PhotoAdvocacy

PhotoAdvocacy The Shutter Closes, Advocacy Begins. Independent Conservation Photographer | Animal Photojournalist | World Photography Awards Winner

Self-taught Scottish photographer, living in Denver, Colorado, Scott prowls between dusk and dawn, pursuing lingering low light and a dramatic edge. Scott recently moved to Colorado from the UK, where he was a multi-year finalist in the UK and Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year Competitions and his work has featured regularly in publications including The Sunday Times, Advanced Photograph

er, Digital Photo and Photography Monthly. Scott’s images tell tales of epic shoots, crazy o’clock journeys, blisters and burst waders, the odd-broken finger and frequently cracked filters… All in the name of a moment of light which will speak to those who also marvel at the beauty of our landscape. With an extensive back-catalogue of European photographic icons, Scott is thrilled by recent opportunities to explore the immensity of Colorado’s stunning outdoors and he hopes to bring a unique perspective to the viewer through his new work.

West Douglas horses from 2021 roundup tied to New York Times investigationSkydog didn’t just trigger the NYT investigati...
09/08/2026

West Douglas horses from 2021 roundup tied to New York Times investigation

Skydog didn’t just trigger the NYT investigation with the data they supplied and leave it there.

They’ve done the painstaking work of following the paper trail, decoding the freeze brands and connecting those six individual horses back to Colorado, their 2021 roundup, and the system that lost track of them.

As Clare said, these six young Colorado horses show why the call for a pause on Colorado roundups by Governor Jared Polis, Congressman Joe Neguse and other Colorado members of Congress, to take a closer look at what is happening to our horses after removal is so urgently needed, in the wake of the recent New York Times investigation

Today's wild horse conflict didn't begin with "too many horses".It began with a much older struggle over who gets to dec...
09/07/2026

Today's wild horse conflict didn't begin with "too many horses".

It began with a much older struggle over who gets to decide what the American West is for. Before helicopters. Before the BLM. Before the Wild Horse Act...

There were The Sheep Wars.

The arguments sound eerily familiar. “The fence is made for beasts; the law is made for man.” - Wyoming territorial court, 1889.

From the late 19th into the early 20th century, cattlemen and sheepmen fought across the West, including Colorado and Wyoming, over the most basic resource on the range: grass.

Who could graze it. Where they could graze it. And who had the right to decide. The Cheyenne Leader reported 800–1,000 cattlemen prepared to resist 60,000 sheep moving south from Wyoming.

The conflict became violent. Thousands of sheep were killed. Men were shot. Armed groups guarded the range. The question wasn't simply how much grass existed. It was who was entitled to use it.

In 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act brought federal regulation to the public range. Grazing districts. Permits. Allotments. Fees. Public forage became something that could be allocated in order to “stabilize the livestock industry dependent upon the public range.”

Free-roaming horses had been part of the open range long before the system closed around them. As grazing was regulated, horses increasingly became competitors for the same forage. The conflict had expanded to the bureaucracy.

Then, in 1971, Congress changed the rules.

Wild horses and burros were declared “living symbols of the pioneer spirit of the West” and “an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”

Wild horses finally had a seat at the table. But the competition for the range didn't disappear. It became “a management problem.”
Today, the machinery looks different - helicopters, contracts, gather reports, AUMs, AMLs, holding facilities and administrative decisions about which animals remain on public land.

When the range gets crowded, the horses are still the ones being moved. For more than a century, the question has been “who has the right to the range?”

Perhaps the more important question for wild horses is “what does ‘integral’ actually mean?” if you are always looking over your shoulder.

Lily & DakodaSkydog SanctuaryWatching these two girls go absolutely wild with uncontained joy is one of the most fun day...
09/06/2026

Lily & Dakoda
Skydog Sanctuary

Watching these two girls go absolutely wild with uncontained joy is one of the most fun days I've ever had with horses.

I've published a couple of the images in this set before - indeed one of the ones of Lily is now a 10th anniversary T-shirt on the Skydog website - but I haven’t shared the full whirlwind set.... Enjoy!

Lily is from Palomino Butte, Oregon and Dakoda was rescued after a roundup at Arapahoe Creek, Wyoming - the two have been best friends since coming home to Skydog.

