Help RTFs American Wild Horse Sanctuary!

Dear Friends,

This past Holiday Season was a good one for Return to Freedom, and we welcome another year with our staff, visitors, volunteers and supporters, and of course, with our beloved wild horse and burro residents and our work for their counterparts on the range. Here, we'll also introduce you to two of our RTF Team who work directly to futher our mission for far more humane and effective policy for the wild equines still running free on our US Public Lands.

First—

Opening Day and Spirit's Birthday

We have been busy preparing for our annual Opening Day, which will be held on Saturday, May 9, for the opening day of our 2026 program season and Spirit’s 31st birthday!

Supporters have come from near and far to celebrate with us at our sanctuary headquarters in Lompoc, Calif., with a Native American blessing of the horses and land, beautiful items for sale in our store and at vendor booths, eclectic locavore food, wine pourings from local wineries, a horsemanship and training demonstration, and a special opportunity to see Spirit and meet the Return to Freedom team! A staff-guided walking tour of the sanctuary with some time for herd observation along the way will be included as time allows. 

Spirit was the muse and model for the artists and animators during the making of the 2002 DreamWorks animated feature film, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.” Animators needed to create realistic movement on screen, and needed to find a horse that embodied the characteristics and movements needed to tell the story of the wild mustang. Spirit was selected by the animation directors because of his beautiful conformation, wide-set eyes, and thick, wavy, multi-colored mane and tail. An Emmy Award-winning spinoff for small children, “Spirit: Riding Free,” has now run for eight seasons on Netflix.

In April 2002, after the completion of the film, DreamWorks selected Return to Freedom to be Spirit’s new home, where he serves as a prominent ambassador. Spirit is not only a wonderful representation of the Kiger mustangs, he also serves to engage youth and adults alike worldwide to know about the existence, history and plight of America’s wild horses and burros.

Return to Freedom operates the American Wild Horse Sanctuary, which is home to over 450 mustangs and burros in three California locations. Spirit lives at RTF’s headquarters on a 300-acre ranch in the Jalama Valley outside of Lompoc, California. He spends his days exploring large pastures at the Sanctuary and enjoying new friends. 

In 2018, the EQUUS Foundation inducted Spirit into its Horse Stars Hall of Fame. In Spirit’s introduction, the Foundation wrote, “Spirit the horse, the movie, and the TV series have served as the gateway to the world of horses for children and adults and specifically wild horses who embody a uniquely American sense of freedom and a key place in our country’s history and culture.”

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RTF Science

This past September, Celeste Carlisle, RTF's Staff Biologist, organized a very well-attended-and-received session at the Pathways: Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management conference in Estes Park, CO.

While at the conference, she drove to Rocky Mountain National Park and visited the cabin that a young Jay Kirkpatrick, the late founder of the Science and Conservation Center and long-time friend to RTF, rangered in "back in the day."  Dr. Kirkpatrick was a mentor to RTF as we learned that non-hormonal and reversible contraception could eventually replace traumatic and never-ending family-shattering roundups of wild horses and burros from our public lands.

Here she shares the experience—

A Rocky Mountain National Park Pilgrimage
October 2025

Rocky Mountain National Park’s (RMNP) alpine meadows, sparkling lakes, and granite mountains are home to elk, marmots, pika, and moose.  During summers in the 1960’s, RMNP was also the home to a beloved friend of RTF, Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick.

For six summers, Dr. Kirkpatrick was a ranger in the park, and lived in a cabin near the shore of Lake Irene.  During the years he rangered, RMNP would have been handling ever-increasing visitors (numbers of climbers were becoming so vast that the cables which helped assist people up the latter portions of Longs Peak were eventually removed in 1973), the Wilderness Act of 1964 was relatively new (in fact, after contentious discussions about how much and which parts of the park would be designated “Wilderness,” in 1976, 240,000 of the Park’s 265,679 acres were designated as such),  and research about the alpine tundra was being conducted along Trail Ridge Road.

In the early days of the 1971 Wild and Free-roaming Horses and Burros Act, conversations with agency biologists about the high reproductive growth rate of wild horses led to his research on fertility control in free-roaming horses.  Years later, he established the Science and Conservation Center (SCC) on the grounds of Zoo Montana, which manufactures the wildlife immunocontraceptive vaccine PZP, and trains people in the development of fertility control projects, and the handling and remote delivery of the vaccine.

Dr. Kirkpatrick died in 2015.  He had urged increasing fertility control to manage wild horses, so that round ups could be reduced in many areas or eliminated altogether in others, and he was a trusted advisor and friend to RTF. He engaged in complex conversations about establishing and managing a wild horse sanctuary, and, in the early days of such work, helped us to implement a fertility control program so that family bands could continue to live together on the sanctuary. 

RTF’s biologist sits on the SCC board, and in September, embarked on a pilgrimage, with SCC’s senior biologist Kayla Grams, and science liaison Melissa Esser, to Jay’s cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park. The cabin is no longer in use.  It is boarded up and quiet.  No rangers lean from its windows to talk with visitors on their way to Lake Irene, or head out from its landing to hike the trails.  But Jay was there in spirit, reminding us of the natural world’s wonder, that change comes slowly, that tenacity is essential, and that caring for the many species who share this place with us truly matters.   

