Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs: The Life of Velma Johnston, Cruise David, Griffiths Alison

In 1950, Velma Johnston was a thirty-eight-year-old secretary enroute to work near Reno, Nevada, when she came upon a truck of battered wild horses that had been rounded up and were to be slaughtered for pet food. Shocked and angered by this gruesome discovery, she vowed to find a way to stop the cruel round-ups, a resolution that led to a life-long battle that would pit her against ranchers and powerful politicians--but eventually win her support and admiration around the world. This is the first biography to tell her courageous true story.

Like Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, or Temple Grandin, Velma Johnston dedicated her life to public awareness and protection of animals. Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs follows Velma from her childhood, in which she was disfigured by polio, to her dangerous vigilante-style missions to free captured horses and document round-ups, through the innovative and exhaustive grassroots campaign which earned her the nickname Wild Horse Annie and led to Congress passing the Wild Horse Annie Bill, to her friendship with renowned childrens author and horse-lover Marguerite Henry.