Get a friend Flicka--cheap

From the Yakima Herald:

'Flicka' could be a friend to Yakama horse programWith this week's release of "Flicka," Twentieth Century Fox's retelling of a beloved children's story of a child's love for a horse, the Yakama Nation is hoping to release some horses of its own.

The film opens Friday, and the tribe and the studio are using the occasion to team up in promoting the Yakamas' wild-horse adoption program.

Fox representative Janet Wainwright said Fox will use the movie's animal conservation theme to help preserve the 5,000-head Yakama herd, which has been difficult to manage. Wainwright contacted radio stations in Yakima, Seattle and Portland to publicize the adoptions.A Hollywood ending for Yakamas' wild horses?The unlikely partners were brought together by Janet Wainwright, a Seattle publicist who represents the studio in the Northwest. Wainwright remembered reading a Dec. 28, 2004, story in the P-I chronicling how the Yakama cherished the herd as a cultural icon.

"The article mentioned the problem they were having with overpopulation of the herd," she says. "And I learned from the tribe's Web site that, to avoid having to put down the overflow, they were trying to get tribal members to adopt them--with not enough takers.

"So I figured that if I could go to the Yakama and convince them to open up the herd to adoption by non-Native Americans, and use the visibility of the movie to promote the program, it would serve the good causes of the movie, the Yakama and the horses."