http://<https://vimeo.com/161533904>

“The Edge” will be premiered this fall. We all are facing The Edge,  see the people who are working to help not only horses, but the planet, survive. Click here <https://vimeo.com/161533904>

I’m just starting to get my head up after after about a year that surely counts as the roughest in my 23 year history of trying to keep the Abaco Spanish Colonial Horses alive. Nunki became ill last October after antibiotic treatment for a cut. When Dr. Vasiliki Harvey arrived in December to help us get a grip on why Nunki couldn’t get better, on the day she arrived I came down with Chikungunya fever, rather like Dengue only the effects can last up to a year. I can attest to that.

We struggled through the spring and early summer, taking Nunki on long walks (not fun in the fever’s long aftermath); cheering when she rallied, suffering with her when she would relapse.

On July 23 Nunki’s struggle ended. She was over 20 years old, amazing for a wild horse, especially one exposed to so many strange pressures. As I’ve noted in other places, on a day that stands right up there with some of the most harrowing chapters from some international suspense thriller, we got living tissue from Nunki into cryogenic storage with ViaGen of Texas. Her cells multiplied, we have enough material to clone several Nunki’s. The stallion, Wayward Wind, DNA approved has sperm already cryogenically stored. We are days away from submitting a requested detailed plan to The Government of The Bahamas for the restoration of the herd.

We’ve been encouraged by Bahamas National Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) to submit a proposal for acceptance of our project as a nominee to become a World Heritage Site.

We were invited to submit our You Caring video to the First Annual Equus Film Festival in New York this month They INVITED us. You’ll be reading more about this soon.

So why aren’t things happening right now this minute? They are! They’re just not the sort of things that make good photo ops.

In the sad days since Nunki’s loss, the work load has switched from tending her almost constantly to spending hours at the computer pulling data together and creating compelling presentation, for which I’ve had the invaluable help of Team Nunki Member Kean Smith. During this period, other members of Team Nunki have been valiantly at work with outreach, letting people know what we are trying to do, holding fund raising events, getting our web site ready for a long overdue update, keeping our presence on Facebook alive and well.

Remember I wrote that if everyone who liked us sent us one dollar a month we’d be up and running? As soon as the government approves our plan we are just jumping at the chance to get going. Everything is on the brink of a huge, world first happening, bringing back a breed that’s officially extinct, through cloning. But we can’t do it alone. Words are not enough.

The men, Avener and Jean who were key to keeping Nunki going as long as she did, have been cut back to Two Hours of work per day. How can they live on that? We just don’t have the financial support to back up the bills I’ve been paying during this long sad time while waiting for government approval. And their work is critical to keeping the Preserve going for the horses that one day will roam there again.

As one of our team members put it, are you just going to read this story and shake your head or will you become a full participant in the glory of seeing these rare horses once again fill the forest preserve?

Nunki’s Story

Check out https://vimeo.com/127137549 (Password is NUNKI), for a recent interview with Mim by Judith Burgess who created the summit as a venue for bringing together interviews with many people involved in equestrian issues.

Brad Ray of Premiere Breeding Services in Colorado, one of the world’s top experts in equine reproduction,  has pronounced Nunki healthy and a good candidate for egg harvest.  We can now move ahead to save the Abaco Spanish Colonial horse that is found only here on Abaco.

Mr.Ray and Dr. Derrick Bailey (our local vet here in Abaco who has had large animal experience) completed a sonogram survey of Nunki’s repro system. Plans are being detailed for Mr. Ray to come back, with an additional vet and an assistant, to collect eggs from Nunki in two phases.

The eggs will be flown to a lab at Texas A&M where another expert has agreed to  store the eggs, and when we have sperm from appropriate DNA compatible stallions, the eggs will be joined with the sperm to form embryos which will be placed in surrogate mares.  The pregnant mares will be transported here to Abaco to have their foals in the environment that will be their home.

Dr. Gus Cothran of The Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences has worked with us for years and he is overseeing the stallion selection process.

