OUR philosophy

1959

The first federal law was passed which prohibited the use of motorized vehicles in the capture of wild horses and prohibited the pollution of water holes for the purposes of trapping horses. (Known as the Wild Horse Annie Law [PL86-234])   

1962

Recognizing the heritage of wild horses and burros, Velma Johnston (Wild Horse Annie) and ISPMB were instrumental in encouraging the federal government to establish protective ranges for horses. The first range was established on Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada in 1962 followed by the Pryor Mountain Range in 1968 and Little Book Cliffs Range in 1980. (The Little Book Cliffs Range, located in the mountains north of Grand Junction, Colorado, was dedicated in memory of Wild Horse Annie.) 

1968

Under a custodial agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), ISPMB’s president accepted orphaned foals from the Pryor Mountains in Montana and found homes for them. This unprecedented agreement gave birth to the federal Adopt-A-Horse program in 1976. (Since this time, BLM has placed more than 290,000 wild horses and burros in adoptive homes.)

1971

Federal legislation to protect wild horses and burros was achieved by ISPMB through its first president, Wild Horse Annie. This highly successful grass-roots effort resulted in the unanimous passage through Congress of The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act that received the second largest outpouring of mail to Congress in our legislative history.

“Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people…..It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment or death, and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”

1982

ISPMB’s second president, Helen Reilly, gives testimony during Congressional hearings opposing the proposed 1971 law change to allow excess animals sold for slaughter. 

1983

ISPMB gives a grant to the BLM to acquire the last private land parcel on the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range. This grant will prevent private development of the Range and protect the wild horses in their winter range where this parcel was located.

1985

Karen Sussman starts ISPMB’s first chapter in Arizona. Educational programs prior to adoptions begin in Arizona by ISPMB’s Arizona Chapter.

The Chapter signed an agreement with the BLM to do compliance checks on all adopted animals in the state. The program was the first of its kind and very effective in the state of Arizona.

1985

Helen Reilly, president of ISPMB, is appointed to the second National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board by the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture.

1989

ISPMB’s new president was called to New Mexico by Governor Garrey Carruthers to assist in finding a solution for all parties involved in the removal of wild horses from White Sands Missile Range. This would entail ISPMB’s involvement for the next 10 years meeting with three different generals on the White Sands Missile Range and all parties involved until the horses were able to come off the range and be adopted rather than going to the Livestock Board and sold for slaughter.  

1989

ISPMB signs a national historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the BLM to do compliance checks on adopted wild horses and burros nationwide. A signing ceremony with president Karen Sussman was held in the office of Cy Jamison, Director of the BLM, on Dec. 6, 1989.  

1990

ISPMB initiated the meeting between the BLM and the First Assistant to the Federal District of Arizona to enact higher fines for inhumane treatment and violations of The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act from the current $2,000 to $100,000 per offense and up to one-year in jail. This was enabled by the recent passage of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1988. Arizona District was the first district to do so followed by all the other districts in the United States. 

1990

Karen Sussman, president of ISPMB, was appointed to the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board. Since the 1971 Act became law, there had been only three boards called to serve by the Secretary of Interior and Secretary of Agriculture. Each three presidents of ISPMB served on this board. 

1990

After the Good Friday massacre of 54 wild burros in Kingman, Arizona, ISPMB raised the largest reward in the history of the wild horses and burro program, raising $22,000 for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators. This reward received national attention. The perpetrators were never found.

1990

ISPMB began a new program called Operation Wild Horse and Burro Rescue in Arizona rescuing adopted wild horses and burros in need and those that would be sold post titling to auction which would result in being sold for slaughter.

1992

ISPMB’s participation was critical to the success of one of the first Ecosystem teams created by Secretary Babbitt.  This eco-team was located in Kingman, Arizona and was made up of all the interested parties regarding the Black Mountains. Karen Sussman was the only person to represent the interest of the burros on the Black Mountain Herd Management Area. This team met throughout 1995 and developed a management plan for the burros, cattle, and big horn sheep on the mountain. This plan was considered a gold standard plan for management. The plan was based on monitoring the habitat to determine the health of the habitat. 

1994

ISPMB along with White Sands Missile Range, the state of New Mexico, and Congressional leaders successfully facilitated the safe removal of over 1800 wild horses from the Range into adoptive homes, thereby preventing federally unprotected animals from being slaughtered.

1995

Unable to monitor the auctions throughout the entire state, the organization negotiated an agreement with members of the horse slaughter trade allowing for the total protection of all BLM wild horses and burros in the state since 1995. More than 100 adopted animals have been saved and have found permanent responsible homes.

1996

The Arizona Black Mountain Eco-Team received the prestigious Health of the Land Award from the Department of the Interior in 1996 for its tireless work in creating a master model for management of burros in the United States. In Arizona, ISPMB alone saved four wild burro herds from being eliminated by the BLM. The number of burros saved by ISPMB’s actions is well into the thousands of animals.

1999

ISPMB became the 1st privately funded organization to manage a wild free-roaming wild horse herd. This is the first time that a private organization has maintained, managed and protected a wild free-roaming herd. ISPMB relocated the last of the White Sands Herd in New Mexico, to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation where they are managed by ISPMB. There are approximately 80 wild horses. These horses carry a unique genetic marker which is a rare pacing gene found in North American Gaited horses.

ISPMB has worked in concert with several major programs involving interactions between wild horses and disadvantaged youth and prison inmates. The programs were designed to create positive educational experiences for the participants and the horses.