Celeste Carlisle

Biologist, Return to Freedom, Wild Horse Conservation

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On the Range 

Ryan McCarthy is Return to Freedom’s Wild Horse Population Coordinator, and works on the range among the wild horses we work to protect.

Out there, it's just Ryan and the horses. Here, he describes his experience with some of the horses he encounters—for Ryan, these horses' are not an abstract issue, but living, breathing examples of who and why we work to protect them.

Ryan shares this touching friendship—

"As RTF's Wild Horse Population Coordinator, I spend a considerable amount of time On-Range in Northern California and Northern Nevada working on our BLM partnered field project. The work we are doing includes developing behavior and use patterns, monitoring range conditions, and creating an identification catalogue of individual horses and their harem/family groups for each of the Herd Management Areas in our project.

The data collected in the field will inform and support future fertility control and range management efforts with the main goal of keeping family groups together On-Range. To accomplish our goals, I am out year-round, in all weather, camping alone in the field.

This last quarter, during the late fall and early winter months, with the short days, extreme cold, and high winds, it can often feel quite lonely and isolated. On one HMA, I have developed a connection with a curious band of young bachelors. In this area, most horses are not very tractable and have little human interaction; their behavior is often wary and skittish, but when this group sees me or my truck from a distance, they break into a trot to come greet me.

The first time we met, we shared space for a few minutes, and they satisfied their curiosity and moved on. After that first encounter, each time they see me now, the lead stallion will come first at a quick pace and do a half circle around me, as if to signal to the rest of the group, it's ok, and the other three will come join. When I have been on foot, they are quite curious about where I am going and what I am up to, and will follow at a short distance and escort me on my travels to complete a spring survey or install a game camera. Most times now, when we see each other, they will follow me back to my truck, where we part ways, and I continue with my day, hoping to cross paths with them again on my next trip. After days alone, not talking to or seeing a single soul, it uplifts my spirits to spend time sharing space with a familiar group of “friends.” As I spend more time with this group, I feel a bond growing, and interactions like this reinforce why we are out here and how much these creatures deserve to be kept wild and free."

Ryan McCarthy

Return to Freedom Wild Horse Population Coordinator

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Advocacy

Return to Freedom was able to help secure protective language barring the Bureau of Land Management killing healthy wild horses and burros or selling them to slaughter remains in the 2026 Interior Department funding package.

Earlier this year, that language was omitted from the president’s budget proposal, which would have put captured wild horses and burros living in off-range holding in danger.

The Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program remains on ice through despite the government shutdown ending on Nov. 12.

Wild horse capture and removal operations were placed on hold unless deemed an emergency. Past lulls often caused by inconsistent federal funding have been followed by the agency calling for increased removals when money became available. The BLM continues to feed and care for more than 64,000 captured wild horses and burros living in off-range holding.

On the horse slaughter issue: RTF continues to push for passage of the Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, which would place a lasting ban on equine slaughter in the United States as well as on the export of American any equine for slaughter. The bill has 223 bipartisan cosponsors in the House of Representatives but must be brought up for a vote.

The need for the bill has been underscored by a significant growth in the number of horses being shipped out of the country. Despite two months of figures from exports to Canada not year being available, at least 24,188 equines were shipped to slaughter by the end of the year — an 18.7% increase and the highest total in five years.

RTF is also pushing to add the SAFE Act language to the Farm Bill, a massive, five-year package of legislation that funds agriculture, food and relatwhether at our sanctuary locations ed program, and continue to look for other opportunities to pass a slaughter ban.

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All of this work, both at our sanctuary and in the field, is made possible by the generosity of people like you, who believe as we do that wild horses and burros have a right to safely roam our public lands, where they can live natural lives with their families while inspiring us as enduring symbols of Freedom. With the dedication of many, like you and RTF, we are determined that together we will achieve justice for the Wild Ones.

Thank you!

Here's to the Wild Ones and Those who Stand With Them,

All of Us at Return to Freedom

Links:

• RTF Website
• YouTube Channel

Dear Friend of Return to Freedom,

It's s cliche only because it's so true—we can't believe the year is going so fast!  The past few months may have passed quickly, but as well as the daily never-ending work of caring for nearly 550 wild horses and burros, a lot of other activities were crammed into this short stretch of Time.  Here are just a few...

A Fond Farewell For Now

We'd like to salute our recent in-resident intern, Jae Hyeon Choi, from South Korea. Jae resided here and worked with RTF for four months, and he became an imortant part of this little team we call family.   

We were all sad when he had to leave his internship on July 5^th. His presence was invaluable and he always worked with a smile that lit up our day. We did get to celebrate his birthday before he left, and we've included a photo of our celebration.  Jae captured our hearts and, we wish him only the best in his future adventures. Thanks, Jae!

