Witnessing a wild horse run free is an experience unlike any other, but these sights are more rare as more horses are captured from their lives in the wild. As uncertain fates await those still roaming the American West as well as the mustangs and burros already detained, some, like the hundreds who graze the lands of Skydog Ranch & Sanctuary, are given another chance at life.
Upon learning more about the branded neck of her second horse, a mustang named Buddy, Clare Staples mounted a personal campaign to educate herself about mustangs in the West to understand exactly why the wild horse (mustang), population continues to diminish and what is ultimately happening to them. That led her to found Skydog, creating a wild haven for horses and donkeys (burros), to escape neglect, starvation, abuse and death.
As a child, “I would run away to the stables and take care of these horses and muck all day just to be able to be around them. I would breathe them in and bury my face in a horse’s neck and everything would be OK,” Staples said, recounting her less-than-happy childhood.
Taking stock of her life at 50, Staples realized she sought more than material grandeur, sharing, “I really felt like being of service and having a purpose were the keys to a happy life and a joy that was more sustainable.” She effectively turned away from a glamorous Malibu, California, existence, dedicating everything to reunite wild horse families and save equines in need. Celebrating her second act as a new frontier, Staples exclaims, “I haven’t seen anything better to do with my life.”
Mustangs and Burros of Skydog
What started as helping a few rescues remove mustangs from poor conditions, re-homing them to Staples’ property, abruptly shifted as she began truly comprehending how many mustangs needed help.
“We’re gonna need a bigger ranch,” she told her husband.
Knowing that being rewilded is what these wild equines need most, Staples expanded into Central Oregon, returning precious space to the horses and donkeys from whom that freedom was stolen.
Skydog’s namesake is inspired by a legend from the Blackfeet, who believe horses are “large dogs sent as a gift from the Old Man in the sky,” calling them Sky Dogs or Spirit Dogs.
Staples’ “North Star” and symbol of what Skydog was fighting for — keeping wild horses wild — is Wyoming stallion Blue Zeus and his herd, who continued free-roaming rangelands while others faced a lesser fate. But two years ago their freedom, too, was taken, casting doubt on whether it’s possible to keep these wild equines free.
Nine months after his herd’s roundup and months of pleading for an adoption event, Staples purchased Blue Zeus for a cost that wouldn’t even have bought her his photograph. She paid $25 as his only bidder, wondering, “How can a horse’s life be reduced to $25?”
Skydog devotes significant efforts to reuniting bonded families, including Blue Zeus’ 10 family members three months later, Buddy with his sister 17 years after their separation and countless others separated during roundups.
Today, Blue Zeus’ is just one of several herds roaming the 9,000 acres of Skydog Ranch land near Prineville, where over 300 wild horses and more than 50 donkeys now call home, including rescues of zonkeys, zebras and even a zorse.
From their first rescues in 2016 to the herds now roaming thousands of Oregon acres, Skydog regularly welcomes newcomers like horses Lady Grey, Bojangles and Pipsqueak, and donkeys Fiona and her son, Forest, just a few of their 2024 rescues.
Telling the stories of every resident mustang and burro is one of Staples’ greatest delights. That momentum has helped Skydog rescue hundreds of horses while educating the public about the plight these wild animals face. Motivated yet again by Indigenous peoples, Staples shares, “In Native American history they tell stories, the elders tell the stories, so I thought, well, I’m just gonna tell the stories of these horses again and again and hope that people fall back in love with horses and their stories.”
Almost 1 million supporters follow those stories through various online platforms and now via Staples’ latest book, “Wild Horses of Skydog: Blue Zeus & Families,” showcasing 20 different Skydog families, weaving brilliant photography with their triumphant tales of redemption.
Firm in her devotion to horses, Staples knows, “I can’t save the whole world, but to that one horse, it’s their entire world.”
A Troubled History
The plight of the creatures on whose backs the romanticized cowboys of the West rode continues to elude much of the general public, their tragically falling numbers remaining largely a mystery to the American taxpayers unknowingly funding the demise of these sentient beings.
Early in the 20th Century horses became targets, exploited as enlistments for World War 1 and inhumanely harvested by hunters for chicken feed, pet foods, human consumption and sport.
