Return to Freedom Saving America’s Wild Mustangs

I first became acquainted with Return to Freedom, the wild mustang rescue and sanctuary, when I saw their float in the Valley Village Independence Day . Board members Pat Hines and Diana DeMayo Brown were in a big pick-up truck pulling a hay wagon full of kids and supporters. (See photos from the parade in the gallery.)

In a phenomenon of cosmic synchronicity, I had just received an email blast from Deanne Stillman about her book Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. I’d signed up for the mailing list because her recent titles had struck me as surprising for Stillman whom I’d thought of as a television comedy writer. (Back in the nascent days of portable video, I was hired to shoot a press conference for the launch of her book, Titters 101: The First Collection of Humor by Women, which she was promoting with co-author Anne Beatts–her Square Pegs sitcom writing partner–aided by the comic stylings of the incomparable Gilda Radner. I think they paid me 40 bucks and never bothered to pick up the tapes. But I digress.) 

Before this sudden influx of information on the topic I never thought about the tens of thousands of wild horses still roaming America’s public lands.

Return to Freedom founder Neda DeMayo’s devotion to saving wild mustangs began when, as a 6-year-old girl, she saw and was appalled by a Bureau of Land Management mustang roundup on television. But this is no little girl horse-love story.

According to DeMayo, the U.S. government spends millions of our tax dollars to literally run these native animals off of public lands, driving them for miles with low-flying helicopters into holding pens. The horses may suffer respiratory infections and even miscarriages from the exertion. There have even been incidents of injury caused by the chopper blades. Once rounded up, the animals are trucked across the country to languish at taxpayer expense in government run corrals until they are adopted, sold for meat or euthanized, say activists.

Return to Freedom has rescued nearly 400 wild mustangs and 26 burros. The sanctuary cares for endangered rare species and hybrid versions of wild mustangs who roam the sanctuary in family and social bands. RTF’s living history tours allow visitors to observe these beautiful animals in their natural habitats. The foundation's website explains:

Some of the herds represent horses with DNA similar to the primitive Iberian horses (the Sorrias), some are direct and undiluted descendants of Padre Kino's original Spanish Mission strain which arrived in the 1600's, while others represent descendants of cavalry horses and ranch horses that have interbred on our public and park lands reverting to a natural state over the past 500 years.

I got to interview Brown at the parade and Hines a few weeks later at Brown’s Valley Village home, but it took me months to pin down DeMayo. She’s constantly on the go, trying to find additional land for the sanctuary or monitoring government roundups. I finally got ahold of her a couple of weeks ago when she was in town to participate on a panel following a festival screening of the film Saving America’s Horses.

DeMayo and other environmentalists contend that the government agency charged with protecting America’s public lands, the Bureau of Land Management, is unduly influenced by private interests, the livestock and mining industries, which lease public lands “practically for free,” said DeMayo. “Your tax dollars at work.”

The BLM claims they are culling the mustang populations in order to preserve the range for all wildlife species. Activists like DeMayo want to see the populations controlled in the wild. For her part, she administers temporary non-hormonal birth control on the sanctuary.

Return to Freedom is doing what it can to recreate the horses’ natural habitat while at the same time providing a learning environment for the public. Both Hines and DeMayo describe–and you can see in the video–what a transformative experience it is to observe horses in the wild as they socialize with one another and parent their foals. 

Why swim with captive dolphins when you can participate in the sanctuary’s Wild Horse Walks and Living History Tours, scheduled regularly from May through October? Visitors may also register for photography workshops and safaris. On Sept. 20 and 21, equine artist Kim McElroy and transformative equine guided learning specialist Sandra Wallin will lead an “experiential getaway” at the sanctuary to benefit Return to Freedom. (Take a look at the pdf in the gallery.)

The foundation’s first annual Harvest Hoedown with the Herds fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 1 from 3-7 p.m. For $45 ($20 for kids under 12) donors will enjoy wine tasting, hay rides, kids activities, western dancing, gourmet barbeque, an auction and shopping. Tickets are expected to sell out so it’s advisable to register early if you want to attend. (Another pdf in the gallery.)

Parade photos and video of horses were supplied by Return to Freedom.

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