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Life is not all fairytales, we know that, but with mystical and kind creatures living in the Tonto National Forest, a little bit of magic is preserved there for everyone who believes in it.
We fight hard for the well being of the whole herd as well as each individual horse that is part of it. With your help, we will never stop doing so. But it takes strong warriors and strong supporters, as sometimes it takes a lot out of everyone.
You are part of this quest and we could not thank our supporters enough for supporting the recent rescues of Agave and Cheyenne and Nakota and Gideon. All of the babies are doing great and Cheyenne is hanging inthere.
But just when you think we are out of the woods for a while, yet another tale is unfolding:
Her name was Snow White, as she was fairer than any other. We watched her live happily in the forest for over a decade, able to survive every harsh reality of nature, year in and year out. She had beautiful offspring and a spectacular colt just two weeks ago. The little one, born a bay color, has all the signs that he will be as white as snow one day as well. Because the names of the seven dwarves are not really befitting him, we just called him Snow.
But during this difficult week of many colic cases, we found the saddest discovery of all; Snow White’s body lifeless, under the canopy of the forest. It wasn't an apple that poisened her, but many mesquite beans that were too hard to resist. It was too late for the antidote that saved some others. Snow white was really dead.
We grieved, and took her DNA, but then immediately remembered her beautiful colt, just 2 weeks old. We knew his story would be over too, unless..
We searched for him and found him the following day. His band led by two powerful stallions was protecting him and kept him in their midst at all times. It was heartwarming to see, but we knew that he would slowly perish without his mothers milk.
We sought permission to rescue and received that, plus a bit of hands on help from our Salt River Horse Liaison Jacquelyn Hughes. We were able to nab Snow whites baby from the stallions in order to save his life. They seemed to then willingly let him go, as Jacquelyn and the rest of our crew walked him out of the woods. (He had been slowing the band down for days.)
Snow has been as tough as he could, but is in bad shape with mesquite bean poisoning just like his beautiful mother. It is causing acidosis and hypoglycemia and he is of course severely dehydrated.
We dont know yet how his story is going to end. We could let him go peacefully, or we could continue to fight for his happy ending. We know that either choice is better than leaving him to suffer slowly in the field.
A great big thank you to Jacquelyn Hughes and the Arizona Ag Department, we appreciate having a strong and compassionate Salt River Horse Liaison.
We believe in the power of the public and we always listen to the majority, but he is going to need many fairy godmothers for his estimated $3000 vetbill of which we had to prepay $1500. All fairy godmothers and fathers, did you know that you can now create your own fundraiser for Snow? There is a button on our fb page that says "create fundraiser".
Help us believe in magic.
Let's hope and pray for a happy ending to a sad story in the Saga of the Salt. Rest in peace Snow white.
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The Salt River Wild Horse Management Group (SRWHMG) monitors and documents the Salt River wild horses, fights for their permanent protection, rescues suffering horses when needed, and makes safety improvements to their habitat.