Animal welfare activist Velma Bronn Johnston, known as “Wild Horse Annie,” led a 1950s charge to end this cruelty, eventually leading to the 1959 ban on capturing wild horses using motorized vehicles and aircraft.
Congress passed the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, declaring wild horses and burros “living symbols of the American West,” delegating their protection to the Bureau of Land Management, 50 years later introducing the 2023 Amendment addressing concerns of ongoing inhumane treatment by the BLM.
With horse slaughter still at large worldwide, public outcry finally banned the killing of horses for meat consumption in the U.S., closing remaining slaughterhouses in 2007. This protection only extended to our borders, however. Last year, according to the Animal Welfare Institute, 20,370 horses were shipped to Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses.
Wild Horses and Public Land
Seeking to attain an “appropriate management level,” the BLM’s $154.8 million taxpayer-funded Wild Horses and Burros Program acts to reduce the wild equine population that currently resides on 26.9 million acres, around 11% of the 245 million acres of public land that the BLM administers nationwide, from the 82,883 horses reported in March 2023 to 27,000 horses. It’s a figure massively emaciated from 19th Century counts of over 2 million wild horses that once roamed America’s wildlands.
According to Staples, “The government and the BLM have created this narrative that the horses are the problem, and they’re wreaking havoc out there on public lands,” arguing, alongside environmental conservation groups like Western Watersheds Project, that “what is damaging public lands is cattle ranching and extractive mining.”
Removing wild equines from rangelands are called “gathers” or “roundups,” spurring discord between pro-BLM voices and wild horse advocates on whether the means by which wild horses are funneled into traps is humane, and whether capturing them at all is just, or even necessary.
Low-flying helicopters chase scared herds into confinement, wherein many are injured, sometimes fatally so. Survivors are separated from family and transported to off-range corrals where they’re branded and held for management and potential sale or adoption.
Off-range facility conditions are purported by animal activists as inhumane, including Skydog, claiming that “many slip through the cracks and end up without the most basic care and affection.”
Horse advocacy efforts are reducing the number of horses shipping to slaughter every year, from 1989 figures as high as 348,400, but the fight continues as Staples admits, “I see mustangs shipping to slaughter every week.”
Skydog Advocacy & Rescue Efforts
A split endeavor, Skydog’s mission focuses 50% on rescue efforts, primarily from kill pens, livestock auctions, BLM corrals and the slaughter pipeline, plus trainer and owner relinquishments, and another 50% expended on education and raising awareness about wild horses’ plight on American soil and beyond.
The horses who prefer their wild solitude are left to roam at Skydog’s Prineville acreage, while the horses living at Skydog’s Malibu facility are, “the more gentle horses who enjoy human contact,” acting as “ambassadors for all the horses in kill pens, auctions and holding across America.”
Skydog also works with other rescues, funding adoptions of at-risk horses and donkeys as well as providing herd management education. With robust facilities and experienced equine staff, Skydog homes special needs and senior equines otherwise rendered unadoptable, working with the BLM to rescue horses and donkeys who need intensive care, mash meals or blanketing, ultimately saving them from euthanasia.
Year-round daily herd checks, a state-of-the-art hydraulic chute, upgraded fencing and veterinary care, along with annual inspections by several organizations are steps taken toward safety.
Providing this high level of care at the Oregon sanctuary is largely in the hands of Ranch Manager Janelle Hight, alongside her loyal equine crew, a dedicated team of ranch staff and with the help of much-needed volunteers.
As 2024 unfolds, Skydog focuses efforts on saving more donkeys from kill pens and auctions in addition to their continual efforts at rescuing at-risk mustangs.
While full-scale solutions of America’s wild equine dilemma remain uncertain, Staples offers, at the very least, “There needs to be better management of them on public lands, more humane treatment of them during roundups and in holding pens. The solution can’t continue to be roundups and holding, because it’s not working and there are too many horses,” adding, “We also want the BLM to keep better, more detailed records of these families when they are captured so that people adopting one horse can also have the option of reuniting family members and bands.”
The Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act bill would prohibit the transport of any horse or donkey to be slaughtered for human consumption, permanently shutting down the slaughter pipeline. More information is available at Skydog’s website.
This article appears in Source Weekly May 2nd, 2024.
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