Wild Love featured on Outdoor Idaho's "Wild Horses" Idaho Public Television, October 2017
FOUNDER
Wild Love Preserve was founded in April 2010 by contemporary visual artist and photographer, Andrea Maki. Most said it would be impossible to bring stakeholders together. Some went as far as to try and shut her down. However, she is built of tenacity, and is insistent on truth and integrity, and wouldn't allow others to derail her efforts to establish a new collaborative platform in the name of saving the Challis wild horses on their home turf, and wild horses in the West.
The focus of Andrea and her organization, Wild Love Preserve, has been in bringing people together in a new light to collectively develop and implement new working solutions which serve to benefit wild horses and the whole. Conflict resolution, fluid communications, mutual respect, listening, and patience are cornerstone to establishing common ground. Watch Outdoor Idaho's feature about Wild Love Preserve from October 2017: "Wild Horses"
“ Wild Love Preserve is about us all, a reflection of our humanity.”
— Founder, Andrea Maki, 2010
"If you go in looking for a fight, you're going to get a fight. My interest is in engaging in discussions that lead to solutions through listening and mutual respect. This is an accountability project and a humanity project. Wild Love Preserve works with the Bureau of Land Management, cattle ranchers, environmentalists, wildlife biologists, wild horse advocates, youth employment groups and regional communities, offering a mutually viable solution to helicopter roundups and removals. My role over the years, has, in many ways, been that of a moderator. Since 2010, Wild Love Preserve has been fully engaged in collaborative population management, accountability and pro-active programs that involve all stakeholders and address the health and balance of the range and this unique indigenous ecosystem as an interconnected and balanced whole. While differing opinions are a given, mutual respect in negotiations and dealings are integral in establishing common ground. We do not implement tools of litigation, instead, we work face-to-face with all stakeholders, finding compromise between differing perspectives through fluid communications in real-time.” -Andrea Maki
“Andrea Maki, an artist from the state of Washington, has done the impossible. She has gotten the Bureau of Land Management, the community of Challis and Custer County, the area cattle ranchers and environmentalists to work together with WLP. If this model for mustang management works, it could save the wild mustangs, the environment they live in and bring new money to the tiny town of Challis…. and finally be a solution for wild horse management across the West.”
— Karole Honas, Ch8/ABC Nightly News, Idaho Falls, ID, May 2014
Watch Above: September 2021, Interview with Andrea Maki for Wild Mustang Documentary featuring Wild Love Preserve for US funded Alhurra Public Television. For more and to watch interviews with some of the diverse stakeholders Andrea, through Wild Love, has brought together over the last 11+ years, click here. All interviews are in English.
As result of a purposeful encounter combined with our nation's wild horse crisis, Andrea Maki's creation of Wild Love Preserve is intended as an interactive approach to protecting and preserving our iconic wild mustangs in their native habitat. Born in Seattle in 1966, Maki graduated from New York University on the Dean's List in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Painting. In 1989 she returned to the Northwest where she still resides. Her contemporary art career spans 28 years, exhibiting and in collections nationally, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Maki's work reflects our universal energy and her deep connection with the animal world. Her mixed media work and photographs have time and again acted as means to spread awareness in relation to saving our environment and wildlife since the early 80's. Her 2002 invitational travels to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with author Peter Matthiessen and a small group, resulted in her project, "Spirit of the Arctic/Spirit of One", to promote awareness and support for this sacred place as means of giving back. In 2005 she created "The Wild Horse Project", following her 1999 wild horse series, also to promote support and awareness.
