How gorgeous are the wild horses of the Pryor Mountains! And how beautifully have Lynne Pomeranz and Rhonda Massingham rendered them. This book arouses memories of the years I spent admiring, photographing and writing about this special herd.
I first visited the Pryor Mountains in 1968 as producer of feature stories for ABC Network News, after being alerted to a government plan to dispose of the herd. In the eyes of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management wild horses were trespassers and overgrazing public lands. Unless removed, they claimed, this herd would die of starvation. People living in the nearby town of Lovell, Wyoming, disagreed with that assessment. They reported that the 200 horses on the mountain were in excellent shape, and they offered to sponsor the herd, even drop feed to the animals should such unlikely need arise.
This conflict, together with my footage of the horses, was aired on ABC News in July 1968, and the public responded with dismay to the government’s plan. Nevertheless, the Bureau continued work on an expensive holding corral into which they planned to funnel the horses.
It was then that the Humane Society of the United States went to court and presented a photograph of the holding corral, the existence of which the Bureau had denied under oath. This so embarrassed Interior Secretary Stuart Udall that he immediately designated the Pryor Mountains a Wild Horse Range. Case closed!
And so this beautiful herd was first to gain legal status. Two years would pass before enactment of the Wild Horse and Burro Act extended protection to all wild horses.
Meanwhile, I was so taken by the existence of wild horses that I took a leave of absence from ABC to travel about the West, researching scattered herds of mustangs for a National Geographic article and a book. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had traded in my television career for a life of bliss — studying and writing about wild animals. It was the best decision I ever made!
Thank you, Pryor Mountain wild horses. You changed my life!
— Hope Ryden, author, America’s Last Wild Horses
SHAMAN, AT 19, is the oldest band stallion on the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range.
BLANCA AND FOAL. Shielding her foal, Blanca sniffs the wind.
