Free Wild Horses! Prevent WildFires & Climate Change! Save & Love Wild Horses Today!
LOVE WILD HORSES’ ESTEEMED BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Director Oglala-Lakota Chief Lee Plenty Wolf
Chief Lee Plenty Wolf joined LWH Board of Directors in November of 2021. In October we had the honor of Chief Plenty Wolf visiting us in Northern California, and participating in our Short Film "Let Them Live-Love Wild Horses!" with hope for President Biden and Secretary Haaland to join us to save the wild horses.
Lee and the Native American Music Award winning Plentywolf Singers along with Lakota Tribal members join LWH in wild equine educational gatherings and awareness marches and the making of films. Lee, also composed an original Lakota drumming song and dedicated "Sunka Wakan" (Wild Horse Chasing Life" to help empower our work-for all the wild horses and all the horses to be supported to survive.
Chief Plentywolf is also the founder and spiritual Advisor of White Horse Creek Council, a Colorado based 501c3. To help and heal humanity, Lee also, regularly holds Inipis ~sacred prayer ceremonies and travels officiating ceremonies across the country.
"A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky." – Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota
"The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself" ~ Chief Seattle
Secretary & Director Evelyn Arce Erickson
Mystic LWH ambassador assisting with Filming prep
Director Evelyn Arce Erickson is one incredible positive force of change! For Love Wild Horses, she advises, educates, and connects our wild horse and land conservancy practices with Native American leaders and groups. She empowers the vital sharing of our -Wildfire and Wild Equine and Global Warming Protection Land Regeneration Natural Rewilding Studies to help and heal the wild ones, wild places, and surrounding communities.
Evelyn Arce Erickson- Founder and CEO of Indigenous Resilience Consulting , a Muisca descendant, Evelyn is passionate about Indigenous self-determination and Indigenous-led philanthropy. She is the Founder and CEO of Indigenous Resilience Consulting (IRC), with the mission to build Native led capacity and serve as a strategic advisor to both donors and Indigenous communities. She is the former Vice President for Native Conservancy, the first Native land trust in the US where a fundraising campaign she led raised millions and played a pivotal role managing daily operations with a focus on development, program, financials, and forward- looking strategies.
Evelyn helped to found and ran for 15 years the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP), a donor affinity group dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities. It was the first organized effort to bring hundreds of millions of dollars directly into Indigenous communities globally. Evelyn was one of the first voices for Indigenous led-philanthropy and notably led the effort for several donor publications, including the Foundation Center's Funding Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Support.
She currently serves on the Board and Development Committee for three NGOs: Biomimicry Institute, Fortunate Farm and Love Wild Horses and is an advisor to Earth Codes Observatory. She is the co-founder of Coastside Friendship Organic Garden (c-FOG) and served on the HMB Parks and Recreation Commission. She served as a board member of Cultural Survival for nearly a decade.
She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees from Cornell University. She is a Goldman Environmental Prize nominator and a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow. A Master Gardener of San Mateo & San Francisco County, California, Evelyn lives in the territory of the Pomo tribe (now called Mendocino) with her husband and three children. She spends her free time gardening and exploring the raw beauty of the land.
Treasurer, and Director Michael Stocker
Michael is on the Left~ Speaking at LWH Lakota Prayer Ceremony & Love Wild Horses Education Event
We invited and welcomed Michael Stocker to Love Wild Horses® Board of Directors in 2018! Michael brings with him more than 30 years of experience working in the nonprofit and environmental protection sector.
We are extremely fortunate to have his brilliance helping to guide our mission to save the wild horses and wild places with us.
A note from Michael regarding the critical relevance of our work:
“Love Wild Horses’ focus on compassionate range management sets an example of how we can work with nature to solve some of our more vexing wildlands problems. We have acquiesced far too long to corporate ranch welfare – much to the detriment of western environments and habitats.”
Michael Stocker is a technical generalist by predilection, an acoustician by trade, and a musician by avocation. He has written and spoken about marine bioacoustics since 1992 in public, academic, and regulatory fora. His conversancy in both physics and biology has proven invaluable in court testimony and legal briefs, defending the environment against the impacts of human-generated noise in the sea.
He is the founding director of Ocean Conservation Research (www.OCR.org ), a science and policy development NGO focused on the impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine habitats.
