The Loss of Wild Horse Annie
The Last Years in the life of Wild Horse Annie
The loss of Velma Bronn Johnston dealt a critical blow to advocacy for wild horses and burros in the United States.
Velma’s crusade was steeped in her personal experience and far from a theoretical one. From that first day she followed a truck with blood dripping from the back to the slaughter yard, to her last campaign that uncovered “mustanging” was still happening after the Act had passed, her work was based in carefully documented activities that she analyzed and then formulated actions to address each atrocity. She recognized that obtaining protections for the wild ones that had captured her heart would be a step-by-step process that had to be made within a system that did not yet contain the mechanisms for protecting any of our living treasures in the wild places in the US.
Velma faced opposition from a host of adversaries. At times her husband would accompany her as she ventured out armed with a shotgun he had to brandish on more than one occasion. She even found her name on a “hit list” of the (Charles) Manson family for being seen a cooperating with the federal government. The work her organization did even faced opposition, or coopting, from other organizations that were based outside of the western US, but had easy access to Washington DC and the press, leaving her out.
There is one incident that marks the transition from “progress to chaos” like no other: The Howe Massacre.
“The Howe, Idaho decision finally was made, and Annie faded from the long-standing battle with Joan Blue. Congress was tired of the emotional pleas from eastern horse groups trying to compete with Wild Horse Annie. The same newspapers that supported the fight to save horses saw there was no progress in the fight and moved on to other stories. The government did not know who to listen to, as a myriad of organizations attempted to out-shout the others as the self-appointed future successors to Wild Horse Annie.” ~ Wild Horse Annie: Velma Johnston and her fight to save the mustang by Alan J. Kania UNR Press.
Author Alan J. Kania, Center, accompanying Velma Johnston to the first official roundup under the Act that took place at Stone Cabin in 1975
What was the Howe Massacre?
In 1973, as her health was failing, Velma had been notified through her network of volunteers that ranchers were killing wild horses by running them off of cliffs and removing them through brutality.
Trapped on a narrow ledge, some of them plummeted over the cliff to their death. Rustlers slit the throats of others and used a chain saw to cut off the legs of those whose feet had become wedged between rocks. Other horses had wires driven through their nostrils to restrict their breathing so they could not escape. The 34 survivors were shipped to a meat-processing plant, where they would have been slaughtered had an injunction not been obtained by government officials alerted by Annie. (Sports Illustrated, featuring the Howe incident, 1975)
Yet, other actions occurred after Velma notified outside organizations. Her organization helped fund a man, Hal Perry, to go document what was happening. She then funded another helicopter trip for Frantz Dantzler of HSUS and the media. The media gave Dantzler the “discovery” of this massacre in headlines. AHPA and HSUS filed litigation and left Velma and her org out of the whole process (you can see the case here). When the judge in the case refused to allow cameras, the attorney and Dantzker stormed out of the courtroom.
In one demonstration of her frustration she penned a letter. Velma was getting calls and letters from media and the public asking: what her organization had been doing lately and why they were not doing anything. Velma was furious.
“I’m damned if I can overlook how WHOA! has been cut out of everything to do with the news media. There is no intention of recognizing that anybody did anything but HSUS and AHPA, but we’ll see about that. Isn’t it awful why all of us, supposedly working toward the same goal, can’t deal fairly with each other? I’ve had several telephone calls… asking what WHOA! has been doing! And here, by God, had it not been for WHOA! the ‘heroes’ would have nothing to be heroic about, and those damned ranchers would have gotten away with it. I’m biter. YUP.”
The cases surrounding the Howe Massacre went up and down the courtroom. In February 1977 the judge ordered parties into mediation. The agreement was a simple one: the ranchers relinquished claims of ownership to horses on federal land and the BLM would place the surviving horses into private care as long as those horses were not used as a publicity stunts. No criminal prosecution occurred.
During the time of the court battles concerning the Howe massacre, Velma continued her work. In Washington DC they scoffed at the notion that ranchers would not heed the directives of federal jurisdiction and continue mustanging. Velma knew better. She knew the Howe incident would not be an isolated one. Federal land management agencies had created a grace period, called “claiming,” that allowed ranchers to remove horses they could prove that they had turned out with the herds. Velma knew this would not be regulated and represent a free-for-all as states pushed back against federal jurisdiction.
County commissions were giving permission for mustanging, they simply requested that bonds be posted. In one such instance the Fallini ranching family, in central Nevada, posted a “gathering bond” with a local district attorney to eradicate a herd of about 800 wild horses on their grazing allotments while federal land managers “figured out what the law meant.” This type of action was occurring all over the west to remove wild hoses from grazing allotments before federal jurisdiction was fully implemented. Any and all regulations imposed on livestock grazing was resented and the federal government taking jurisdiction over wild horses and burros was particularly greeted with disdain.
Velma was able to get a “stay” in court on many of these “bonds posted for gathering,” yet they happened anyway. The boundaries of the areas where wild horses and burros were to be managed, as noted in the 1971 Act, were drastically altered by federal delay.
Velma would die 4 months after the Howe Massacre decision. At the time of her death she was angry and her organization (WHOA!, Wild Horse Observers Association, that does not exist today) was nearly broke.
Velma had battled a host of physical ailments during her lifetime from polio as a child, to the emphysema and cancer that took her life in the end.
When she died a real void was left in the fight for America’s wild horses and burros. That void was exploited by mustangers and federal land managers alike.
Her achievements set a framework that still exists today, yet has been weakened. It is up to those advocating today to learn from the past, stand firm in today and march boldly forward to carry on where Velma left off.
Exhibit created and presented by Wild Horse Education.
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