by Malia Durbano

Local filmmaker Mara LeGrand was looking forward to a much-needed break. She had just finished her most recent film, “Heart & Soil,” a documentary about local agriculture, when, as fate would have it, a friend got her interested in a new cause: America’s wild horses.

The result was “Wild Horses in Winds of Change,” an award-winning short documentary about the extermination facing these icons of the American West. Both heart breaking and heart-warming, the 30-minute saga is designed to bring awareness to the destiny that is being thrust upon these horses. It will have its local screening Friday night as part of a wild horses benefit at the Durango Arts Center.

Just the Facts What: “Wild Horses in Winds of Change,” film screening and benefit for wild horses When: Sun., Feb. 19, 6-9 p.m. Where: Durango Arts Center, 802 E. 2nd Ave. For info.: www.durangoartscenter.org

The catalyst for the film was Durango animal photographer Claude Steelman, who adopted a horse out of New Mexico’s Carson National Forest.  When he adopted a companion horse for his new colt, LeGrand accompanied him to Cañon City, one of many places where wild horses are warehoused after being rounded up.

The experience was transformative, and LeGrand decided it was a story that had to be told. “They were once wild, and have been abused, mistreated, taken away from everything they have loved and put in a training program,” LeGrand said. “It began as a simple story about an adopted mustang, but once I felt the energy of the mustangs, in captivity and at round ups, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I did something significant to raise public awareness.”

Another turning point came when LeGrand experienced a round-up firsthand in the Tobin Range near Winnemucca, Nev., in the Fall of ’09. “The copter chased the horses aggressively and brutally. Some escaped but I worried that they would not survive another chase.”

LeGrand said although the focus of the film is about saving wild horses and helping the public “make sense” of the complex issue, there is an underlying message of raising human consciousness to embrace all animals as equals. “I believe we are supposed to be stewards of all of nature, and our native wild horses are no exception,” she said. “Horses and humans have forever shared a common journey, and I believe these wild horses represent a macrocosm for what is to come for all beings if we continue to let private interests and our attitude of dominion mess things up.”

 

The controversial issue, which stems back more than 40 years, has passionate activists on both sides.

 

On one side, there’s the Bureau of Land Management, which was legally entrusted with controlling and sustainably managing the herds under the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act. Without natural predators, the herds can increase in size as much 25 percent per year, allegedly leading to overgrazing and starvation. According to the BLM, thinning the herds is a necessary step in maintaining the land.  
On the other side are wild horse advocates, who would like to see the horses roam free. They point to examples of inhumane treatment during the round-ups and allege that the BLM is managing the horses to extinction.

“The BLM was never meant to be a horse management agency,” Mary Ann Simons, an ecologist, explains in the film. “They are a land management agency, and when the act was passed, they were required to protect the horses that for decades they had been getting rid of.”

Wild horse advocates also argue that the horse are being squeezed off the range to make room for the cattle industry, which is subsidized by tax payers. “Despite the requirements of the Wild Horse & Burro Act, over the last 40 years, wild horses have been eliminated from about half the areas they existed in at the time of the passage of the law,” said LeGrand. “It took me awhile to take a stand against cows on the range, because I want them to have a good life too. Although 8 million private livestock on public lands is not the only issue facing the  fleeting 27,000 wild horses left, the permanent removal of cattle from the range would be a significant step toward land and resource restoration. Cows would have a better life  on privately owned green pastures. They’re skinny and barely scraping by on the range.”

In order to hit this point home, LeGrand enlisted Jonathan Ratner, of the Western Watersheds Project. His organization works to influence and improve management on the nearly 250 million acres of public lands across the West. The group collaborates with several environmental organizations, including the locally based Great Old Broads for Wilderness.

According to Ratner, citizens need to speak out against “business-as-usual” resource extraction. “Our public lands are supposed to be held in trust by the federal government and managed for the benefit of the nation as a whole,” he said. “But it’s the industries that profit from give-away public resources and who control the management of our public lands. And that will remain the same until enough citizens care and educate themselves on these issues.”

So far, audiences have proven eager to take part 4 in  this education process. So eager, that LeGrand was invited to show her film last November at Los Angeles’ esteemed Egyptian Theatre even before it was finished. “A rough cut of the film mysteriously found it’s way to the Artivists Film Festival... they had to Google me to request my film be shown at their festival.”

LeGrand, who was on the verge of giving up at that point because the topic had become so overwhelming, said this was the impetus she needed to wrap. “The invitation to have a world premier at the famous Egyptian Theater was the catalyst I needed,” she said.

Since premiering Nov. 10 in L.A., the film has gone on to win a Los Angeles Movie Award and several environmental film awards, and was paired with  “Buck” (the Sundance Audience Choice Award film about a hardscrabble horse trainer) at the Nashville Film Festival. It also will be shown on PBS at a future date and received a Telly Award, which LeGrand intends to show off at Sunday night’s benefit.

However, for LeGrand, the most exciting part of Sunday night’s event will be a keynote speech by Ratner on the conditions of America’s public lands. “If people don’t care about seeing my film they should still come to hear what he has to say,” she said.

In addition to Ratner, Clay and Petra Sulwold of Café of Life will give a presentation on “Healing and Horses.” There will also be live music by Lisa Blue Trio, dinner and a silent auction.  “It’s a balanced evening of education and entertainment,” says LeGrand.

And maybe even a few people will leave that night changed by what they learn. “Most people who delve into this issue are overwhelmed by it’s complexities,” LeGrand said. “What got me through ... was the spirit of the horses. I’ve had the thrill of hanging out with them in their wide open spaces. I’ve watched them cross arid dessert landscapes to an oasis of water from underground springs, then quickly move on. I believe horses are deeply connected to our human path, and provide us an opportunity to rise to new levels of understanding, problem solving and awareness.”