Howdy Folks,
I had the
pleasure and honor of interviewing Ginger Katherns last Wednesday for a story
to be published in my column Holistic Hall of Fame, in the October issue of
Natural Horse Magazine. She and everyone at the Cloud Foundation are dedicated
to preserving not only the wild horses at the Pryor Mountains, but wild horses
all across the country. The Cloud Foundation is named in honor of the Pryor
Mountain pale palomino stallion, Cloud. Ginger first saw and filmed Cloud on
May 29, 1995. He was three days old.
Cloud |
Ginger had been
to the Pryor Mountains to film and document the wild horses there many times
over the previous fourteen months for the television show, "Marty
Stauffer's Wild America." She watched and learned as the mares guided the
foals with gentle discipline. She began to understand their behavior. She began
to recognize their snorts, nickers, whinnies and postures. She learned the band
was a family. She learned there was a pecking order within a band, and even
between the bands. They leaned on, and needed each other for survival. It was
those hardy, noble and majestic horses who taught her what it meant to be a
wild horse.
Bolder's band at Pryor Mountain |
Those wild,
beautiful, full of spirit horses also taught her what true, horrible pain felt
like when she witnessed her first Bureau of Land Management (BLM) brutal
round-up. Tears streaming onto her camera lens, she listened to, and filmed the
frantic screams of stallions, mares and foals, as bands and families were torn
apart. She filmed the crashing and trampling of horses desperately trying to
escape. On that day Ginger made a commitment to do whatever she could to keep
those wild horses together and free.
She began
documenting Cloud's life and band on film. The Pryor Mountains and the
wonderful horses there have been seen by millions through her camera lens.
Cloud has been rounded up three times over his 18 years. Fortunately he has
always been released. Sadly his grandchildren and his daughter have recently
been removed. Today there are only 125 Pryor Mountain mustangs running free,
and those families are splintered and bands broken.
Ginger founded
the Cloud Foundation, a non-profit which is dedicated to preventing the
extinction of Cloud's herd through education and media events. The Cloud
Foundation is also committed to protecting other wild herds on public lands.
Cloud, his and other bands taught Ginger what it means to be a wild horse. She
is dedicated to keeping them that way.
Cloud on his 17th birthday May 29,2012 |
To learn all
about how the Cloud Foundation is working to help keep wild horses free to run
wild please visit their website http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/
Join them on Facebook here- https://www.facebook.com/TheCloudFoundation
Gitty Up ~ Dutch
Henry
I'd seen something about the Cloud Foundation on television and used to watch Marty Stouffer all the time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this, Dutch.
Patti
thanks Patti! ... Be sure to catch the whole story in the Oct issue of Natural Horse Magazine :)
DeleteThank you for publishing this. Cloud is the reason that I began to search out ways to help the wild horses, all horses, and burros. It is within my ability to stop this alone. WE have to stand together. If you can't donate, sign petitions or write letters and make phone calls to your state senators...they are beginning to listen. We have a nation under sequester, and if we can make this point clear (while our soldiers take on the world in war theater) of the amounts of money that is wasted by the BLM each year on these roundups, it will greatly impact the future decisions made by the Appropriations Committees - who cut the checks to BLM to fund the roundups. I thank you, sir, for Ginger and Cloud brought me here. I will leave with the horse I came on. God speed!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jeanie for all you're doing to help our wild horses! and thanks for being a Coffee Clutcher!
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