Friday, September 20, 2013

Salt River Wild Horses of Arizona Challenge Painting #447

"The Look Out"
Salt River Wild Stallion Along the Salt River Arizona
6 by 9 inches watercolor $200.00
By LindaLMartin
Prints available on FineArtAmerica here:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/-the-look-out-linda-l-martin.html
In the United States there are approximately  between 200,000 and 500,000 wild horses that are currently not protected by the Wild Horse and Burro Act. Those that survive only do so because groups of people local to where they live form management associations to document them and help develop legislation and management plans to protect them.

The majority of un-protected wild horses today were either not on Federal Public Land at the time of Act or  they were on private, state or reservation land that never fell under the protection of the 1971 act. I am also told that some herds and bands were not counted as part of the 1971 census due to political maneuvering as well as miss understandings as to ownership of the wild horses during the first Census after the Wild Horse and Burro Act was passed and put into effect. As I have stated one such herd was the Virginia Range horses in Nevada.

The Salt River Wild Horses of Arizona are another such a herd.  I am told that the wild horses  run on both National Forest Land as well as Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.  One advocate claims that the horses have always been living along the river even before the WHB Act.

The one thing that the Salt River herd has that most other wild horses do not is an amazing desert river that flows year long. And there they spend much of their time raising their young, interacting with visitors to the Tonto National Forest. and  have developed some very unique skills involving water that are usually only seen in the East Coast Herds among the ponies who frequent the marshlands.

This is my first painting of the Wild Horses of the Salt River I am collaborating with Dave Saunders one of the Arizona Photographers for many of the paintings, including this drawing. Thanks Dave!  If you would like to interact with more of the photographers who are active in documenting this herd please consider joining the facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/100496980142662/

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