We are incredibly excited about this hope for Nunki’s future, and the future of the Abaco Wild Horses.  While we are blessed to be receiving a great deal of very costly reproductive work pro bono, there will be great expenses in implementing the plan. As they come together, we will post the plans, post various fund raising venues and keep everyone in the loop who wants to be a part of this international effort.  People around the globe will be tuning in as we work to bring a wonderful breed of horse back from the edge of extinction. Join us, become part of this world wide effort.  Get ready to join Team Nunki! Details coming!

Dear Visitors and Faithful Subscribers,

Our site works well for deep, detailed information about the Wild Horses Of Abaco.  We have found that for frequent up dates,  photos and videos, several times a week, FaceBook is more convenient: we hope you will find it more convenient as well:

<https://www.facebook.com/abacohorses>

During September 27-29 A friend and I attended the 3d annual International Equine Conference in Lexington Kentucky, where I made a presentation about Nunki, our last mare, and the desperate fight to save her and her irreplaceable genes. A dear friend, Sami Bolton, went with me and not only held me up but made some phenomenal contacts of her own.  Here is her story of the conference with some comments in (  ) where I just had to butt in:

This has been an amazing weekend. Starting off with Friday’s press conference, touring Three Chimneys (thoroughbred race horse farm)  and Old Friends Retirement Home (for retired race horses). Mimi’s presentation had the whole room choked up if not crying. I think I have already said I started slinging snot almost instantly, when I saw that first slide of Nunki. Mimi was concerned about some technical stuff with the powerpoint and computer, but no one cared because the story and message came through loud and clear. Loud and clear to some very important and influential people who began reaching out to us immediately. Also just folks attending and wanting to help as well. One person came over with $100, one with $40, and one lovely woman named Bonnie Rapp sat down next to Mimi after the presentation and asked her what she needed right now, Mimi told her fencing and she wrote out a check for $1500. So now we have the money to buy enough fencing to increase Nunki’s foraging area! It is so important for her health and mental wellbeing. So we have her immediate happiness and needs covered. We made some very powerful and right minded friends this weekend.

The next good thing that happened is that today at 2pm Mimi had a very encouraging conversation with a leading equine repro expert who is familiar with our story and believes not only is collecting Nunki’s eggs doable, it is also important and the right thing to do. He is one of a team of 3 LEADERS in the field, who are willing to donate time and effort to saving this breed. As you know we were at the Kentucky Horse Park for this conference and the place is world class huge! There were several horse shows going on including The National Paso Fino Championships. Just the breed Dr Cothran is leaning towards. So we snuck away to find a Puerto Rican stud at the show!
We drove over to the barn area and started asking the Paso Fino people if they knew where we could find a Puerto Rican studs and got some funny looks, but after explaining we meant stallion horses……we did get good advise and some contact names to follow. 
So, THAT might be in place or at least started. Throughout the conference people kept coming over to us and giving us encouragement and offers of help. These folks are the real deal and putting themselves out there for horses at risk. They are the cream of the crop in horse rescue, wild horse protection and getting things done. Big things like legislation, saving thousands of Wild Horses and taking real risks.
There are a couple of other things that will be going on that we just can’t talk about yet, but the first steps of actually saving this breed are being taken, with a superstar reproductive team.

The ViaGen kit is in play just in case we need back up. (this is a kit to take a sample of living tissue for use in cloning). Reproduction is looking like a real honest to goodness possibility, MASSIVE political help is being offered and we just got a little shot in the arm with donations and encouragement. For the first time guys we are feeling like there is a powerful team forming.
We  . . . are both exhausted from all the energy, other poignant stories and positive encouragement. This is looking totally Do Able! Go Team Nunki!

Please note Mimi has been helping for 21+ years, not the 15 I said in my last post a few minutes ago.

