About the Wild Horses
Horses have been part of the culture of indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest ever since they were first introduced in the mid-1700s. The indigenous peoples revered these new arrivals for their strength, endurance and independence. Horses quickly became the primary means of transportation throughout the region. By the mid-1800s, there were tens of thousands of horses in what is now central Washington.
During the westward expansion of the United States in the 1800s and the establishment of Washington as a US territory, indigenous tribes and bands living along much of the upper Columbia River were resettled to a 1.4 -million-acre reservation along the Yakima River in 1855 under the banner of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Despite their confinement, the Yakama people became known for the quality of the horses they raised and for their horsemanship. Yakama people sold horses to the early explorers, the incoming settlers and the US Army, some of which were shipped as far away as South Africa. Throughout this period many horses escaped and found refuge in remote portions of the Yakama Reservation.
There, the horses did not just survive, they flourished. Over time, the wild horse has become the symbol of the spirit and tenacity of the Yakama people.
As the 20th century began, motor vehicles began to replace horses as the primary means of transportation for both tribal and non-tribal people. Large numbers of horses were abandoned by their owners and roamed in herds throughout much of central Washington where they became a nuisance for ranchers and farmers. Most of these feral horses were eventually eliminated from all public lands. However, those that found sanctuary in the remote portions of the Reservation were protected and revered.
Today, herds of wild horses still roam the Reservation where they are considered crucial to the identity and culture of the Yakama people. These free-roaming herds also represent the last of a unique natural resource which, for three centuries, was found throughout much of the region. Current estimates put the number of wild horses on the Reservation at roughly 5,000, a number significantly below the more than 16,000 that were counted just a few years ago.
About These Images
In 1998, I retired as a research scientist from Washington State University and began a new life as an amateur wildlife videographer and photographer. Carol Craig, information officer for what was then called the Yakama Nation Fisheries and Wildlife Group, provided me with an opportunity to record various tribal projects and to produce short videos for her public education programs. At the time I began, the Wildlife section was without an administrative leader and without a leader for the large mammal program. As might be expected, the large mammal program included the wild horses. However, the horses were considered an adjunct, with no wildlife biologist assigned to monitor their activities. During that period, the wild horse population was increasing rapidly, and the impact of the horses on the environment was becoming apparent. I was asked to observe the horses and record both their behavior and the damage they were causing. For this, I was given unrestricted access to areas of the reservation which are normally closed to non-tribal members. I continued this activity long after the leadership positions were filled. Between 1999 and 2016, I spent several hours 2-3 days each week trailing the horses, much of the time on foot, to record their interactions with each other and with the land, streams, and other wildlife.
This site contains photographs that record some of the behavior of horses in their natural environment at various times throughout the years. It also includs some images that document the damage to the environment that occurred when the horse population was near its peak of nearly 16,000 animals.
About the Author
Gaylord Mink, born in 1931 in Lafayette, IN, is a Korean War veteran who went on to earn a PhD in plant pathology at Purdue University.
He and his wife, Barbara, and family moved from Indiana to Washington in 1962 where he worked for 35 years as a research scientist in the Faculty of Agriculture, Washington State University, at Prosser. He retired from WSU as Professor of Virology and Plant Pathology in 1998.
Late in his academic career, Mink traveled extensively in eastern Africa where he developed an interest in wildlife videography and photography, an interest he continues to this day. After retirement from WSU, he developed a close working relationship with state and federal wildlife biologists as well as biologists employed by the Yakama Nation. For more than two decades Mink contributed as a volunteer photographer on state, federal and tribal projects that ranged from land restoration to migratory waterfowl management to tagging black bears, Roosevelt elk behavior on the Hanford Reservation and salmon restoration in the Yakima River. As part of his Yakama adventures, he spent over a decade videotaping and photographing wild horses, with permission, in the closed areas of the Yakama Reservation.
In 2020 Mink published two books.
From Taptat to Prosser Dam. How Name Changes Affected “Indian Fishing Tights” at Prosser, Washington and Beyond. This book examined the role that the dam at Prosser and the citizens of Prosser played in support of the rights of Yakama tribal members to fish at their accustomed fishing site near Prosser.
Wild Horses on the Yakama Reservation A photo book illustrating the activities of wild horses as they live their lives on the Yakama Reservation.
Note: All video tapes of Yakama Nation projects are archived at the Yakama Nation Museum, Toppenish, WA.
All video tapes of Washington State Fish and Wildlife projects are archived at the Prosser Historical Museum, Prosser, WA.
Two videos depicting the life of wild horses can be viewed on You Tube at
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is expressed by assigning human traits and behavior to animals. A common example of this is the naming of wild horses combined with the tendency to interpret the horse’s behavior in humanistic terms. Many, if not most, websites that follow wild horses on public lands are anthropomorphic. There is nothing wrong with this practice, other than the fact that individual horses quickly become symbols for the observer and the observer’s prejudices rather than the independent entities that they are.
So far as I am aware, Yakama tribal members and the wildlife managers of the wild horses are not anthropomorphic. Wild horses are treated much the same as the deer, the elk, the salmon and the other animals that have vital roles in Yakama Culture.
In this presentation, the wild horses remain individually nameless but are given the respect and minimal interpretation they deserve. The readers are free to assign whatever characteristics they like to any of the horses.
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