#47 - Wild Horses, Public Land, and the Billion-Dollar Battle You’ve Never Heard About with Scott Beckstead

What happens to America’s wild horses after they're rounded up? Why is the politics around public lands and wild horses so heated? And what does it look like when horses are given their freedom back?

In this moving and wide-ranging episode, we sat down with Scott Beckstead, a lifelong animal advocate, law professor, and Chief Equine Program Officer at the Wild Horse Refuge the world’s largest sanctuary of its kind, spanning 30,000 acres in Northwest Colorado.

Scott walks us through:

• The daily joy (and responsibility) of overseeing 200+ wild horses living free on the range

• The legacy of Picasso - the most iconic Mustang in America - and the horses that carry his bloodline today

• How trauma shapes behavior in wild horses and what it means to let them heal on their own terms

• Why wild horses are native to North America despite what the critics say

• The controversial role of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and how Scott’s team has formed a surprising partnership to give horses a second chance

• Fertility control, land politics, and why building one refuge per state could be the game-changer we all need

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• 🐴 Want to help? Chip in a piece of $777 to own an acre and we can become a founding donor at wildhorserefuge.org - make sure to mention "horse people podcast" when contributing!