Wild Horse Annie: Velma Johnston and Her Fight to Save the Mustang - Hardcover

Kania, Alan J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874178738 ISBN 13: 9780874178739

Publisher: University of Nevada Press, 2012

Synopsis

In 1950 Velma Johnston, a shy Nevada ranch wife, came upon a horse trailer leaking blood. When she discovered the destination of the trailer and its occupants—a trio of terrified and badly injured wild horses—she launched a crusade that eventually reached the halls of Congress and changed the way westerners regard and treat the bands of mustangs and burros that roam their region.

Wild horses have been a subject of bitter controversy in the West for decades. To some, they are symbols of the West’s wild, free heritage. To others, they are rapacious grazers that destroy habitat and compete with domestic livestock and indigenous wildlife for scanty food and water. For years, free-ranging horses and burros were rounded up and shipped to slaughterhouses to be killed and turned into pet food. This practice provided an income for the “mustangers” who trapped and sold them, but it also involved horrendous cruelty and abuse of the animals.

Velma Johnston, who became known as “Wild Horse Annie,” undertook to stop the removal of wild horses and burros from US public lands and protect them from the worst aspects of mustanging. Her campaign attracted nationwide attention, as it led her from her rural Nevada County to state offices and finally to Washington, DC. Author Alan J. Kania worked closely with Johnston for seven years, and his biography provides unique insight into Wild Horse Annie’s life and her efforts to save the West’s wild horse herds through the passage of protective legislation.

About this title

About the Author

Alan J. Kania is a journalist who has worked in nonprofit administration and as an adjunct professor of journalism in Denver.

Reviews

Mustangs, the wild horses of the American West, are as much a part of the romance of the Wild West as the cowboys and Indians who rode them. The fact that mustangs still roam the public lands of the western states is entirely due to the efforts of one slim, small woman. Velma Johnston was born to a Nevada ranching family early in the twentieth century. Stricken with polio at age five and left disfigured, she still rode her father’s gentled mustangs and later married another rancher. Her life as a secretary and ranching housewife changed one fateful day when she pulled up behind a horse trailer that was leaking blood. Following the trailer, she learned the cruel fate of the mustangs within, one of which had been trampled to death by the others, as the rig turned into a slaughterhouse. The story of how Velma, snidely dubbed Wild Horse Annie by a government official, gathered supporters for the wild horses and got laws passed to provide for their humane treatment and protection makes inspiring reading. --Nancy Bent

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874178738
• ISBN 13: 9780874178739
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240