We are dedicated to preserving the freedom, diversity, and habitat of America’s wild horses through advocacy, sanctuary, education, and conservation, while enriching the human spirit through direct experience with the natural world.

Return to Freedom pioneers innovative alternatives to standard wild horse management that can be applied on the range and advocates for viable solutions to prevent the removal of wild horses from their natural rangelands.

On 1500 acres on the Central Coast of California, we do our best to provide an environment for the herds to maintain the natural behaviors and social structures they knew in the wild.

Return to Freedom’s Wild Horse Sanctuary was built on the basic foundation that wild horses are herd animals. Within the herd structure, bonds are formed and education is taking place all the time. In the wild, the herd ensures survival. Therefore, our first priority is to keep wild horses in their original family bands or naturally selected social groups, to provide for their emotional well being as well as their physical care.

Because we allow our equine residents to maintain their natural lifestyle and social behaviors, we must manage population growth. For us, managing population growth by separating mares and stallions is not a solution as that separates family bands, disrupts natural behaviors and undermines the natural lifestyle of wild horse herds. Castrating stallions into geldings is not an option as that further depletes an already threatened genetic pool.

To manage population growth in an ethical and sustainable manner, we administer a non-hormonal and reversible contraception to our mares under the guidance of Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick, Director of the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, MT. By utilizing this approach, we are able to maintain our horses in their natural bands without uncontrolled reproduction or habitat degradation.