Wild Horse Annie

Description

A few words about the artwork from artist Jaxon Northon. “Velma Bronn Johnston, also known as Wild Horse Annie, was an animal welfare activist that single-handedly led a campaign to stop the eradication and cruelty toward our wild horses and burros. She was born in Reno, Nevada in 1912. In 1923 she contracted polio and was confined to a full-body cast for six months, leaving her slightly disfigured and in constant pain throughout her life. Driving to work one day, in 1950 Johnston was following a truck overcrowded with horses and saw blood dripping from the back. She followed it to a slaughterhouse and upon learning they were free-roaming horses gathered from Nevada’s Virginia range she immediately took action. On September 8, 1959, her dedicated campaign resulted in the federal legislature passing public law 86-234 which banned air and land vehicles from hunting and capturing free-roaming horses on federal land. This became known as the Wild Horse Annie act. Not satisfied, Annie kept fighting and in 1971, the 92nd United States Congress unanimously passed the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. This act prohibited capture, injury, or disturbance of free-roaming horses and burros. Johnston died at age sixty-five on June 27, 1977. She is buried alongside her parents, husband, and brother in the Mountain View Cemetery in Reno, NV. Wild Horse Annie faced disadvantages her entire life and still single-handedly saved our beautiful wild horses and burros from the atrocities of wasteful and uncaring humans. She embodies what a Nevadan should be.”