Ten years and counting, Maki's focus has been in keeping her word with captured Challis wild mares she first met from a 2009 roundup, along with a related wild red stallion and two small bands remaining wild on the range. Staying true to her word has organically evolved into a new, all-inclusive approach to humanely and responsibly addressing all facets of wild horse population on home turf, and creating a permanently protected wildlife preserve in the heart of Idaho's wild horse country. Wild Love Preserve was instrumental in curtailing a proposed 2017 helicopter roundup to instead implement a hay bait trap gather because of collaborative work with the Challis wild horses since 2010 and continued fluid communications with the BLM and stakeholders. This bait trap gather is in conjunction with the fourth year of our annual Native PZP-1YR collaborative management program with WLP and the Challis BLM. Read more here: Challis Wild Horse Bait Trap Gather
The Idaho BLM's November 2019 helicopter roundup of the Challis wild horses was the first conducted in seven years following October 2012, versus every 2-3 years which is the typical time-frame, due to Wild Love Preserve's pro-active work with the Challis-Idaho BLM and the implementation of our collaborative and humane management program on the range since 2013. As in 2012, Wild Love founder Andrea Maki worked on behalf of the Challis wild horses to reduce conflicts between the advocates, public and BLM, leading up, during and following this November 2019 Roundup. In 2018 Wild Love Preserve was able to work with the Challis-Idaho BLM on the Environmental Assessment of the Challis Herd Management Area as a collective whole to develop a 10-year pro-active management plan for the Challis Herd in conjunction with, and relation to, this indigenous ecosystem on our multi-use public lands as an interconnected whole. The collaborative work between WLP and the Challis-Idaho BLM continues to set new precedents which serve to benefit our work on all six herd management areas in Idaho, and be helpful for other wild horse regions in the west.
2021 marks the eight year of the humane and collaborative Native PZP fertility management program between the BLM and WLP on the Challis HMA. In July of 2020, Wild Love adopted the first group of 24 wild horses from the 2019 Challis roundup needing placement, bringing the number of permanent residents to 165. As per Wild Love's mission, the adoptions and purchase of Challis-Idaho wild horses that do not find homes through BLM adoption programs, and as done following the 2012 Challis roundup, is imperative and to enable them to live forever wild and together and on their terms in Idaho at Wild Love Preserve.
Wild Love Preserve is a legacy project which speaks to our whole and reflects our humanity - past, present and future. Kindness, mutual respect, science and education are paramount. In addition to saving wild lives in a lasting manner, Wild Love Preserve has saved American taxpayers $8.5 million dollars since 2013 as result of our programs on and off the range. Watch WLP videos by Andrea for some of the hundreds of wild lives we work with, have saved, and serve.
All Animals Magazine, Summer 2014, featuring Wild Red and the White Mask Stallion. Photo: Andrea Maki 2012
“ Wild Love Preserve is named such because it is committed to the greater good of our wild planet, now and for future generations - centering on humanity, compassion, sustainability, two-legged accountability and our responsibility to the whole.”
—A. Maki
“Wild Love Preserve is named such because it is dedicated to the greater good of our wild planet, now and for future generations, centering on humanity, compassion, sustainability, two-legged accountability, and our responsibility to the whole.
I am a staunch advocate for integrity, kindness, compassion, and action on behalf of our greater good. Animals have always been integral to my life and being. The health of the environment is equally paramount. In 2010 I made a wild promise which resulted in the formation of Wild Love Preserve. I had no idea at that time, the layered magnitude and array of stakeholders locked in opposition in this specific region of central Idaho, for which I had just entered.
Fast forward, Wild Love organically evolved into a new multi-dimensional wild horse conservation model by responding to the multitude of logistics unfolding at every turn. Challenges never-ending. Perseverance, tenacity, and patience forever essential.
Wild Love has focused on finding solutions and new ways of bringing people together. If you go in looking for a fight, you’re going to get a fight. If you approach others with respect, kindness, patience, and sincere interest in listening to differing perspectives, you can find common ground and open news doors to change. We can rise above drawn lines if we so choose.
Truth, sincerity, accountability, integrity, follow through and compassion are traits of my being. And these are the qualities I prefer to see in terms of human co-existence. By design, this lasting project welcomes those who wish to make a lasting difference and believe positive change is always possible when we work together.” -Andrea Maki, Founder
“Andrea, through her organization, has faced obstacles greater than the adoption and management. She has had to overcome the natural suspicion of the community and other public land users who have experienced the NGO’s disregard for social, economic, and cultural concerns of the community [as set forth in NEPA]. She has crafted an understanding with the community, ranchers, and local government officials by demonstrating ‘on the ground solutions’ without government monies. ...Her program when fully funded will solve the wild horse issue in the Custer Wild Horse Management Area (WHMA) through private management and Native PZP-1YR for population control to maintain herd size.”
— S. Bauchman, Challis Creek Cattle Co., Spring 2014
“Frequently folks tell me they want to feel they are truly making a difference, but express discouragement, overwhelm, even a sense of defeat in response to the world’s current state of affairs. Personally, I believe that if we each engage in our unique ways these individual acts grow, multiply and eventually add up to address the whole and our greater good.”
