Bonnie Matton, a life well lived.

The Virginia Range lost a wild horse hero last month. Bonnie Matton was a joyful ray of dazzling sunshine who willingly gave her all for the protection and preservation of Nevada’s wild horses, particularly in the Dayton area. No matter the challenge -- from back road adventures with her close friend and beloved wild horse community member Dorothy, to protesting at the Capitol, Bonnie was up for it. Her legacy lives on through the well-known organization she founded, the Wild Horse Preservation League.

Volunteer Highlight

This month, the Pinto Post is highlighting AWHC Documenter and LRTC rescue team member Tracy Wilson. Tracy is one of those volunteers who wears many, many hats! Her dedication and love for the wild horses really shines through her telling of her story.

Take it away, Tracy

Horses have been in my heart my whole life, including many summers attending and working at a summer horse camp and my own Spanish Mustang mare that I had for many years. Before I moved near Reno, NV, we were here visiting family in summertime every year. Wild horse bands would walk down the street (very near the edge of the range) and I was in awe of them being in the neighborhood. Little did I know then how they would change my life. 

After my husband and I (and our son before he left for college) moved to Reno in 2013, I happened to see a post looking for volunteers to help protecting the wild horses. I attended a meeting and then an open house and volunteered to scoop poop for some rescued Virginia Range horses in the care of Hidden Valley Wild Horse Protection Fund, HVWHPF. It grew from there. Fast forward to when I signed up to take the training course for LRTC's Technical Large Animal Rescue (TLAR) team. At that same training, Deb Walker suggested documenting and spotting for the fertility control program. Turns out I loved both. 

I love being on the range and seeing wild horses just being wild horses with their family units and social interactions. It's so fun to see a band of "brown horses" but be able to pick out features that allow us to ID them on the spot using the database. I really love the data side of things - being able to solve the puzzle of identifying a horse, for example looking at nearly identical roans and being able to tell them apart by matching roan spots or other subtleties like ear shape. Or even piecing together who they were with or where they have been spotted. I enjoy finding and seeing the results in the data as we look at mares that were treated with PZP and I love working with the team because we are all in it to make sure our Virginia Range horses can stay wild and free in a sustainable and humane way. 

I am also a TLAR team member and assistant supervisor. Rescue work has its ups and downs, but our team will drop everything to help the horses, from foals to adults to full bands. And we rarely give up, but instead keep problem solving until we find an answer that works to get the job done. The last few months I have been part of the team caring for an orphan foal named Goliath. He has captured the hearts of many and keeps us on our toes. 

And in the natural progression of things, I now own two rescued Virginia Range mustangs that I took on as a volunteer project at first, but after a lot of hard work and much help from the training side of LRTC, and investing my heart in them, I adopted them from HVWHPF as my own!

In my not so spare time I run a business as a muscular therapist. Though with COVID-19, my office has been closed for the last few months and I have of course filled my time with Virginia Range mustangs!

I don't care who owns the land they stand on, the wild horses of the West deserve our best. Being able to play just a tiny part of helping them right here on the Virginia Range fills my heart and makes every long, hard, dusty, hot, cold, or windy day worth it. 

Horse Highlight

This month the Pinto Post has a special submission from documenter extraordinaire Richie Asencio.

“I met Ender in Oct of 2018. He was Leading a bachelor band of three. First time laying eyes on this boy he made a quick impression on me. He had size, power and speed. I did not see him at all in 2019. Then in the Spring on 2020, he appeared with his own band! He was still traveling with one of his bachelor brothers. He also had picked up four mares and a foal. The impressive part about his mares is that he took them from three long-standing stallions. He took a mare and foal from Mars. Two mares from Fuego. And he took Colton's only mare. Safe to say Ender has arrived.”