Marie Milliman and all the Volunteers at Wild Horse Education take a moment to extend our birthday wishes to our founder, Laura Leigh.

Our volunteers, on behalf of all things wild, would like to express a “thank you” and celebrate the day a tenacious, effective Wild Horse advocate was introduced into our universe. We are proud and privileged to support and stand by Laura and her work of Wild Horse Education to effectively accomplish 1. Education, 2. in order to Protect and 3. to Preserve all wild things in their existence. To take the experience and knowledge gained to the table, courtroom and where we need to go to preserve our wild horses and wild places.

NV Historical Society portrait hung in 2016

Laura was honored last year by the Nevada Historical Society. You can read about it here: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2016/08/01/monday-movie-time-meet-our-founder/

Laura has won landmark rulings in this fight to protect and preserve our wild ones. A ruling known only as “Leigh V. Salazar” is cited in civil rights cases nationwide as a pillar of First Amendment Rights. She (and WHE) are the only organization to take issues of inhumane treatment of wild horse during capture into a courtroom and win and win again and again. Through the work of Leigh, WHE has engaged planning and process and has tried everything possible to get conversations out of reactive responses that focus on symptoms into productive action on the ground to focus on core issues. She has even tried for years to work cooperatively with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and those efforts were engaged in good faith and integrity to create a better world for the wild horses. Sometimes it works, sometimes WHE has to litigate after exhausting all other options. Sometime adversary, sometimes cooperator, she has always been a voice for the truth the wild horses live every day.

Written in 2016: I have witnessed more wild horses removed from the range in the last 6 years than any other observer, public or government. I have seen tens of thousands removed by helicopter roundup that disappear into a system of government funded holding facilities with my own eyes. These facilities offer precious few the hope that they will be adopted and go to good homes. The vast majority disappear from public view and land on the tax payer tab. (WHE has the largest single documented record of wild horse removals that exists in the world over the last 6 years. It is not something that anyone should ever document again).

I document range conditions and have been working diligently to address escalating issues that have reached a crisis point. Those issues revolve around drought and overgrazing by domestic livestock. The issues of degraded range land are not “blame the horse.” If they were we would have healthy range where we have no wild horses and we do not. The process to address this long standing disease in outdated management is painfully slow.

We need to address core issues and stop being reactive to the perpetuation of reactive crisis.

From those of us at WHE, we stand firm and proud to be part of this ongoing effort.

Happy Birthday Laura!

Marie and the volunteers of WHE.