Meadow

This is the first time we’d agree to take a gelding from a kill pen, only to have it turn out to be a girl. With high gas prices making hauls more expensive, we hoped to add Meadow to the trailer bringing Xanadu and Dorian. We normally leave 2-4 weeks between fundraising so as not to ask too much or often. This time, we needed to move fast for Meadow and our incredible donors made it happen for her.

Meadow is an unhandled, 24-year-old from Sand Wash Basin in Colorado. I don’t believe she had a name out there. It was long before they started naming the horses, but I’m sure she was a foundation mare for the herd. I looked up her brand and learned she was rounded up, and then spent six years in a BLM holding facility before being adopted and then reassigned a year later.

I also noticed that the BLM has taken away the section on their dashboard where it lists what facilities held the horses and - importantly - at which adoption events they were purchased. I believe this is a deliberate attempt to hide the numbers of federally protected animals being shipping to slaughter by the BLM via middlemen.

The Sale Authority crisis burns hot around young mustangs, but we will never turn our back on the seniors even in this difficult time. They are incredibly vulnerable, much less likely to be adopted, so they are a critical area of rescue for us.

By the end of the day, we were very relieved to see video of Meadow with Xanadu and Dorian in the trailer. Even in hauler Steve Egner’s gentle hands, she didn’t want to be touched. We respect that. She’s free now and gets to make her own choices from this day forward. We will work to win her trust, but if she never wants to be around humans again, that’s an option for her at Skydog.

#skydogmeadow

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.