Update on the Wild Horses of Abaco:

Mimi has asked me to update this page and it is my sad duty to inform our friends that we are down to one beloved mare, Nunki.  Our other two mares fell ill and died very quickly last winter and our beautiful bay mare Nunki is the only one left of her breed. Im going to ask you to let that sink in a minute…………………………….One mare left. One horse. The last of her breed.

As you can imagine, it was extremely difficult to share this information and for a while we really thought we might find either Hadar or Capella the stallions. There is so much more to this story and some of it is actually beginning to look positive. Let me share a bit more from an outsider turned insider perspective.

Going back two years, I was lucky enough to be involved beginning the fall/winter of 2011/2012 and again this past winter. I met the three mares and was able to see the aged stallion, Hadar WAY out where he hung out. This was totally unexpected and quite a thrill for me. Here is how it happened:

In 2011 we were on our boat in Marsh Harbour (in The Abacos/Bahamas) listening to the cruisers net which is broadcast every morning letting boaters and vacationers know what is going on in the area.  Being a lifelong horse woman my ears perked up when I heard there were wild horses nearby on a preserve and they needed help.  I contacted Mimi via e-mail and little did I know that I was going to meet my Horse Hero. I have been involved with horses my whole life. I have never seen or known anyone who has ever come close to making the sacrifices (some just plain dangerous) that Mimi has been making these past 15 or so years. I will save that for another post, but make NO mistake, this woman is the Real Deal.

Now the important part: if you have been following along, you already know how important and endangered this breed is. If you have not been following along, I urge you to go to ‘history’ on this site and read the short version of their history and the info on the DNA and designation of the breed itself. We are down to ONE mare.  Think about if there was just on Thoroughbred left or one Quarter Horse left in the world through absolutely NO fault of their own.

Nunki’s story is VERY long and convoluted but the bottom line is her herd has been bounced around by man for the last 100 years or so and after I read and understood that story better Im surprised they didnt die out 50 years ago. Fires, hurricanes, slaughter by locals, poisionous chemicals, non-native toxic plants have taken a toll on top of the natural atrition of a wild herd.  If you are like me, you are probably asking “Why didnt they do this?” or “why didnt they do that?”.  I had a lot of questions at first and I would be glad to share my findings. The bottom line again there is………everything that could be done was done with the resources available. Think wild horses on an island in a third world country. Hurricanes, fires, uncaring humans, struggling government, and one woman virtually alone fighting to save them. Fighting fires, staying out on the preserve during the hurricanes so she could ‘be there’ once the storms past and help if needed. The story is long and hard fought.

Right now we have the attention of leading experts in the field of equine reproduction and DNA etc.  Specifically the possibility of harvesting Nunki’s eggs, fertilizing them at a later date when the perfect stallion is found and saving the breed. All of this takes money and even now Mimi and her very small staff are literally living day to day to try to keep Nunki safe with proper fencing and food. Our world class repro expert is willing to come to the preserve and examine Nunki and see what he needs to work a miracle. Nunki is one of the relatively horses on earth to carry two of the very special genes for “Splash White” Pinto and the last of the Wild Horses of Abaco, also known as the Abaco Spanish Colonial.

Please consider donating to this effort, and  even more importantly ask your friends to take 15 minutes out of their lives and read about Nunki and SHARE the request with their horse loving friends. We need contacts in high places and we need a few thousand $5 donations.  If you know of someone in a position to help, please contact them and share our story. Have them contact us. We need help and contributions now. We are in the 11th hour.

Help Save Our National Treasure

Disclaimer: There are a number of other web sites claiming to be about the Abaco Wild Horses. We are the only site that is ‘on site’ in Abaco; we started the project in 1992.and have been working for the horses ever since. If you need up to date information, this is the place for it. Other sites only confuse issues and draw attention away from our critical needs. Thank you for your support.

The “Patty Wagon”
’95 Land Rover Defender 90, tdi, 4 cylinder diesel, 70,000 miles, 29 mpg

I love her dearly, but she’s too small for all the gear I have to haul

New clutch
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