ISPMB paved the way for the protection of the Arizona Gila wild horses as wild- free-roaming horses under the 1971 Wild Horses and Burro Act. The Gila horses are descendants of Father Kino’s Spanish horses that he brought to this country in 1640. It is the only herd to be designated as federally protected since the implementation of the original Act, coming twenty-eight years later.

2000

ISPMB adopted the last remaining Gila wild horses in a conservation effort to preserve this rare gene pool. The horses were eliminated from their rightful lands based on a technicality of the 1971 Act that allows horses to be removed from private lands. Prior to the protection afforded to the Gila horses, they were indiscriminately shot by the local ranchers.

2001

The third wild horse herd saved by ISPMB was initiated in September of 2001. Eighty wild horses from the Virginia Range near Carson City, Nevada were transported to the Cheyenne River Reservation in November 2001. The Virginia Range horses face a constant threat from diminishing habitat from both industrial and private development in their habitat area. These were the first horses to receive protection through the efforts of ISPMB’s first president, Velma Johnston. Yet, when the 1971 federal law passed, these horses were excluded from its protection. Because of the historical significance of this herd and the possibility of eventual elimination of the herd, ISPMB found permanent refuge for 160 of the Virginia Range horses on the Cheyenne River Reservation.

2002 

ISPMB and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe have begun a joint effort to establish an eco-tourism center on the Cheyenne River Reservation. This Center, Sunka Wakan, will serve as a model for other reservations where more wild horse herds will be placed as needed.

2003

ISPMB began an Animal Assisted Therapy program for recovering alcoholics, in conjunction with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s Four Bands Healing Center bringing healing between ISPMB’s abused rescued horses from the BLM’s adoption program and Tribal clients.

2004

ISPMB accepted a fourth wild horse herd into its wild horse conservation program. Eighty-two wild horses were received from the Catnip herd from the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This agency is not mandated by law to protect wild horses and will reduce wild horses on its refuge to 125 animals and may potentially eliminate all the horses from the refuge over time.

2004-2005

ISPMB’s National Spokesperson, Stefanie Powers, was successful in bringing Ford Motor Company to the rescue of wild horses that fell under the Burns amendment. Today ISPMB continues to work with Ford to bring about a “win-win” solution in saving over 8,000 wild horses threatened by the Burn’s amendment.

2005

ISPMB formed the Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates in Reno, Nevada to counter the stealth rider from Senator Burns (R-MT) that was secretly inserted in the appropriation bill allowing all wild horses over the age of ten to be sold to the highest bidder paving the wave for sale authority by the BLM. ISPMB has been active since this time in trying to end horse slaughter in the US and to reverse the Burns amendment to the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

2006

ISPMB saved its fifth herd from the West Douglas Creek Herd in Colorado. Plans are underway to move the horses to a 9,000-acre site where they will be managed in a conservation program.

2007

February – Saved 11 West Douglas Creek Stallions from castration by the BLM and brought them to our facility to be eventually reunited with the West Douglas Mares. This Colorado herd is scheduled for elimination from their Herd Area by the BLM shortly. It is ISPMB’s goal to protect endangered herds from eradication. ISPMB is looking for land to eventually place this herd. The Minneapolis Star Tribune covered the event of the stallions coming to ISPMB’s ranch.

May –Associated Press covered ISPMB’s quest to save threatened and endangered herds.

May–June – National Geographic magazine photographer photographed ISPMB’s rare Spanish Herd (Gila Herd).

August – ISPMB prepared to rescue over 300 historic wild horses from the Virginia Range Herd now roaming on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. ISPMB has begun its search for a larger ranch where the organization can supply its own hay, cutting costs, and house one of its four herds

October  –ISPMB took 80 of the original Virginia Range Wild Horses and placed them under ISPMB’s conservation program designed to save endangered wild herds from extinction.

October–December – ISPMB began adopting out the younger Virginia Range Herd that remained on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal ranch. More than 200 wild horses were adopted. Two Native American Schools took 25 wild horses into their program reuniting the Lakota youth with horses in a cultural preservation program. This constituted the largest horse rescue in the United States since the slaughter plants were closed in 2007.

2008

In the spring of 2008, the ISPMB succeeded in rescuing over 300 Virginia Range Horses from the possibility of slaughter. That fall, the ISPMB was a pivotal force in creating the landmark Las Vegas wild horse and burro summit, instrumental in protesting the BLM’s announcement of its inability to care for approximately 35,000 wild horses – posing the real threat of euthanasia.

2009

ISPMB’s eleven years of behavioral observations of its herds has yielded significant information to show that the removal of wild horses by helicopter and separating mares from their harem stallion has led to the destruction of their social systems over time which has resulted in the increase in the horses’ recruitment rates. This finding has significant importance to the future of wild horses on public lands.

2010

ISPMB has completed a model management plan that will be submitted to the BLM. This plan if followed will ensure the protection of the herds and will assure the herds survival over the long term. ISPMB remains an advocacy organization to promote education, protect and preserve America’s wild horse and burro organization. Throughout the year, ISPMB has conducted tours to see its wild herds in an effort to raise awareness about the plight of wild horses and burros in the United States. Tours are conducted from May 15 through September 15th. 

2015

In December, an ongoing effort to save the Heber Wild horses that reside in the Apache & Sitgreaves National Forest, an appeal by ISPMB’s attorney, Anthony W. Merrill of Polisinelli Law Firm in Phoenix was filed on December 23rd.