TERRA FIRMASkydog SanctuaryFor the past month, my world has been helicopters, dust, traps, trailers and the relentless i...
09/05/2026

TERRA FIRMA
Skydog Sanctuary

For the past month, my world has been helicopters, dust, traps, trailers and the relentless intensity of independently documenting wild horse roundups in Colorado.

I sleep in my truck. I work long days. I’m kept at arms’ length, often physically separated from what is happening, with much of the roundup off limits to observers.

I try to document what I can see as carefully as possible.

And then I go to Skydog.

The pace changes. The atmosphere changes. And, honestly, so do I. There is peace, time to watch rather than react, and to make photographs rather than simply record events. Time to collaborate with the people caring for these horses and, most importantly, time to spend with the horses themselves.

After a month of watching wild horses being removed from the landscapes they know, it feels important to explore what happens next.

My preference will always be to prevent unnecessary removals. But they are happening, and thousands of horses are entering a very different chapter of their lives.

Thanks to Skydog’s tenacity and investigative data, the New York Times recently shone a light on the darkest possible outcome: a journey through a government sales system that can ultimately put a protected wild horse in the slaughter pipeline.

At the other end of that spectrum is a home like Skydog itself.

Here, horses can remain together. They have space, stability, care and the opportunity to reform relationships disrupted when they were removed from the range.

It is a beautiful outcome. But it is available to very few.

There simply isn't enough sanctuary space, and responsible adopters aren't available in numbers remotely large enough for all the horses being removed. The BLM currently cares for more than 53,000 horses in off-range facilities and is in the process of adding another 14,000.

There is a fork in the road after a roundup and where that road leads matters.

This is why I want to bring some attention back to Skydog, and to unpublished photographs I made there in July. Not because sanctuary solves the problem of removing wild horses.

It doesn't.

And not because every horse removed from the range can have a life like the ones these photographs portray. We should still know what a good outcome looks like.

The story doesn't end at the trap. In fact, that is often where another, much less visible story begins.

Colorado, Let's Talk About Habitat RestorationWhen Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971, ...
09/04/2026

Colorado, Let's Talk About Habitat Restoration

When Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971, Colorado’s wild horses were recognized across eight Herd Areas spanning 804,563 acres of public land.

Those Herd Areas stretched along the Utah border on the west, to Colorado’s northwest corner near Wyoming, reflecting the historic range of the state’s wild horses.

Largest was the Piceance Basin complex—North Piceance, Piceance East Douglas and West Douglas—which covered 407,450 acres. That single complex was larger than all of the public land managed for Colorado’s wild horses today.

Since then, four Herd Areas have disappeared from the Colorado range map: Douglas Mountain (117,684 acres), North Piceance (89,267 acres), West Douglas (127,895 acres), and Naturita Ridge (63,294 acres).

Together, that’s 398,140 acres of wild horse habitat removed from management.

This summer, another 1,256 wild horses are being removed from Colorado, 1,011 from the Piceance complex and 245 from Sand Wash Basin.

As more horses disappear into an overwhelmed holding system, perhaps it’s time to ask a different question: Instead of removing more wild horses, why aren’t we restoring more of the public lands they once called home?

September 3, 2026Secretary Burgum and Deputy Director Heinlein,We write with grave concern regarding recent wild horse h...
09/03/2026

September 3, 2026

Secretary Burgum and Deputy Director Heinlein,

We write with grave concern regarding recent wild horse helicopter roundups in Northwest Colorado and urge your agencies to implement an immediate freeze on upcoming roundups. Our wild horses provide significant benefit to the region and State of Colorado and should be treated with care.

This month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has captured around 800 wild horses in the Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area, six of which died during the roundups. Another roundup in the Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area (HMA) is scheduled for early September, which will reduce the size of the herd by more than 60 percent. While we understand the need to reduce the size of these herds in accordance with the level that can be sustained on the land, the current methods being used by your agencies, including helicopter roundups, are inhumane and unnecessary. Helicopter roundups are known to cause extreme panic, exhaustion, and frequent and severe injuries to the animals. Coloradans themselves have voiced deep concern over the safety and well-being of these horses, whose risks only multiply during roundups of this scale and continue long after the gathering ends.

