Help RTFs American Wild Horse Sanctuary!

When generous supporters help to fund Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary to support the day-to-day care of our horse and burro residents, it also supports an educational experience where onsite visits educate and inspire people of all ages and nationalities to become advocates for wild horses and burros everywhere. We also are more able to help other wild horses and burros in need of rescue and/or sanctuary.

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Since our last update, we’ve had a busy program season continuing to advocate for America’s wild horses and burros, and make progress on our recent huge rescue operation.

At our sanctuary locations, we’ve conducted 30 tours and photo safaris, servicing 300 adults and 66 youth. Led by summer in-residence volunteer, Paloma Ianes, and board members Liz Hines and Irene Vejar, these events are inspiring, educational and powerful reminders of the importance of preserving America’s wild equines on the range.

Our Family Day accommodated 41 adults and 27 young people on a feed run adventure, followed by a blessing of the horses with Pete Crowheart, and the much-loved drum circle.

We also conducted a number of special workshops, including The Tony Stromberg Photography Clinic, Animal Communication with Cindy Rackley,  Waterhole Rituals with Linda Salinas, and Carolyn Resnick, and a morning of Hatha Yoga with Jodie Kallas.

RTF, like most non-profit organizations, counts on its loyal volunteers.

Our recent Volunteer days garnered 122 volunteer hours. On May 27th, 15 people generously gave their time to help RTF, 11 of whom were new to our team. Then, on June 23rd, 19 volunteers, 9 new to RTF, showed their strong volunteer spirit at the ranch. We value our volunteers highly, and they have fun while they work effectively for the horses.

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If you’ve been following our reports, you know that RTF has been heavily involved in what is probably the largest horse rescue in US history.  With a team effort, close to 900 horses were saved from neglect and spared a trip to an auction that would have seen many or most go to slaughter.

As we knew you’d want us to, RTF stepped up to take responsibility for 112 members of the Gila herd, horses whose ancestors appeared in paintings on ancient cave walls.

On May 1st, a beautiful Spring day, 59 mares (all treated with fertility control), weanlings and yearlings travelled four hours to a private pasture, ringed with ponds, wild flowers and juniper trees, in Lassen County, CA. Nine foals scrambled from a stock trailer, greeted their mothers, extended herd and their new life, punctuating the California air with their high-pitched whinnies.

On June 15th, twenty-five geldings and seven stallions made the journey from the temporary staging facility in Fallon, NV to the pastures in Lassen County where they rejoined the mares and foals. It had been weeks since they had seen each other.

The Gila Herd Project is a two-year effort to comprehensively study the horses to help determine if a conservation program is warranted, and then to help establish a sustainable conservation program. RTF hopes that over the next two years, it will be able to hand over a Gila conservation program to other entities or foundations that will ensure their existence for future generations. RTF may also be adopting out bonded younger horses through private adoptions.

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Finally, because of the increasingly dire situation in which wild horses have been placed due to the new administration’s budget, RTF has retained and is working closely with a skilled lobbyist to represent the interests of the horses in the halls of government.

We are only able to do this because of our dedicated supporters, who love, and more importantly, respect the wild ones and their right to run free on their range.

We thank you again for making our work possible. We are truly in this together.

Links:

• Gila mares and foals reach CA
• Meet Fuego Dorado, born August 1st

We at RTF are grateful and heartened by the continued support for our sanctuary and advocacy work on behalf of Americas wild horses and burros.

As well as caring every day for the now 487 horses and 44 burros who reside at our sanctuary and satellite locations, we continue to educate and involve more and more people in both the physical sanctuary and the national issues surrounding the preservation of our free-roaming equines. 

On April 22^nd, forty-eight attendees participated at Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary in Lompoc, California in the ASPCA’s Help a Horse Day, a national celebration and contest to raise awareness of the plight of horses. The event built upon RTF’s water conservation efforts and also helped to prepare for our 2017 tour season. Our tours allow hundreds of people annually to more easily see up-close what they would otherwise have to go to great lengths to see on the range. Once a group of RTF equine residents appears over a ridge to investigate the visitors, the need to protect these living treasures becomes crystal-clear to our guests.

In March, RTF welcomed 112 Spanish Gila mustangs we rescued from dire circumstances on a South Dakota ranch. This is a two-year project to determine herd health, kinship and heritage. As of mid-April, all horses have been documented, DNA has been collected from each horse, all mares have received fertility control vaccine and every horse has been vaccinated and wormed.

As a critical step in keeping the wild ones on the range, RTF is completing final steps for a new cooperative pilot project to apply innovative solutions for wild horses and burros in two locations in the Northwest.

RTF’s minimally-invasive management model, developed and implemented successfully here at the sanctuary since 1999, is a scalable model for “In the Wild” management of America’s wild horse and burro populations.

We are happy to see that concepts born at RTF have inspired other programs across the country, from the importance of maintaining intact family bands and socially bonded horses and burros, adoption methods, and population management programs that respect natural needs and behaviors. Your support of RTF has far-reaching effects, extending well beyond our sanctuary boundaries.

We were also proud that Sutter, our resident Ambassador Horse, was inducted into the Equus Foundation’s Horse Stars Hall of Fame. Sutter is the first horse born wild on the range to receive both this accolade and that of the ASPCA’s 2016 Horse of the Year. Way to go, Sutter! Click here for the video to learn more about this award.

As a late breaking and dangerous development, Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation has had to warn this week that the Administration’s 2018 budget proposal would open the door to euthanizing captured wild horses and burros and allowing others to fall into the slaughter pipeline. 

RTF’s Founder and President, Neda DeMayo said:

 “Making short-sighted policy changes that could result in either shooting healthy wild horses and burros or shipping them off to Canada or Mexico for slaughter would betray both these icons of the West and the Americans who have invested tens of millions of tax dollars to protect them once they are removed from their ranges,” said Neda DeMayo, president of Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation. 

“We always need to be vigilant about the lifting of restrictions. If these proposals are approved, it would eviscerate the few protections that wild horses do have." 

We will be doing everything in our power to organize the forces needed to stop this from happening, and are updating our supporters on what they can do to help prevent this.

To receive news on this and other important issues, you can subscribe to our newsletter at http://returntofreedom.org/subscribe/

Thank you for being a part of all we do, we never forget who makes our work possible.

Links:

• Trump budget plan would place wild horses in jeopardy
• Sutter welcomed into the Equus Fdn's Horse Stars Hall of Fame
• Galahad reunited and released with his band