Over the past decade, he has written a series of short newsletters on marine bioacoustics, and environmental policy. Some 600 of these pieces can be found at www.Ocean-Noise.com.
Prior to focusing on ocean conservation issues, he worked in architectural acoustics, designing sound recording, and public exhibition facilities. Clients included the US National Holocaust Museum and the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. He was also the musical and electronic engineer for the prescient movie “Koyaaniqatsi.”
His book Hear Where We Are: Sound, ecology, and sense of place examines the phenomenology, cultural, and natural history of sound perception for humans and other animals.
Photo: By James Johnson
Director, Professor , Dr. Cintra Agee
Designer of our Groundbreaking Equine ReWilding Climate Change & Wildfire Mitigation Land Study
We are excited to welcome Cintra to LWH esteemed Board of Directors and as LWH’s Land Revitalization, Conservation and Equine ReWilding Wildfire and Climate CHange Mitigation Study Designer! She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to LWH, and with hope-will be helping us bring positive science forward, To help save the last of the wild horses.
Cintra Agee is a Professor of Native American Studies at College of the Redwoods in Humboldt County, CA. and was awarded her PhD from Yale University School of the Environment (YSE) in December 2022. She also holds a Master of Environmental Management from YSE. Cintra has had a lifelong passion for horses, is a horse owner herself, and knows well the plight of wild horses and US rangelands. Her expertise and experience brings together Indigenous Peoples’ issues and teaching Indigenous youth; ecosystem management and environmental policy; applications of Traditional Ecological Knowledge for fire management, ecological restoration, and climate change mitigation; as well as federal management of wild horses. She has worked in policy, program design and project management, and fundraising in multiple sectors--as well as having long experience in academia. Her past positions have ranged from international (such as the United Nations Development Program) to local (for instance, Iisaak Forest Resources, Ltd., a First Nations-owned and operated forestry company in British Columbia).
Director, President and Founder, Jetara Séhart
Jetara with supporters~at a Golden Gate Bridge~Save & Love Wild Horses Awareness March!
Jetara Séhart, Founder and President, of Love Wild Horses 501C3 ®:
Love Wild Horses' Foundation Program Design and Director:
Jetara is a passionate visionary leader introducing new solutions integrating wild horses with climate resilience, carbon sequestration, and wildfire mitigation programs. For 14 years, she's built a movement and educational platform with over 700,000 likes and followers on LWH's main Facebook, reaching 1,500,000+ in the past 90 days and 2,500,000+ in 2023.
Jetara and Love Wild Horses’ work, design and vision in regenerating wild grassland ecosystems with the saving and rewilding of at-risk wild horses are being introduced to legislative appropriations in 2025 by a supporting wild equine protection lobbying organization to inspire new climate conservation solutions policies. She helped by bringing awareness to ban the export of thousands of horses to slaughter by supporting New York Governor Kathy Hochuls' State lead in prohibiting slaughter export of horses, a newest law. Jetara and LWHF has also helped rally calls, emails, letter campaigns to inspire more than 250 Congressional and Senate sponsors for the SAFE Act, which seeks to end the export of American horses to slaughter, potentially saving tens of thousands of horses and burros from suffering. Under her leadership, Love Wild Horses has saved over 1,065 wild horses from slaughter and raised funds to ensure thousands more can remain free.Since LWH's inception, her leadership helped save 1,065+ wild horses from slaughter and raised funding to save thousands to remain free and survive.
Her organization has successfully produced campaigns to capture over 5 million signatures and created a movement to support wild horses. Her experience includes boots-on-the-ground research in the wilderness of the wild horses, studying habitats and behaviors, photographing the wild ones, participating in radio and documentaries for the wild horses, creating short films, mentoring and equine education coaching for LWH's partners and adopters, organizing and hosting therapeutic events for horses, performing one on one equine healing trauma sessions for the horses and for individuals, groups and community members, facilitating Lakota horse medicine and education ceremonies, direct rescue of the horses, and releasing wild horses to run forever safe and free on protected land.
Before saving wild horses and wild lands, Jetara's focus was giving voice to children in family court systems to be heard and honored. Her testimony and involvement inspired changing a California law, granting children the right to speak on their behalf and for their protection. In 2016, both of her sons were killed in a tragic car accident. She is transforming this immense personal loss and pain into positive action and the healing of trauma for individuals and groups.
