By Andrea Wogsland | Development
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 22nd, 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.
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