Eclipse, Survivor & Rufus

Sale Authority

The Bowie 41

Eclipse and Survivor were part of the Bowie 41: the 21 donkeys and 20 mustangs who turned up at the Bowie kill pen just two days after a BLM adoption event in Hugo, Oklahoma. They are both from Spruce Pequop, Nevada, and are the most tragic of all the sale authority horses we rescued. It was such a huge number. We had saved so many, but none of us were prepared for yet another large group of sale authority mustangs and burros. We chose these two as they were the oldest, wildest, and needed sanctuary badly.

Thankfully, all the 20 donkeys were saved. After numerous calls by me to the BLM special agent, Pat Williams, who assured us the rest of the mustangs would NOT ship, we found out after the fact that they indeed did. Up to 17 beautiful, young wild horses from that group were sent to their deaths, signed off on by the bureau tasked with managing and keeping them safe.

Eclipse and Survivor were traumatized. They were so upset and frightened in this awful place, it was hard to watch the videos. They were injured and needed to do some healing in quarantine before we could bring them home. Eclipse, the black horse, ran into several panels and fences loading and had a chest wound as well as several to the face.

In quarantine, they were very upset and scared. Eclipse tried to jump panels and escape any time they brought in feed. We knew the best thing we could do was find them a calm companion for them to stand beside and travel home with. Right then, we got a message from one of the girls at the kill pen asking if we would take a mustang, who was about to be loaded on a truck to Mexico - this all happened before the border was closed due to screw worm. Sometimes the timing is just right and we said yes. We took him to calm Eclipse and Survivor and it worked perfectly.

Rufus was born in 2014 on Range Creek, Utah. He is a confident, strong, and steady horse, who’s not keen to be caught or handled. He’d had some training, someone had put some time into him, so I can’t imagine how this beautiful horse was dumped in the slaughter pipeline.

He jumped on to the freedom ride with his new friends. We unloaded him in the barn to get his feet trimmed while the other two were released in a spacious pen.  When we ran him up to join them, they were incredibly happy to see him. Once they’ve settled, we will add Flint and Dorian and turn the whole group out to the waterfall pasture, which connects to Spring Valley, where they’ll get their freedom back in a very real way.

Since January, we have documented over 300 sale authority horses going from BLM adoption events (which they now call “placement events”) to kill pens. Six mega adoption events in May and June offered a total of 849 wild horses and burros for sale. None of them have appeared in kill pens and almost certainly also shipped.

We were able to get information about the Bowie 41 from a FOlA we filed. Last month, however, the BLM denied Skydog's FOlA requests for sales records from May, claiming they were understaffed. The remaining staff, they said, were too busy traveling to placement events to enter the data on horses and burros being sold in the system.

We have sent seven detailed letters of complaint to the BLM and spoken directlv with the special agent, who told us he could do nothing to seize back the horses or punish the criminals who did this. We have the names of the family and the kill buyer who shipped the rest of the horses. It is so important to keep gathering evidence against the BLM and the people involved. Eclipse and Survivor have helped us by providing more proof against the "sale to slaughter" scandal the BLM are perpetuating against federally-protected wild horses and burros. Things have never been worse and we will not stop shining a light on this atrocity.

#skydogeclipse   #skykdogsurvivor  #skydogrufus   

American Mustangs and Burros Need Your Help

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and two Senators to urge them to support these bills. You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, commonly known as the “Farm Bill”. There are several important provisions for animals in that omnibus federal law, including the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act. It is currently illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. The SAFE Act would extend the ban to equines and shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 4356) The bill would eliminate the use of helicopters in rounding up wild horses and burros, and require a study into alternative methods for humanely gathering the animals.

Ejiao Act of 2025 (H.R. 5544). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at canned hunt ranches in Texas & Oklahoma, bringing an end to the BLM using Sale Authority to funnel wild equines into the slaughter pipeline, and stopping production of Premarin & other drugs made from pregnant mare urine.