Volunteers

RTF has many fantastic volunteers, and we love them all. We also depend on them to keep RTF operating smoothly. Today we'd like to again thank our great volunteers who come here to help out from Vandenburg Space Force Base. We are always so grateful for their contributions and the work ethic they bring with them. They arrive with smiles on their faces and they leave still smiling. On a typical day they accomplish more in two and a half hours than we'd expect in a day—or even a week!

For example, in just one day they—

• Weed-wacked several over-grown pastures throughout the property consisting of five to six feet high brush and mustard plants
• Removed all the debris and clippings
• Power-washed the horse barn and office
• Painted the entire perimeter of RTF office
• Removed invasive weeds surrounding barns, stairs and office & outdoor kitchen.       

Getting these large and laborious tasks done so quickly and with such cheerful enthusiasm, is a relief to us, you'd better believe it—looking over the place after they'd finished was like seeing a miracle!

If you live nearby or are traveling and would like to add an RTF Volunteer Day to your schedule, more Volunteer opportunities are always upcoming, including our weekly Volunteer Day every Saturday. To participate in a Volunteer Day; please contact:  volunteers@returntofreedom.org. to make arrangements.

Bringing the Issues to the Horse-loving Public

In August, Return to Freedom participated in the Horse Welfare and Animal Adoption Day in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

Presented by the EQUUS Foundation and sponsored by Georgina Bloomberg, Adoption Day includes horse rescue groups as well as dog and cat shelters.

We participated as part of the EQUUS Foundation Alliance. We’re grateful to the foundation for its shared dedication to protecting all of America’s horses.

The event gave us with a chance to speak about advocating for more humane wild horse management and the need to ban the export of domestic and wild horses to foreign slaughterhouses.

We found that those in attendance were alarmed to learn about the challenges wild horses still face and eager to help.

The federal Bureau of Land Management oversees an agency-estimated 73,000 wild horses and burros and the U.S. Forest Service about 8,000 more in 10 Western states.

Both agencies have for decades tried and failed to meet the population goals that they’ve set through capture and removal in helicopter roundups, rather than by using proven, safe and humane fertility control to stabilize herd growth.

As a result, 62,000+ wild horses and burros now languish in off-range government corrals or on leased pastures, not on their home ranges.

Horses and burros that the government adopts out or sells are placed at risk of suffering and dying in a foreign slaughter pipeline that Congress has yet to close down.

RTF Advocacy

 1. Battling for Wyoming's wild herds

Return to Freedom and our co-plaintiffs, Front Range Equine Rescue and photographers Angelique Rea and Meg Frederick, were among those that prevailed in federal appeals court rulings in July affecting wild horse Herd Management Areas in Southwest Wyoming. The court found that the Bureau of Land Management violated the law when it decided to take away 2 million acres from wild herds. The ruling also delayed a planned helicopter roundup until at least next summer.

What’s next: Prepare to face off with the BLM in District Court, where a judge must determine a remedy or whether the BLM’s plan amendment for that area of Wyoming should be vacated entirely. A status conference is set for Oct. 7, where the judge is expected to define further details of the proceedings.

2. Ensuring protections against lethal management

The president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal left out standard protections that bar the BLM from using the killing of healthy wild horses as a management option. It also called for a 25% funding cut that would have placed the lives of 63,000 captive wild horses at even greater risk. RTF and other organizations successfully lobbied House and Senate Subcommittees that included the protective language in their Interior appropriations bills. Both kept wild horse funding flat even as many federal programs are being slashed. 

What’s next: Call on Congress to pressure the BLM to stop stalling the use of proven, safe and humane fertility control that can replace capture and removal as the agency’s main management tool.

3. Keeping horse slaughterhouses closed

During the first seven months of 2025, 12,194 American horses were shipped to Mexico or Canada for slaughter— a 25% increase from the same period last year after years of steadily declining export numbers. RTF and its colleagues successfully advocated for the inclusion of Agriculture appropriations bill language stopping the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using tax dollars to hire horsemeat inspectors. The addition of such language to funding bills has created a year-to-year ban that has kept new horse slaughterhouses in the United States from opening since 2007, when the last one closed.

What’s next: Advocate for passage of the bipartisan Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act. The bill would place a lasting ban on horse slaughter and close the foreign slaughter pipeline currently has 166 House cosponsors. We’re also lobbying to add the anti-slaughter SAFE Act language to the Farm Bill, a comprehensive agriculture and food funding bill renewed about every five years.

4. Preventing the sale of public lands

A provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a Fiscal Year 2025 budget reconciliation bill, would have forced federal agencies to sell off up to 3.3 million acres of our shared public land. Millions of acres of public land could have been on the chopping block — including land set aside for wild horses and burros. Public blowback resulted in the provision being scrapped before the bill passed.

What’s next: Continued vigilance regarding efforts to sell off public land. Opposing a planned repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protects 60 million acres of public land from development.

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We are so grateful for the people like you who not only keep RTF's nearly 500 displaced wild horses and burros fed , healthy and happy, but give RTF the ability to advocate for justice for the wild equines still running free on our public lands. We never forget who makes all of this possible.  Thank you!

To the Wild Ones, and Those who stand with Them,

All of Us at RTF

Links:

• RTF Website
• RTF Videos