NEWS: Wild Horse Conservation & More
Featured News
Update: Hearing held in cases critical to future of Wyoming’s wild horses
Return to Freedom is awaiting a federal judge’s rulings in two cases crucial to the future of wild horses in southwest Wyoming. On Tuesday, we took part in a hearing on Tuesday before Judge Kelly Rankin in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming. RTF is fighting to stop the Bureau of Land Management from stripping 2 million acres from wild horse use for the benefit of private ranchers in the Checkerboard: an unfenced area of alternating, one-mile-square blocks of public and private land set up in the...
House report calls for keeping wild horse program spending flat, leaves door open to sterilization
For information about how to take action, see below. The House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee this week recommended allocating $143 million to the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program for Fiscal Year 2025. While the program would dodge large cuts being taken by other programs, the funding would fall well below the BLM’s request of $170.9 million. The wild horse and burro program received $142 million for 2024, down from $148 million in 2023. The Senate Interior Subcommittee has not yet released its funding...
Preserving the spirit: Neda DeMayo’s RTF sanctuary champions the cause of wild horses with passion, purpose
As published by Cowgirl magazine Their glossy coats glisten in the bright sunlight as they gallop across the Northern Santa Barbara landscape. This is an image that symbolizes the American West - Wild Horses running proud and free and have held this country’s imagination for centuries. “But close your eyes,” says Neda DeMayo, founder of Return to Freedom, American Wild Horse Conservation (RTF), “and imagine them gone forever.” DeMayo has devoted the past twenty-six years of her life working to solve wild horse...
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Regenerative grazing yielding positive results at sanctuary
https://youtu.be/s6Zlpe9Xtqw?si=SToC2jk1YeOiLZOJ Return to Freedom has worked with advisor Rodger Savory to implement regenerative grazing practices at its sanctuary with sustainable results. RTF sees properly managed grazing and holistic management as part of a long-term solution to restore our public lands.
‘Homes on the range’: Summit focuses on interactions between wild horses, other wildlife
Who are the players with thoughtful concerns or perspectives when it comes to conservation and wildlife issues? Wild horse advocates, the livestock industry, and public lands managers have been at the forefront of the wild horse issue, usually arguing their points, but sometimes cooperating on distinct projects (think volunteer-led fertility control darting programs or restoration and protection of springheads using volunteer labor). Other interest groups have their thoughts, too, but they’ve largely remained quiet, fearful of entering the fray:...
Horses in the Headlines
Wild horse documentary featuring RTF airing on PBS
The documentary “The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses” has begun airing on PBS stations. The film traces the story of America’s wild horses from their turbulent history to their uncertain future. It features Return to Freedom's sanctuary and others working to help wild horses in different ways. An estimated 73,500 wild horses and burros live on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, with more than 63,000 horses and burros captured in roundups now warehoused in off-range government holding facilities. Robert Redford, Patti Scialfa...
Horses Rescue
We need your support in our fight for Wyoming’s wild horses!
On Tuesday, July 16, we’re headed to federal court to stop illegal roundups and the stripping of 2 million acres of public land from wild horse use for the benefit of private ranchers. For more than a decade, Return to Freedom has been involved with advocacy and litigation in the Checkerboard region of southwest Wyoming: an unfenced area of alternating, one-mile-square blocks of public and private land set up in the 1860s. In May 2023, the federal Bureau of Land Management amended its Resource Management Plan for the region based on an agreement...
Take Action: BLM schedule emphasizes removals over fertility control
The Bureau of Land Management today posted an updated schedule of its plans to permanently remove 10,444 wild horses and burros from our public lands from April 1-Oct. 30. By comparison, the BLM plans to treat with fertility control and then release just 209 mares back onto the range. Congress must demand that the BLM immediately begin the transition to safe, proven and humane fertility control as its main management tool in order to keep America’s wild horses and burros on the range, where they belong. The BLM must implement fertility control to...
RTF: Congress should oppose BLM’s pursuit of sterilization
For immediate release LOMPOC, CA — Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation vowed on Monday that it will remain vigilant that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) not again pursue the invasive surgical sterilization of wild mares. In the BLM’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget justification document, posted last week, the agency requested $15 million to “conduct permanent sterilization … as a population growth suppression tool for on-range populations” by “gathering and sterilizing animals and then returning the sterilized...
People News
Preserving the spirit: Neda DeMayo’s RTF sanctuary champions the cause of wild horses with passion, purpose
As published by Cowgirl magazine Their glossy coats glisten in the bright sunlight as they gallop across the Northern Santa Barbara landscape. This is an image that symbolizes the American West - Wild Horses running proud and free and have held this country’s imagination for centuries. “But close your eyes,” says Neda DeMayo, founder of Return to Freedom, American Wild Horse Conservation (RTF), “and imagine them gone forever.” DeMayo has devoted the past twenty-six years of her life working to solve wild horse...
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