We would encourage you to consider postponing the scheduled roundups in order to have a more thorough and robust stakeholder and community engagement process, and work with local and state partners – such as the state’s Wild Horse Advisory Committee – to craft a solution for the long-term wellbeing of these horses. We also request any evidence your agencies may have that supports the need for continued use of helicopter roundups as a more effective means for horse control against other more humane methods.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Congressman Joe Neguse
Governor Jared Polis
Rep. Jason Crow
Congresswoman Diana DeGette
Congresswoman Brittany Petterson

What happens when a photo becomes advocacy?The camera can document what is happening, but it can also sharpen what syste...
09/03/2026

What happens when a photo becomes advocacy?

The camera can document what is happening, but it can also sharpen what systems and statistics sometimes blur.

Wild horse “management” is often described in numbers and management language - population, AML, excess animals, and removals.

But a documenter who spends years on the ground sees something different - individuals, relationships, home ranges, and histories.

Recent academic research by Christian Hunold, Abigail Del Grosso and Jennifer Britton - "Wild Horse Advocacy Photography: Visual Storytelling for Multispecies Justice" - describes this as "visual witnessing", or photography that can help resist animals being turned from individuals into interchangeable units.

That idea is at the heart of PhotoAdvocacy.

But witnessing only works if we are able to see. When access to roundups and other management operations, such as temporary holding, is restricted, the issue isn't simply whether photographers can get a better picture. Meaningful access is part of transparency and accountability.

And being there over time matters.

A family running free before a roundup, the same family being driven toward a trap, a pregnant mare who can’t run or a new mother separated from her foal, a stallion left behind when his family is taken, or an empty landscape afterward.

The roundup footage tells us what happened. The photographs before it can show us what was lost.

And then there is public and political awareness. In August, PhotoAdvocacy roundup documentation was viewed 8 million times on Facebook and multiple legislators are demanding change. One collaboration with We Animals has passed 1 million views.

The photograph simply creates the opening and the story provides context. Responsible story stewardship - including working with organizations like We Animals - can carry that story far beyond the people who were already paying attention.

A management system makes a horse disappear in a spreadsheet. Photography can make it much harder for that horse to disappear from the public record.

You can view the full paper titled "Wild Horse Advocacy Photography: Visual Storytelling for Multispecies Justice" here
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25148486261449034

The paper's authors are Christian Hunold, Dept Politics, Drexel University PA; Abigail Del Grisso, Independent Scholar, PA; and Jennifer Britton, Sustainable Development, Drexel University PA.

Images
The Colorado Roundups 2021-2026
By PhotoAdvocacy

09/02/2026

Vintage Violet
Limited Edition 44” print honoring a very specific horse.

Only three (of five) remaining.
Contact Skydog directly for further info.

Log on to skydogphotography.com to view the Vintage Collection celebrating 10 years of Skydog

Many thanks to the 23 members of the Colorado State Legislature, led by House Majority Leader Monica Duran, who have wri...
09/01/2026

Many thanks to the 23 members of the Colorado State Legislature, led by House Majority Leader Monica Duran, who have written to the BLM concerned by the Colorado Roundups and requesting commitment to pursue solutions and prevent the sale of wild horses for slaughter.

The executive director of the Colorado Wool Growers Association — a membership-based organization of sheep producers and...
09/01/2026

The executive director of the Colorado Wool Growers Association — a membership-based organization of sheep producers and lamb feeders in Colorado — told the Craig Press the gathers are necessary to prevent overgrazed lands amid arid Western landscapes, a condition that can require “decades to recover.”

She said such conditions are especially prevalent in Sand Wash Basin, where the BLM has scheduled a helicopter drive-trap gather for September.

In Northwest Colorado, specifically, she said she’s had members with sheep permits who have been “forced to take non-use on their grazing allotment, literally for decades, due to overgrazing by wild horses.” [The pond images are from 2025 and 2026]

“Many times when sheep ranchers are hauling water for their sheep, the wild horses will come in and drink the water before the sheep even have a chance to get there. Horses will paw and destroy water tanks in ponds that are meant for domestic livestock…”

She called the “misinformation” around helicopter gathers “distressing,” noting what she referred to as sensationalized imagery of the moments just before the horses are driven into the pen.

Pond images from 2025 and 2026. The end frame is also a herd of sheep in Sand Wash Basin in 2022.

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