Jetara is a changemaker for her love of spirit, nature, animals, and Mother Earth, creating symbiotic partnerships and dream teams of inspired volunteers across the nation with her vision to heal human hearts by reconnecting the sacredness of horses with humanity and rewilding landscapes with new scientific findings and traditional ecological knowledge.
Jetara studied meditation and participated in ceremonies with the Thai reknowned author and spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh, Tibetan Rinpoches, author, and Buddhist monk, and learned spiritual ceremonies from Chief Lee Plentywolf, establishing 22 years of experience facilitating meetings and leading successful programs.
Her educational background includes therapeutic horse healing and training clinics, indigenous ceremony training, and classes at the College of Marin, where she studied design, psychology, and cross-culture religion. Jetara spends her free time with LWH's amazing ambassador, a wild horse she and her followers helped rescue from slaughter in 2019 called "Mystic" and "Star" rescued in 2024.. Her passions also include being an equine enthusiast, ever learning, studying, a spiritual and meditation guide and her personal practice of the healing arts, organic cooking and gardening, being in nature, and hiking with her four-legged family. She is a Certified Yoga instructor RYT, Asian Dance Teacher, and Fine Artist Painter.
"I love animals, the trees, the land, the waterways and recognize their gifts and sacred interconnectedness for humanity and the world. Wild horses play a vital role in helping to heal and protect ecosystems from wildfires and global warming and have so much to teach humanity- if we will just listen and grant them to remain free and to survive. Thank you for being here to help us save them!" Jetara Séhart
Photo: By Susan Munroe
Core Supporters Dewey & Penny Bunnell, of the Band America
Rock Star Voices to Save & Love Wild Horses With Rescued Precious Ambassador "Noname"!
We are so grateful to have beautiful Penny and Dewey Bunnell join the Love Wild Horses® Movement in 2017 ! They continue to be amazing allies for the wild horses, in lending their voices -empowering awareness to save & Love Wild Horses, with a public service announcement, at America's rock concerts, in magazines and social media platforms.
Penny and Dewey discovered the dire plight of the wild horses from Love Wild Horses' outreach work and in response made the decision to adopt a wild horse! They named her "Nonname" pronounced NoNameee inspired by one of America's hit songs "A Horse with No Name".
To check out what's happening with the band America, please click here!
Love Wild Horses’ Leading Land Revitalization Partner
We are blessed to have Ken Maring as a partner to blaze the way as a study host & saving herd of 22
“Beautiful, iconic, historic, majestic, spiritual and even romantic are our country’s Mustang horses. So deeply rooted in our history, it’s an impossible concept to not care for, protect and champion the Mustang. However, the care and protection are most often not the case. A sinister dynamic lives, leading many Mustangs to slaughter. I’ve become involved and increasingly more engaged to help in stopping and reversing this terrible plight of the magnificent wild Mustangs.” Ken Maring
Love Wild Horses’ Empowering Program for Seven Generations
Misty Dawn Swallow, "Ta’ Hoco Kan Wakan Win" is her Lakota name given to her by her grandfather which means ‘Her Sacred Altar (Circle) Woman’. Misty is a member of the Oglala Lakota (mother’s side) & Sicangu Lakota Oyate (father’s side) from Manderson, SD. RED DOG {SunkaLuta} Oyuhpe territory. She’s the daughter of Lakota Horse Chief Marvin Leo Swallow ‘Ta’Sunke Iyoyanpa’ “His Shining Horse” and, DarlaJean Swain (Two Bonnets) of WhiteHorse Creek, SD.
As a Lakota Winyan & Mother of 3 wakanyeja, Charlie Lee 18, Eryn Lula 15, & Tristan Ayden 14. Her children are her motivation. From 2006-2022 she was previously married to Charles Plentywolf, son of Lakota Chief Lee Plentywolf of Boulder, Colorado.
Misty is a Descendant of a Matriarchal Warrior Society, she’s been taught to be resilient and stand her sacred ground, earning the ways of her people & Great Spirit through the Divine medicine, Pejuta Wakan, Peyote. Representing the Seven Generations of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Society & the Lakota/Nakota/Dakota Oyate, she speaks on behalf of those who cannot.
