Latest Instagram Photos



Subscribe with Bloglines

Terri Farley
HomeBooksThe AuthorConnectEducationWild Horses


       Weblog

Thursday, May 03, 2018

You Don't Have to Burn A (Wild Horse) Book to Censor It

I've never laid my life on the line for a story, and it's coincidence that the most recent 
"Of course you didn't interview BLM about wild horses" remark came on World Press Freedom Day. 

The reader was talking about Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them,
my non-fiction book published by Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. The book's credibility has been honored without BLM. It's a Junior Library Guild selection, winner of the Sterling North Heritage award for Excellence in Children's Literature and has been honored by Western Writers of America, National Science Teachers Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

For nearly a year, I negotiated and nagged for interviews about BLM's wild horse and burro program. Didn't happen. But it's important to me that you see how it didn't happen. 
My last correspondence before the publication of this book is posted below. 
 



 


Tom Gorey, Senior Public Affairs Specialist                                                 July 23, 2014
Bureau of Land Management
1849 C. Street NW
Washington, D.C.  20240

Dear Tom,
As you know, I’m writing Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them for Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt. This non-fiction book for young readers will be published in Fall 2015. 
In January of this year, Lisa Ross at BLM’s Carson City office told me that all on-the-record responses must go through you. I’ve contacted many BLM staffers since then, but received no official statements.  A partial list:
1/23/14: E-mail to Tom Gorey, introducing project, asking for interview; he said he’d have to check with wild horse and burro staff.
2/3/14: E-mail to Gorey seeking update
2/4/14: E-mail from Gorey indicating response is in the works; e-mail from Jeff Krauss asking for questions in writing and “don’t hesitate to call” invitation
2/11/14: E-mail questions to Krauss
2/19/14: E-mail requesting update from Krauss
2/24/14: Melissa Farlow, photojournalist working on the project, contacts Krauss since they’ve worked together in past.  Krauss responds quickly but with no answers.
3/19/14: E-mail to Krauss requesting follow-up to written questions
4/11/14: E-mail and phone requests to Gorey and Krauss repeating offer to let them cherry-pick the questions they wish to answer.
4/25/14: Phone calls to former BLM staffers to ask about possible sources of information are met with enthusiasm. They, too, are told no current staffers are authorized to speak.
5/5/14: Phone and e-mail to Jeff Fontana, BLM California, and Lisa Reid, BLM Utah. Neither receives authorization to answer questions.  
5/5/14: Gorey e-mails that he will respond to my voicemail request for update, copies Krauss. No answers. Last contact with Gorey and Krauss
6/3-4/14: After phone conversations, Debbie Collins asks for a brief history of e-mail exchanges with BLM staff and list of questions. These are supplied. Last contact with Collins.
6/4/14:  Fontana e-mails positive BLM news story from 2006. Last contact. 
 My publisher has pushed back Wild at Heart’s  due date to give BLM more time to respond, but we’ve bent as far as we can. If I hear nothing by Aug. 1, 2014, we’ll reluctantly publish without comments from your agency.
Sincerely,
Terri Farley

CC: Neil Kornze, Director of BLM 


Before Wild At Heart, I'd had a conflicted but cordial relationship with BLM staffers, but now it's routine for government agencies to spurn or stonewall the press and public.
That's not safe. 
Attention must be paid, even if what you hear is silence.  










Labels: , , , , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 12:50 PM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Sunday, October 22, 2017

Wild Horses Are Not an Invasive Species

New Science, Old Bones and Wild Horses

"It needs to be more widely understood that the horse's status as a native North American species is beyond serious question, " Dr. Ross MacPhee, curator American Museum of Natural History

 

©Terri Farley 

 CREATED FOR WILD AT HEART: MUSTANGS AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE FIGHTING TO SAVE THEM

Modern paleontology and sequencing of mitochondrial DNA is reflected in this equine clock which shows just how quickly horses returned to North America after they were wiped out along with other large mammals. Recent discoveries have narrowed the absence window since this graphic was created, causing many scientists to consider the possibility that pockets of North American horses may have survived even longer.

 


 


 



Labels: , , , , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 2:52 PM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Thursday, August 24, 2017

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: WE'RE WILD HORSES. WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL US?


Dear Mr. President,

We’re wild horses.  Born in Nevada, we ran free on the range, manes blowing, legs reaching and pulling us up mountains and then downhill in crazy gallops, zig-zagging through storm-hammered sage brush.   

We’re not there anymore. We’re in a place called BLM. We’re young, healthy and we play chase when we can. 

So, when we heard you wanted to kill us -- not as the cougar does, one at a time to feed her young, but all together, for reasons we don’t understand --we asked a friend to speak for us in your language. 

