TO BE RE-BROADCAST on PBS's Nature Series, Sunday evening April 21 8pm EST Check your local listing for the exact time.
No, these are not human survivalists. This is an equine society, comprising 200 or so beautiful, wild descendants of the resilient and resourceful steeds returned to their native land by the Conquistadors, some 500 years ago.
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Emmy Award-winning
filmmaker Ginger Kathrens ("Spirits of the Rainforest") has spent much of the
past seven years discreetly observing these extraordinary animals, and in 1995
was fortunate to witness the first hours of life of an unusual foal - a feisty
colt with a striking light coat, who was destined to lead a remarkable life.
She named him Cloud. In the ensuing years, Ms. Kathrens returned with her cameras to those mountains again and again, compiling an unprecedented visual history of the growth and emergence of a natural leader among wild horses. |
"Cloud is the most compelling and charismatic wild animal I've had the opportunity to film," says Ms. Kathrens. "But, covering his life on film has been a nerve wracking experience. I'm always relieved to get back up on the mountain and find he has survived another season."
Her film, Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies, which will air on Thirteen/WNET New York's NATURE series on Sunday, November 4 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), vividly details the perils faced by Montana's wild horses, even a powerful stallion such as Cloud.
From lightning strikes in the summer to the brutally punishing assaults of a Northern Rockies winter, and attacks on the young by mountain lions, the wild can be a deadly environment for these creatures. Further complicating their existence, are the well-intended but often controversial policies of the federal Bureau of Land Management, especially its helicopter-guided roundups aimed at keeping wild horse populations low.
| In 1997 one such
roundup was recorded on film for this program by Ms. Kathrens, who, to her
dismay, witnessed the capture of Cloud himself. But because of his unusual
light color, Cloud was released and his freedom restored. |
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Says Ms. Kathrens: "The 1997 roundup was conducted as humanely and professionally as possible, which is not always the case in other wild horse herd areas. Many of the captured horses were auctioned off, and about two-thirds were released. But the bigger question remains, are the roundups truly necessary?
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"Wild horses cherish freedom and the family unit above all
else. In a roundup, bands of horses can be separated and families permanently
broken, which is devastating to them and heartbreaking to watch."
The filmmaker observes that no livestock graze on Cloud's home range, "which is very unusual," she says. "Most wild horses in the U.S. live on the same ranges with cattle and sheep. The BLM's unwritten policy seems to be ' remove wild horses and also wild predators to reserve public lands for livestock grazing.' I hope this policy will be reconsidered when the public has an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. Shouldn't we focus on keeping public lands as working ecosystems?" Ms. Kathrens hopes her film will help in that regard. "By getting to know Cloud and his family, perhaps we can all better appreciate and value our wild horses as a remarkable native American wildlife species." |
NATURE, television's longest running weekly natural history series, has won more than 200 honors from the television industry, parents groups, the international wildlife film community and environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club.
(Article by Bob Rummerman)
