Meet Carol Walker | Artist, Author, Wild Horse Advocate, Podcaster

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carol Walker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carol, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I had been taking photographs since I was 4 years old, and I have been involved with horses since age 6, so starting a business photographing horses made sense. I started out by photographing people and their horses, and then began selling my images as artwork.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I visited wild horses for the first time in 2004 in Adobe Town, Wyoming. I immediately fell in love with these amazing wild horses who live in families in the harshest of lands where they survive and thrive. When I found out that the herd I had come to know was being rounded up by helicopters and sent to holding facilities I was devastated and horrified, and decided that I was going to show the world that these horses were not starving and dying of thirst but were magnificent beings that deserve to live their lives on our public lands which are their home, with their families. That’s when I wrote my first book, Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses. I have written and published two more coffee table books on wild horses and I do two calendars a year. Since then I have spent the last 20 years educating people and fighting to keep these wild horses free. I use my photographs, which are an advocate’s best tool, on social media, in the press, in my books, and in the last two years, in my Freedom for Wild Horses Podcast. It has been a tough journey. The Bureau of Land Management is set on destroying our remaining wild herds. I have three adopted wild mustangs of my own that live with me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take them to Rocky Mountain National Park – the most gorgeous scenery and wildlife in the area.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Ginger Kathrens, founder and Board President of The Cloud Foundation. Her work to save America’s wild horses in books and films plus her support personally helped my journey to get the word out about our wild horses and to work to save them

Website: http://www.WildHoofbeats.com, (education) http://www.LivingImagesCarolWalker.com (photography)

Instagram: @wild_hoofbeats

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroljwalker

Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/WildHoofbeats

Youtube: @CarolWalkerWildHorses

Other: Threads: @wild_hoofbeats

Blue Sky: @wildhoofbeats.bky.social

Image Credits
Carol J. Walker