FOUNDER
Wild Love featured on Outdoor Idaho's "Wild Horses" Idaho Public Television, October 2017
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. 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.”
"If you go in looking for a fight, you're going to 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
Listen to Andrea Maki Interview with Beth Markley on Elemental Idaho on Radio Boise, April 20, 2016
“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.”
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.
Seven years and counting, Maki's focus has been in keeping her word with captured Challis wild mares she met from a 2009 roundup, 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, the WLP Land Trust and creation of the a permanently protected wild expanse and 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
As of February 2018, we are pleased to share yet another positive step forward.Because of Wild Love Preserve's continued due-diligence, collaborative, and pro-active efforts since 2010 with the Challis-Idaho BLM, there has not been a helicopter roundup of the Challis Herd since October 2012. Prior to Wild Love Preserve, the Challis BLM's intent was to conduct federally funded helicopter roundups and removals every other year. Wild Love Preserve and the Challis-Idaho BLM will work together on the current Environmental Assessment of the Challis Herd Management Area as a collective whole, and together 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. This collaborative work sets yet another new precedent which serves to benefit our work on all six herd management areas in Idaho, as well as other wild horse regions in the west: Wild Game Changer
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 $7.5 million dollars since 2013 as result of our programs on and off the range. At a savings of $50,000 per lifetime for each wild horse adopted from the government system, the 2012-13 WLP Adoption Project alone, has saved taxpayers $6.5 million with our 130 rescued Challis, Idaho wild horses, while instrumental collaborative work on the range has saved over $1million federal dollars since 2014. With your help we will save more wild lives and taxpayer dollars in 2016. Enjoy WLP videos for wild lives we save and serve.
All Animals Magazine, Summer 2014, featuring Wild Red and the White Mask Stallion. Photo: Andrea Maki 2012
“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 equally paramount. In 2010 I made a wild promise, which resulted in the formation of non-profit Wild Love Preserve. Little did I know at that time, the layered magnitude of this specific regional playing field for which I had just entered, and the array of stakeholders locked in opposition.
“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.”
Wild Love Preserve has grown to a scale I did not originally anticipate, organically evolving into a new multi-dimensional management model simply by way of responding to the multitude of logistics unfolding at every turn. Challenges plentiful, perseverance and patience required.
WLP is about 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 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 life, a reflection of the way in which I was raised, and qualities I personally 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
“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.”
“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.”
Andrea Maki with wild wild horses, 2010 Photo ©2010 Robert Maki
Wild Love Preserve is a Registered 501(c)3 Non-Profit, Effective August 2010, Tax ID #27-3729450