Thank you, sir, The Mustangs




please turn on audio 


Labels: , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Interior Department Wants to Bury Its Wild Horse Mistakes: question Sec. Zinke's alt-facts tomorrow

Dear Legislator, 
Don't be hoodwinked when Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke comes to Capitol Hill, tomorrow. For decades, the Department of Interior has taken America's wild horses off public lands to "restore the range." Know why that doesn't work? Wild horses aren't to blame, but  Secretary Zinke may neglect to mention the impacts of livestock and extractive industries on the environment.
Budget 2018 calls for killing all wild horses and burros in Bureau of Land Management holding pens. That's about 44,000 equines according to BLM, and the roundups continue, this month. BLM records show more mustangs "gathered" in the first three months of 2017 than were captured in all of 2016. 

Few voters want wild horses killed, but they’re bombarded by myths which infer there's no choice.  


Read more »


Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 11:59 AM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Tuesday, May 30, 2017

5 WILD HORSE MYTHS: Alt-Facts Lead to Deadly New Budget for Mustangs



Melissa Farlow image from Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them


Budget 2018 calls for killing all wild horses and burros in Bureau of Land Management holding pens. That's about 44,000 equines according to BLM and roundups continue. BLM records show more mustangs "gathered" in the first three months of 2017 than were captured in all of 2016. 

Few voters want wild horses killed, but they’re bombarded by myths which infer there's no choice.  


Read more »

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 10:15 PM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Sunday, March 05, 2017

Seven Tears into the Sea: Celtic Magic on the Incoming Tide

I've yearned for the moody beach and unsettling characters of SEVEN TEARS INTO THE SEA ever since I wrote "The End."  



 

In the last few weeks readers who love the story as much as I do have taken me back to  
Mirage Beach, to Jesse and Gwen and the small town where the ancient Celtic legend of the selkie comes ashore for love, mystery and midsummer madness.

I met author Jackie Smith at the Teen Bookfest by the Bay and it turns out she's a fan of the story! This week in Quinter, Kansas, I get to talk about the appeal of shape-shifting characters and THEN


I discovered this YouTube book review by Lacy



FYI  :

Q:  What is a selkie, really? 
A:  Ancient tales  say they are faery folk who can shift shapes between human and seal, But there's much more to the story. Here's one of my favorite selkie websites about Selkie Folk


Q: What is scrying? 
A: Originally, it meant "seeing from afar" and in SEVEN TEARS, Gwen's grandmother has the gift of seeing deeply into the present and future by gazing into an antique mirror, but crystal balls and still waters have presented others, over the ages, as a way to see and know the unknown.





 
Q: SEVEN TEARS' cover is kind of dreamlike, what is it supposed to show?
A: As you may know, Gwen has a history of sleepwalking and I've always thought the published cover (at the top of this blog) shows how it might feel if you'd walked in your sleep, right down to the edge of the sea as Gwen did.



Want to dive into this book? Visit your local library, bookstore or Amazon.com


Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 8:16 AM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share




Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Wild Horses Die to Clear the West for Industry


Each morning, dawn touches fewer wild horses on America's Western range lands. Roundups by the Bureau of Land Management clear the way for a tsunami of industrialization.
Senate confirmation of Interior Secretary-designate, Rep. Ryan Zinke, advocates looser environmental regulations for extractive industries. He proposed legislation to open horse slaughter plants in the West.  

                                        
Return to Freedom photo of January 2017 roundup, Utah


Nevadans Velma "Wild Horse Annie" Johnston and Carrol Able spend their lives fighting for America's wild horses. It seemed like a good time to give them their say, again.   


Carrol Able                                                                                                             July 20, 2011
 
I sat down with Wild Horse Annie today. We had quite the conversation. I complained of how convoluted her law had become, how it was now a life sentence for the very animals it was intended to protect. She listened quietly, never uttering a word. “We really need your help.” I told her. She offered no reply.
The grass surrounding us was cool damp; refreshing, the day warm and clear. I closed my eyes and imagined a band of wild horses grazing peacefully nearby. How fitting it would have been. But alas! Imaginings are nothing more than imaginings. There were no wild horses and Wild Horse Annie was not going to answer.
Beside me was a small and unassuming grave marker. In that, it was much like the woman buried there. Beneath the name Velma B. Johnston, Wild Horse Annie and the dates March 5, 1912 - June 27, 1977 are three mustangs, running wild and free. As I ran my fingers across the relief and looked closer at the image, I realized there was something unexpectedly ominous portrayed there. 
image by Melissa Farlow
from Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them

The running mustang trio has reached the edge of a dangerous precipice with no choice left but to jump. The last of the three is rearing and looking over his shoulder as if deciding whether to fight or flee. Tears started flowing when I put the scene in the context of the battle we’re waging today. 
I started sobbing like a crazy fool and blurted out, “Help me! I don’t know what else to do.”
It was then that a voice came to me, a gentle but strong whisper in my ear.
                          “FIGHT” it said, “Fight like a wild stallion.”

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,



Permalink to this blog post

Posted by Terri Farley @ 8:15 AM   0 comments

Bookmark and Share