This ‘Horse Detective’ Reunites Wild Mustangs With Their Herd

The images of wild mustangs running free across the plains are beautiful to behold. But many of these horses are rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management as a way of protecting the animals and the public rangelands in the Western US. These horses are frequently separated from their herds, reported KOIN 6 News.

Claire Staples, who owns the Skydog Ranch and Sanctuary, a 9-thousand-acre ranch and animal refuge near Bend, Oregon, is a self-proclaimed” horse detective”. She takes in 20-30 horses and burros a year and works hard to reunite them with their families. Staples also runs two small ranches in Malibu, California.

The long dispute about the wild horses
There has long been a controversy about the wild mustangs on whether they should continue to run free, reported The Washington Post.  Advocates like Staples believe the herds should be able to live on federal lands but ranchers say that the horses ruin grazing fields.

The bureau plans to capture 20,000 of the wild equines leaving only 67,000, including 14,000 new foals, in the wild. This is a pittance compared to the 2 million that roamed the west in the 1800s. While the animals are protected; people still illegally kill them.

So the horses get rounded up and are either adopted, sold at auctions or held in corrals. “On the day they’re rounded up, these horse families are never going to see each other again,” Staples told The Washington Post.

And sadly, many of the horses and burros that are rounded up end up in a slaughter pipeline even though people who purchase the horses at auction have to sign an affidavit stating that they will not sell the animals for slaughter,

Staples and her husband, Christopher Polk Read, started a nonprofit in 2016 and began purchasing the  mustangs that were rounded up by the bureau, hoping to reunite them with members of their original herds. “I thought I could become a horse detective of sorts and help reunite some of them,” she said.

Being a horse detective
Being a horse detective is a lot of work, Staples told KOIN 6 News. We rely on the photographers who go out into the wild. There are certain herds, especially in Oregon, where people name horses and they become well known on these Facebook pages.”

One of the people who supply Staple with photos is photographer and wild horse advocate Scott Wilson, reported The Washington Post. Staples uses these photos to help match the horses when she goes to auctions.

“We have a good record of these horses in the wild, so she will go to an auction with a family in mind,” Wilson told the Post. “The federal government isn’t presenting you with a family at auction. You’re just getting tag numbers.

 “If you’re looking for a horse with a tiny white patch over its left eye, Clare will do everything she can to find that horse using photographic documentation,” he said.

One of Staples most joyful reunions involved a horse named Blue Zeus who was reunited with nine family members. She had followed this horse and his Wyoming band for years before he was rounded up in a helicopter trap. This reunion was captured in the YouTube video above and a documentary about Blue Zeus will be released in the fall of 2024.

The Skydog Ranch and Sanctuary
There are currently 260 wild horses and donkeys at the sanctuary where they run-free unless they need medical attention. The ranch depends on donations to help feed and care for the animals.

For Staples, this is the culmination of her life life-long love of horses. “When I turned 50, I sat down to find out what made me happy and what I could do that was more purpose-driven,” she said. “I realized that many of my happiest times were because horses had come into my life and saved me.

 “I decided it was time for me to save them right back,” Staples said.