Sami Bolton - Living a Real-World Jurassic Park

4/27/2018

Sami Bolton had several stories to tell when we met at the Tryon Co-Op Coffeehouse. One story became two and two morphed into three. But in the end there was one overriding concern that Sami is passionate about and she is unwavering in her desire to get that story told. An interesting turn of events changed her life.

Sami is trying her best to bring back an extinct species of horse…and there’s a good possibility this is going to happen. Here’s how it all started.

Several years back Sami’s husband, Barry Shreve, who had grown up around sailboats, convinced Sami to give boating a try. They bought a small sailboat and trailered it around to various lakes. That started this set of events that led to her life-change.

Sami Bolton

They soon bought a bigger sailboat and decided to spend the Thanksgiving holidays on it in Florida. It was then they started to see that people could actually “live” on their boats. They started talking with year-round “boatsteaders,” researched the lifestyle of being on the water year-round, and discovered that there’s an entire “cult” of people who do this. In 2006 Sami and Barry took the bait and made a big lifestyle change that started a whole chain of events to fall into place. They sold their Landrum farm, rehomed the horses, Sami retired from her job, they bought an even bigger boat, and made the decision to become one with the sea. Okay two with the sea. They were soon living a new life on the water. Barry, a college professor, was able to continue teaching as long as they had an Internet signal…and they learned to seek those out.

Deja Vu Too

I could continue to relate all of the tales I heard from Sami about living on a boat and the remarkable adventures they had and that would make for volumes of interesting reading material. She even started a Facebook group called “Cooking on a Boat” that is still active today with nearly 10,000 followers. But I’m going to leave that for a future post and move on to the amazing real-world Jurassic Park part of this story.

They were on their latest boat, Déjà Vu Too, anchored out of Marsh Island Harbor, the biggest of the islands of the Abaco Island chain of the Bahamas when their fates took a turn. Like everyone in the harbor, they were tuned into channel 68 on their boat’s radio to listen to a report of all the day’s happenings around the island. The word “horses” caused Sami’s ears to perk up like our horse would do when you unwrapped a peppermint.

Over the radio came the announcement, “Mimi says that Buck a Book is going to be open this morning and she could really use some volunteers to help the wild horses of Abaco.” Sami and Barry weren’t sure what Buck a Book was or what the wild horses of Abaco were…but they had the couple hooked after hearing the word, “horses.”

Sami and Barry crossing the Atlantic in Deja Vu Too.

Milanne "Mimi" Rehor

It ends up that Buck a Book is a used bookstore on the island and Mimi is Milanne Rehor who since 1992 has been desperately and untiringly trying to save the very last of a distinct horse breed now called the Abaco Island Horse. These horses are descendants of the horses that Christopher Columbus brought to the New World at the end of the 15th Century. The very distinctive horse, small in size and often with a splash of white on their faces (caused by a special gene), eventually made it to the Abaco Islands to serve as logging animals but were abandoned when tractors made them “too much trouble.” The horses managed to eek out survival on their own until encroaching civilization changed everything. All but three were slaughtered in the early 1960s. By the mid 1990s, Mimi, with mostly volunteer help, had brought the herd back to 35. But a hurricane pushed the horses out of their forest habitat into an unprotected area filled with man-made and natural hazards that would be their demise.

When Sami and Barry first heard about this amazing story, the last of the Abaco Island Horses were down to just three old mares and one stallion. The clock was ticking and time was running out to somehow or other save this breed from extinction. But the horses were advancing in years and the inability to corral or halter any of these animals made checking on their physical condition impossible or at least very difficult. Sami was able to get a glimpse of Hadar, the last stallion, before he vanished like a ghost never to be seen again.

Two more mares died and now the last chance for preserving this species relied on getting viable eggs from Nunki, the very last mare and that would take a team, hard work, money, and some good luck. This one part of the story is amazing in itself and one day I hope Sami or Mimi will write a book about all that went into this heroic attempt to save the Abaco Island Horse.

Abaco Island Horse with distinctive white-splash face.

Nunki and her foal, Spika, probably around 2003.

Even with the services of an equine vet donating his time and using his own money to help the effort, they were unable to capture the mare at the right time to collect the eggs. ViaGen, a company specializing in cloning special animals was providing the special collection kit needed to store whatever they could obtain and the kits had to be refreshed constantly in order to have the proper storage solution.

It finally came down to getting the vet on scene as Nunki was living her last hours. The vet and ViaGen were working together on what to do next and in this case that involved getting a clipping of Nunki’s ear once she died. This had to be placed in the solution and then there was only so much time left to get the tissue back across the preserve, to a boat, to a jet, and to the lab in the U.S. On top of that, there’s this thing called Bahamian government red tape. With just minutes to spare, the government gave its okay to leave the island with the preserved specimen and the USDA gave its approval to have it enter the US, and the final chance to preserve this breed was on the plane to the ViaGen lab where it would be kept in the proper environmental conditions.

Dr. Gus Cothran

You might be asking about now, what good is viable tissue from a mare if there’s no stallion left? Enter Dr. Gus Cothran, a professor at Texas A & M University and a lead scientist with the World Equine Genome Project. It was Dr. Cothran who, based on DNA hair samples, had originally traced the Abaco Island Horse back to the original Iberian horses. He confirmed that what Mimi and the world had was very rare and very important. Dr. Cothran has identified a few stallions that most resemble the genetic make-up of the Abaco Island Horse. One of those stallions, Wayward Wind, lives in North Carolina and the owners have already agreed to give a straw of semen for this rescue attempt.

The possibilities are real. It could happen. What is mostly standing in the way now is money. There is a non-profit organization set up for donations and every bit helps. Of course, a few large donors could make this happen now.

Mimi is still down on the Abaco Islands maintaining the preserve in hopes of bringing a brand-new Abaco Island Horse home for good. And then another and another until a small herd can preserve the species. She has given a quarter-century of her life and her money to this cause. She needs help to change this from a possibility to a reality. Sami is committed to helping in anyway she can. Just imagine how equine history could be changed. Sami Bolton wants to be a part and you can too! It can happen. It needs to happen. It has to happen.

More to Know:
Sami and Barry moved back home (here in the foothills) about a year ago. Sami is very active locally. She’s on the board of the Foothills Humane Society and volunteers with TROT (Therapeutic Riding of Tryon). Sami invites you to contact her at [email protected] for more information on saving the Abaco Island Horse and how you can help. You might be able to convince her to tell you everything I’ve had to leave out. You can also check out www.ArkWild.org for additional information on the Abaco Island Horse.