The Country Today - Wednesday, Nov 17,1999

By Kay Kruse-Stanton
Assistant Editor

GREEN BAY - Mark and Carol Lewins were 50 distraught over wild horses going to slaughter, they formed their own rescue farm.

"We got, incorporated last year after we went to an auction. They had two mustang mares they ran through the auction that day and they sold them for meat, Ms. Lewins said. "That got me riled."

The rural Green Bay couple owns seven wild horses -- with more welcome, any time they need a home.

They find wild horses in need of rescue in two ways. First, they attend auctions. Sometimes people who adopt wild horses find they do not have the time, patience or skill to tame the hors-es and prepare them for training. After a year of ownership, they are legally able to dispose of the horse as they wish -- including auction sale to the meat buyers.

"These are horses that the people can't even get close to so they can do a Coggins test," Ms. Lewins said. "So they take them to auction, and they have to be separate from the other horses. They go to the meat buyers."

The second is by referral from people who learn about their rescue operation. Horses may be local -- or from some distance.

This month the Lewinses are picking up a wild horse mare from Arkansas. Ms. Lewins is a member of an Internet chat line devoted to wild horse discussions.

"Somebody on the chat line wanted some-body to help out with this mare," she said. "I know she is a bay. She's got a diamond on her forehead and she's about 15.2 (hands). That's all I know about her."

The horse was one of 10 wild horse mares adopted by a man who bred them to his Paint stallion, hoping for a good batch of inexpensive foals to sell, Ms. Lewins said.

He ran out of pasture and decided to take the broodmares to auction. They had not been handled.

The chat line contact did not know what happened to the other nine wild horse mares. The mare in question was purchased by a man who, when he saw the Bureau of Land Management brand on the horse, decided he did not want her. By chance, yet another horse owner found out the mare needed a home, and came to the horse's rescue.

The Lewinses bought the mare for her meat value, and call her "Hope."

Their goal with Hope and other rescued wild horses is to tame them and prepare them for other people to adopt and train to be good horses.

"We want to provide that middle step, a place for the horses to go;' Ms. Lewins said. "We want to get them gentled and give them their basic training, anti once they're comfortable with people, offer them. out for adoption for people."

The Lewinses work first to get the horses used to human contact.

"We don't push them;' she said. "We work to gain their trust, getting them td let us touch them. We have some that we've gotten recently that we can scratch all over. And I have ones that I've had longer that I can't touch. When the day comes when they want to be friends, it's going to be really neat."

The Lewinses' 5-acre rescue facility is named HEART Inc., or Helping Equines and Animals Rescue Team. They operate it as a no-kill orga-nization, where animals are not euthanized unless they have a painful medical condition with no hope of recovery.

Horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and other small animals have been sheltered at the farm and released to new adoptive families.

For more information, contact the Lewins at HEART Inc., PMB 324, 2321 5. Oneida St., Green Bay, WI 54304-5262, or e-mail them at HEARTinc@netscape.net

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