REAL PEOPLE/LAST CHANCE RANCH
Where the Zebras Roam Free
Claire Staples left a glamorous career to rescue mustangs, horses and a few lucky others
More than 300 animals, including two zebras, live at the sanctuary.
IN THE U.S., horses are companion animals. We don’t kill them for their meat or hides. But if their owners don’t want them for whatever reason, they’re often bought at auction and shipped to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. Wild mustangs get rounded up and sold the same way. Even zebras and other exotic animals can end up in kill pens—they’re often the babies of mothers that have been bred in captivity and then hunted for sport. The public can buy horses and other animals from the kill pens before they ship—and that’s what I do.
I used to work in the entertainment industry as a producer. I had all the material and external things that were supposed to fill that hole in your soul. But they didn’t work. At 50, I wanted to change my life. I’d always loved horses, so I started riding again. That’s how I heard about the kill pens and slaughter pipeline for horses.
When I saved my first mustang, I boarded him at a stable. Then I bought my first ranch in Calabasas. By the time I’d met and married my husband, I had nine horses and a few donkeys. I started visiting wild horse sanctuaries to see how they worked. And I turned to my husband and said, “We’re going to need a bigger ranch.”
With a 9,000-acre property in Oregon, I could rescue more horses, and eventually I started a nonprofit to support their care. We currently have 260 horses and about 60 burros. If the animals are healthy enough, we turn them out with a herd we think they’ll like. They live like wild horses, though we do daily checks to make sure they’re healthy and well-fed.
Rescuing horses has taught me a lot about patience, forgiveness and living in the moment. But the main thing it has taught me is that you can’t achieve happiness by going after material things for yourself. For me, seeing the light come back into a horse’s eyes, letting it run free and watching it grow into its own happiness is the greatest joy there is. —As told to Leslie Quander Wooldridge
Clare Staples is the founder of the nonprofit Skydog Sanctuary in Malibu, California, and Bend, Oregon.