Horses frequently evoke emotions of passion, liberation, and elegant power. Horses and people have a unique bond, despite the fact that they may not be considered “Man’s Best Friend.”
You only need to look at Clare Staples, the founder of the mustang and burro rescue group Skydog Sanctuary, who recently raised an incredible $17K to aid two horses by creating a simple Facebook post.
She told Upworthy, “I grew up in England where there is a huge culture of horse loving people,” she told Upworthy. “When I was growing up I lived in a sort of imaginary land where I rode everywhere on an imaginary horse, which is a bit crazy, but my love of horses was born at such an early age. I’d be going on long car rides with my family and swiveling my head to look in every horse trailer or every field to see if I could see a horse.”
She told Upworthy, “I grew up in England where there is a huge culture of horse loving people,” she told Upworthy. “When I was growing up I lived in a sort of imaginary land where I rode everywhere on an imaginary horse, which is a bit crazy, but my love of horses was born at such an early age. I’d be going on long car rides with my family and swiveling my head to look in every horse trailer or every field to see if I could see a horse.”
As Staples got older, horses became his “happy place.” She especially enjoyed watching westerns where “a band of wild mustangs would gallop through and steal the mares,” “you would see a band of wild mustangs gallop through and steal the mares.”
Staples was shocked and saddened to learn that the reality of the American mustang was much less glamorous after initially viewing the image as a “romantic symbol of the American West.” She described how the Bureau of Land Management rounds up mustangs that roam freely on public lands to make more space for mining and livestock interests. “It makes the American government a lot of money and wild horses don’t.” After receiving a “BLM” brand from the Bureau of Land Management, these captured horses and burros are either taken to kill pens or sold at auction.
Staples founded Skydog Sanctuary, a 9,000-acre ranch near Bend, Oregon, where wild mustangs and burros can live out their lives peacefully in their natural habitat, after becoming determined to provide her hooved friends with a place of refuge. Additionally, the sanctuary has an 11-acre site in California. Skydog seeks to change things by rewilding horses and educating people about the problems they face.
Two young mustangs caught Staples’ attention earlier this year because they remarkably resembled one of her own horses from Skydog. Staples was able to determine their relationship by looking up their BLM IDs. After that, she published a Facebook fundraiser to reunite the siblings.
In just two weeks, enough people came together to help the two mustangs, who are now known as Rising Sun and Presley in honor of Elvis, get back together with their native family.
Staples is heavily reliant on her ever-expanding social media community because she has around 220 horses and 50 burros to care for and no grant money. Fortunately, Facebook doesn’t take a cut of their fundraising efforts, which encourages people to give even more because they can see exactly where their money is going. Additionally, the platform has ten-fold increased Skydog’s reach; it now has close to 500,000 followers, and its fundraising videos have received close to 20 million views.
For Giving Tuesday, when Facebook’s parent company Meta will match donations up to a maximum of $8 million, Staples is especially thrilled. “It means a lot to our followers to know if they donate $10 we’re actually getting $20. Every year we just break records for ourselves. It’s a really fun day. I feel like Facebook are our partners, because they’ve helped us grow and then [GivingTuesday] is a real day where we can celebrate them too.”
Skydog has the means to save horses from the worst of circumstances thanks to the power of social media and connections with people who care and want to help. And “seeing them come back to life and watching them heal on this land is just the most beautiful thing. Rewilding them and giving them their freedom and space back is one of the most extraordinary experiences. It never gets old.”