Wild Horses: Just Launched Galloping to Freedom Kickstarter Project

Photographer Carol Walker seeks partners for Galloping to Freedom project
Just Launched! Kickstarter campaign invites supporters to be part of the wild horse solution

America’s wild horse herds are in peril of extinction, but award-winning equine photographer Carol Walker is ready with viable solutions in her new book, Galloping to Freedom: Saving America’s Wild Horses. Through a campaign at web-based fund-raising platform Kickstarter, Walker invites wild horse supporters to be “part of the solution” by helping her print and distribute this important guide to ensuring the future of our legacy animals.

“My contributors can take satisfaction in their role in solving this problem,” says Walker. “It’s my passion to preserve this important part of our American heritage,” she says. “There are solutions, and I want to get that information to the public.” An astute observer of horses in their natural habitat—and herself an adopter of three mustangs—Walker has made an intensive study of Wyoming wild horse bands. “These herds are sustainable with reasonable management tools,” she says. “Round-ups ultimately make no sense. They jeopardize the animals’ genetic viability and result in tens of thousands of horses living out their days in miserable holding pens or other inappropriate facilities, at immense taxpayer expense.”

Galloping to Freedom provides pro-active approaches—collaboration, litigation, effective planning and support for sanctuaries—that will change the way the public and land managers resolve the wild horse dilemma. Presenting the serious argument for Walker’s proposed solutions, Galloping to Freedom is also a standout hard-cover coffee table book, filled with Walker’s evocative images of horses in the wild and in sanctuaries, all in vibrant color. Without doubt, Galloping to Freedom engages the reader’s intellect and emotions.

Donors to the Galloping to Freedom project will receive autographed copies of the book, be named in book, web and media acknowledgments, and (depending on the contribution level) will receive signed art prints of images from the book. Contributors can be assured that Walker will produce: She has a significant track record of successful publishing. Her first book, Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses, earned numerous awards; her popular second book, Horse Photography: The Dynamic Guide for Horse Lovers, also continues to sell well.

Walker has selected online platform Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com ) to manage her fundraising campaign. Funding is all-or-nothing; if the project doesn’t earn enough support in a specified time period, the offering is cancelled and no money changes hands. If Walker gains sufficient support, the book will be published in 2012 and will get the urgent message out to people who can help save America’s wild horses. As Walker says, “Time is crucial. Another year passing means more horses will be rounded up, taken from familiar ground and their family bands, and face an uncertain future. This is the right time for this book to reach publication.”

The time frame to support Galloping to Freedom is just 30 days—from now until July 20. Remember a $10 donation does make a difference, and if you donate $50 or more it is like pre-ordering the book.

Contribute online at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gallopingtofreedom/galloping-to-freedom-saving-americas-wild-horses?ref=live

For more information and to contact Carol Walker, visit www.WildHoofbeats.com.