In the mid-1990s Wayne Linklater landed a job researching the bands of wild horses that lived in New Zealandâ s largest military training grounds near Waiouru. For the next four years he observed foals born, the love between stallions, mares and their offspring, and also violence, loyalty, betrayal and courage, all played out against an astounding landscape.

Linklater started out believing in the objectivity of conservation science and that free-roaming horses were a harmful, invasive species. But those four years taught him differently.

Clear-eyed and backed by deep science, this moving book is about the fascinating history and lives of wild horses, about the bonds between horses and humans, and about becoming a different sort of conservationist. This is nature writing of a very high order.