Wild in Taos: A Connection with Wild Horses

Wild in Taos explores the deep connection between Eileen Skahill, a passionate photographer, and the wild horses of Taos. These majestic creatures, facing threats from climate change and habitat loss, have become a significant part of her life and work. Through her lens, Eileen captures not just images but memories of these familial beings.

These horses are, to me, a unique group, and my connection to them, and fear for their future, on so many levels, is very profound. That was my first time encountering them, though I had made trips through their sacred grounds for over a decade, only having seen one over that period of time. But on that cool and gray January day in 2015, I hiked out to where they were, graciously allowed into their space, finding myself surrounded by nearly 35 of them, for over an hour.

Spending time with these horses was a spiritual moment for me, and the beginning of a lifelong love affair with these creatures. They are so familial, so connected; they are family to each other, and now to me. As a professor of Sociology and the Humanities, who specializes in teaching about climate change and environmental justice, I understand the threefold problem these animals face: slaughter, sterilization, and their loss of habitat and life-sustaining resources due to climate change. This band of horses is particularly affected by the already very hot, desolate, and sparse food and water-starved lands of the arid Southwest; conditions only to greatly worsen on a hotter and drier planet. So, it is important to me that the consequences of climate change be figured into the narrative of the wild horse, for the photos I take, I consider ones that are capturing a memory. I don’t want that to be the case, but at the risk of sounding pessimistic, the trajectory we are on figures that notion of capturing a memory to be true.

You can see more of Eileen's work at http://www.wildsoulphotographycolorado.com/.