses escaped or were left without an owner and roamed free and wild.  Their numbers swelled to two million. 

 

But by the time the federal government passed a law in 1971 to protect these herds of wild and beautiful creatures, only about 50,000 were left roaming America’s open spaces. More than 1 million horses were captured and tamed for World War I duty; the rest were slaughtered by chicken feed and dog food companies, and hunted down for sport.  The hunting methods were cruel and vicious with helicopters and motorized vehicles chasing them to exhaustion and then weighing the collapsed horses down with tires until slaughterhouse trucks retrieved them. They were stampeded off cliffs, shot down at full gallop, or corralled and massacred, then dumped into mass graves.

 

The carnage stopped because the public took action.  Petitions and letters flooded Congress and called for America’s wild horses and burros to be protected from further slaughter.  The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was passed and the horses were safe, for a while.  The law has been revisited repeatedly since then by special interest groups and weakened to the point where the sale of “excess animals” from public lands led to more animals being sold for slaughter.

 

That’s why places like the Wild Horse Sanctuary are crucial to the survival of these beautiful, gentle and stately animals.  But sanctuary is costly and finite, limiting how many horses can be saved.

 

Saving the American Wild Horse is a compelling documentary narrated by Viggo Mortensen, Sheryl Crow, Peter Coyote, and directed by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, James Kleinert.  The film delves into the politics behind the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) controversial policies regarding wild horses on public lands and exposes how the current massive Western land grab by oil, gas and mining corporations exploiting over 30 million acres of natural Western lands in the areas of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and others is jeopardizing the fragile future existence of America’s wild horses and burros.

 According to the filmmaker, Saving the American Wild Horse documents the struggle of an animal that has long symbolized freedom, individualism and unbridled passion; all traits that exemplify what humans strive for in their finest hours. Through interviews with scientific experts, ranchers, historians, wild horse owners, animal rights activists, environmentalists and others the filmmaker examines the origins and effects of the recent “Burns Bill” which gutted the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 and cleared the way for the slaughter and removal of a vast majority of the wild horse herds. Saving The American Wild Horse will screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 30th, 2008.  www.newportbeachfilmfest.com  To learn more about the American Wild Horse, how you can help strengthen protection laws and support the distribution of this very important documentary, visit these websites: 

http://www.wildhorsesanctuary.org/about.html

http://www.animalsvoice.com/PAGES/features/horses.html

http://www.theamericanwildhorse.com/index.html

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/166841148

http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/about.html

 

I’ve created this blog with the hope that I can garner support for their mission, increase awareness, create a vision for humane treatment of these regal, intelligent animals who have served mankind so faithfully and reach the legislators who can facilitate change and put a stop to this unnecessary, senseless tragedy. Horses are an integral part of the American experience, our history, and our legacy.  They deserve a far better fate, a secure and peaceful place to live out their lives, and together, we have an obligation to our own legacy as Americans to be the ones who make that happen. 

 

 

 

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Tags: Animals Voice, Gina Stoll, James Kleinert, Newport Beach Film Festival, Peter Coyote, Saving The American Wild Horse, Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortensen, Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, Wild Horse, Wild Horse Preservation