High Stepping
by Chris Lord
Title
High Stepping
Artist
Chris Lord
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
An image that was captured while spending four days among the Onaqui Mountain herd of wild mustangs in the Rush Valley near Dugway, Utah. These beautiful animals are the descendants of Pony Express horses who were turned loose after the Pony Express company lost its contract with the U.S Postal Service. This herd of 200 or so horses roams on 43,000 acres of federal land unfortunately in competition with sheep and cattle whose owners bribe the bosses of the government Bureau of Land Management (whose mandate is to look after the land for the horses) to keep the horses low in number. Horses have in the recent past been rounded up by helicopter, breaking up families and the natural hierarchy of the herd. The mustangs are then often sold off to Mexico to end up as dog food. While we were there one afternoon volunteers arrived to shoot contraceptive darts into the mares in order to keep numbers low and prevent the BLM from its cruel dastardly deeds.
Uploaded
June 27th, 2022
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Comments (1)
Meg Shearer
Very elegant! Beautiful shot!
Chris Lord replied:
One afternoon one of the leaders walked right up to me and stood eyeball to eyeball only 18 inches from my face. He stood there just looking at me for almost a full minute then gave a slight nod of acknowledgment and trotted away. It was such a cool moment I will never forget. Always appreciated, Meg, thank you
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