Wild Horses

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years on the backs of horses. I love these creatures. The wild horses in America are in a serious threat of being exterminated completely. Ten percent of any wild horse painting or print from this site will go to The Spirit Riders Foundation in an effort to protect and save these horses.

The Spirit Riders Foundation is a non-profit foundation, which produces multi-media state of the art visual/audio programming to educate, enlighten and create positive understanding among people and diverse cultures. The materials strive to foster harmony, empowering mind, body and spirit. Funding received by the Spirit Riders Foundation will provide resources to produce additional films, public education media, and scholarships for American Indians. www.spiritridersfoundation.org

You can also visit www.theamericanwildhorse.com to learn more and make a donation.

My good friend and filmmaker, James Anaquad Kleinert, has produced a film in an effort to educate people about the tragedy of the wild horses. It just breaks your heart to see this film. Please take the time to read the short clip below, and see this film when you have the chance. We can save these magnificent wild horses if the public had the awareness of what is happening to them.

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Santa Fe, New Mexico (January, 2011)—With the American mustang crisis in the news worldwide, award-winning filmmaker, James Anaquad-Kleinert brings his star-studded environmental film, Wild Horses & Renegades, featuring Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Viggo Mortensen, Daryl Hannah Governor Richardson, Congressmen Grijalva, Pulitzer Prize winning American Indian Author Scott Momaday and Raoul Trujillo to Santa Fe.

“If the public could view what’s being done to wild horses, the public would stand up and take action, this is just not a film about America’s Wild Horses this is a film about what is happening to America itself!” states Michael Blake, author of Dances with Wolves.

Wild Horses & Renegades examines the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) controversial policies on public lands, while investigating the elimination of America’s wild horses and burros. Recently, 90 wild horses died and more than 40 mares aborted their late term foals as a result of the Calico Roundup in Nevada. The BLM called the Calico roundup a success. Many more roundups are scheduled for 2011. Since 2001, the BLM has removed more than 90,000 wild horses off their federally protected land. More than 24 million acres have been withdrawn from wild horse and burro use despite the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act. 40,000 wild horses are currently in government holding facilities instead of roaming on the land designated for their use. The BLM’s roundup and removal policy is leading to the extinction of wild horses and burros in the West.  This costs the American taxpayer : $120,000 per day.

“I adopted a wild horse named Voodoo, who had been rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management and adopted out to a killer buyer. The man like many or most killer buyers, played a cruel game of acquiring horses and betting that he could sell them to slaughter before he has to feed them. But the problem did not begin with the killer buyer. It began with the Bureau of Land Management,” said Willie Nelson.