A Commitment to Rescued Mares Transforms Wild Horse Conservation
By Andrew Cutler
For artist Andrea Maki, what began as an intent to shoot photos for a new body of artwork while her dog recovered from surgery in 2010 turned into a 15-year mission to protect wild horses and transform how stakeholders approach conservation on public lands.
“I made a promise to 21 adopted Challis wild mares to help them get back home— albeit under modified conditions—and I figured it would be 6 weeks to a couple of months at the most,” Andrea says.
Since the lead-up to the 2012 roundup in Challis, Idaho, Andrea’s nonprofit, Wild Love Preserve, has worked to address all facets of wild horse population management in conjunction with respective habitats. In 2022, Wild Love Preserve found its permanent home and wildlife preserve in Wasco County while continuing to work on population management on the range in Idaho.
“Little did I know that promise I made to help if I could was a major right turn,” Andrea says. “Nor are we supposed to know these things in advance, otherwise we wouldn’t do it because you would know what you’re in for and be like, ‘Oh, hell, no.’”
A Seattle native, Andrea graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Science in painting and has crafted a fruitful career as a contemporary artist. Her work is exhibited nationally, including collections at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
The Artist’s Turn
Growing up in the city, Andrea attended summer horse camps. As a mixed-media artist, her wild horse photographs have played a significant role in her work.
Her art, which she says reflects universal energy and deep connections with the animal world, has served as a base for advocacy. Her mixed-media work and photographs regularly promote awareness. In 1999, wild horses were central to a major 1-person exhibition and her self-created The Wild Horse Project in 2005.
The turning point for Andrea arrived when she encountered wild mares at the 2009 Challis Roundup. A year later, a trip to Ketchum to receive specialized care for her German shepherd’s elbow expanded her link to the cause.
“I made a commitment in 2010 to a group of wild mares that I had the privilege of being able to meet directly,” Andrea says. “I said, ‘If I can, I’m going to help you to get back home.’”
Andrea’s promise evolved into a life-changing calling that tugged every life skill she had mastered as an artist.
Building Bridges
In 2010, Andrea approached ranchers near Challis about wild horse management, even though many told her that bringing stakeholders together would be impossible. Some tried to shut Andrea down entirely.
Yet her resolve and insistence on truth overpowered the skepticism.
“I personally don’t even enjoy having the word enemy in my vocabulary,” she says. “Nobody wins if everybody’s fighting, especially the wild horses and the issues at hand.”
As she met with ranchers, Andrea did not make accusations or demands. Instead, she sought answers to their needs and their outlook on sharing the range with wild horses.
Following the 2012 Challis Roundup, Wild Love Preserve adopted all the wild horses not otherwise adopted by the public. It began a pilot program with the Challis-Idaho Bureau of Land Management on the Challis Herd Management Area, implementing a fertility vaccine, which Andrea describes as the equivalent of birth control. This mass adoption was the first of its kind and the second-largest adoption in BLM history.
Combined with spearheading collaborative work on the range, Wild Love Preserve has saved taxpayers millions of dollars. These savings come from removing horses from the costly BLM long- and short-term holding system and extending the time between expensive helicopter roundups—from the typical 2- to 3-year cycle to 7 years—through proactive fertility management.
In 2017, during the 4th year of its fertility management program, Wild Love Preserve helped alter a proposed helicopter roundup into a more humane way of baiting the horses with hay.
In 2018, the nonprofit worked with the Challis-Idaho BLM on the environmental assessment of the Challis Herd Management Area, helping develop a 10-year management plan that considered the ecosystem as an interconnected whole.
Its success suspended the next helicopter roundup until November 2019—the first in 7 years rather than the typical 2- to 3-year cycle. In July 2020, the preserve adopted the first group of 24 wild horses from that roundup, bringing Wild Love Preserve’s total to 165 horses.
The fertility vaccine became a key facet of a humane organizational strategy. The collaborative program between Wild Love Preserve and the BLM is in its 12th year.
The successes in Idaho set a new precedent in working together. The collaboration created standards to benefit 6 herd management areas in Idaho and other wild horse regions across the West.
From inception, 1 of Andrea’s main goals was to transform the Challis wild horses into an asset and economic benefit to the community and state. The preserve’s expenses—hay, pasture leases, and supplies—were funded by local businesses.
Since 2013, pioneering programs on and off the range have saved taxpayers more than $15,000,000 while proving a successful model for wild horse conservation.
Home Ground
After 12 years of operating from leased locations in Idaho, Andrea’s quest for a permanent home for Wild Love Preserve faced a setback just before the pandemic. A property she hoped to acquire was sold to another buyer.
“I’d worked on it for about 3 years, so it was a really huge blow,” she says. “That 1 got me pretty good.”
By 2022, exhausted from fundraising to cover leases and hay, Andrea considered scaling down—something that went against her instincts.
“I’m more of a go-big-or-go-home girl,” she says.
Back in Seattle, frustrated with soaring Idaho property prices, she opened her laptop and decided to look at Oregon.
“I flipped open my laptop to look at properties in Oregon, and the first property that came up was where we are currently located,” Andrea says. “All of those years building, persevering, and taking countless hits finally paid off, and suddenly it all made sense.”
The move to Oregon was a challenge. Andrea arranged the many logistics and organized a trusted team to load and relocate 187 wild horses from the preserve’s leased location to its permanent home on June 17, 2022. 6 weeks later, on July 28, after more fundraising, 21 more wild Challis mares and heavy equipment moved to the preserve.
Today, the preserve stretches across about 8,000 deeded acres plus BLM allotments, for a total of around 10,000 acres. Here, 232 wild horses from the Challis herd roam freely, their numbers carefully managed through the PZP vaccine program.
“We are at the same total number as when we arrived,” Andrea says. “We have had babies born because with the fertility vaccine, you’re still going to have a few babies born. That is OK. Because we have older horses that have passed away. With our losses and our births, we are at the same number as when we started.”
For Wild Love Preserve, wild horses continue to lead the way in protecting and nurturing the environment as an interconnected whole. This is a wildlife preserve, not a wild horse sanctuary, which operates on what Andrea calls a hands-off philosophy. While the preserve furnishes supplemental feed in winter, the horses maintain their wild nature, living in family bands and dealing with natural predators.
“They have to fend for themselves,” Andrea says. “Whether it’s a cougar or the coyotes, they have handled it. I’ve worked to give them the opportunity to continue to be wild on their terms.”
The project has grown into what Andrea calls “a legacy project, which speaks to our whole and reflects our humanity—past, present, and future.”
The boots-on-the-ground work continues daily. Andrea also spends time fundraising for such items as perimeter fencing and habitat restoration materials, infrastructure projects, and ensuring the preserve’s long-term sustainability. While she rarely makes it back to Seattle, she takes pride in upholding the project’s original vision.
For the artist who once thought this would be a 6-week project, Wild Love Preserve has become a life’s work, guarded in perpetuity as verification of what can happen when someone dares to bridge divides and think differently about conservation.
“Kindness, mutual respect, science, and education are paramount,” Andrea says. “I don’t want to have confrontations with ranchers or others—that’s not my cup of tea. I’m comfortable talking with people in real time, being able to offer and discuss ideas.”