She’s a Water Winyan of the Native American Church SD Chapter, since the tender age of 14 years old, she’s carried this MniWicozani for her generations. Growing up around the Sacred Fireplace & Traditional ways of the Star Peoples, Her Medicine is her being true to the teachings of her Lakota Way of Life. On behalf of her Star Nation Brothers & Sisters she’s here to say, “We deserve the very best!”. The Lakota come from a Sacred Place known as HeSapa Wakan. The Sacred Black Hills, of South Dakota, which is still being desecrated to this very day.
She’s helped create, coordinate and volunteer in many empowerment projects such as IndigeNation 2020, Indigenous Peoples Powwow 2018 (Boulder, Co) where she was the Chair, in 2019, participated in the TaSunke Witco Teca O’tipi Benefit Concert, Fort Collins, CO where the people come together to celebrate the youth, in honoring of our Native Traditions, Way of life. The Arts, Music and Dance has always been at the heart & frontlines of the Lakota people’s movements as a whole. Her love for her homelands brought her to work with Magpie Buffalo Organizing to protect & defend the Sacred through the awareness their Black Hills Dreamer Camp in 2022 has highlighted by way of protecting Sacred sites such as our beloved HeSapa Wakan, Our Sacred BlackHills of SD, and the headwaters, first medicine, and from the continued desecration of our home and way of life.
“Partnering with Love Wild Horses since 2023 is giving opportunity to start that process of building trust through the works of healing that our four legged brothers and sisters provide on a spiritual level that has always been connected to our way of life as Indigenous Lakota on Turtle Island.”~ Misty Dawn Swallow
She believes in our courageous spirit and envisions the world’s love and support to help the enrichment of our peoples living conditions & homelands, where trust is to be built back up from little to nothing, for the beautifying of a Nation’s beautiful people and thriving land to become a reality.
Until Misty returns to her homeland in April, she’s living in San Francisco, partnering with the Native Solidarity Project and is coordinating the Lakota Culture and presence in California, creating opportunities to build on essential de-colonization communication. This work is bridging the sharing of resources with Indigenous knowledge and teachings, needed collaborations and partners, who can help make a difference for her and her relations future generations to live in a supported and awakened conscious state of being. For the world to come together to help rebuild her home REZ-lands from a 3rd world country state to a place where the world’s relatives and allies can feel welcomed at any time of year not just ceremony.
Her vision is to see her people get access to resources to regenerate, reengineer, redesign and restore our Morals, Virtues, Values, and Integrity back into our daily way of living life in a Good, Healthy, Sovereign and Sacred way.
Jackie Oliveri,LWH national coordinator
Jackie is an amazing positive force in helping us to save the horses! Not only is she our National Coordinator, she is also the founder of National Wild Horse Freedom Rallies. We and the horses are so very fortunate to have her with us!
Jackie has been a rescuer of wild and domestic animals practically since birth. She was fortunate to spend her summer months on her aunt's farm, where her love and respect for horses developed. Often she sat out in the pasture, where she found it magical watching them run free. For her, no other relationship with animals can quite compare to that between horses and humans. However, she has a great love and respect for all animals. Jackie feels horses have a language that needs no words and says, "If you ever have the chance to look into the eyes of a horse, you will be captivated by the stories they tell." She began riding at age three, competing throughout her teenage years and as a member of her college equestrian team. During this time, she first became aware of the cruel business of horse slaughter and horse auctions that many lesson barns used to dispose of unwanted horses they no longer deemed useful. Once aware of this gut-wrenching reality, she vowed to do all she could to fight against injustices towards horses.
In recent years, she became involved with advocacy groups dedicated to ending the violent roundups and removal of the native wild horses from their homes on the range across the American West. Her involvement led her to become a co-creator of Nationwide Wild Horse Freedom Rally, a wild horse advocacy group that organizes and participates in protests across the United States.
WHFR is collaborating with LWH in creating tables at events and hosting public educational gatherings to help create awareness for wild horses to be protected to survive, remain free and forever safe from sale to slaughter.
Naima Feltaous, Director of LWH’s Warrior Youth Program
Welcome Naima!
Naima, an extraordinary eleven-year-old, possesses a profound connection with animals, particularly horses, which her mom believes began at birth.
Her journey into understanding the challenges faced by wild horses began in 2022, by exploring social media platforms alongside her mother, where they followed photographers sharing stories from the range.
During a recent Bureau of Land Management -Wyoming McCullough Peaks wild horse bait trapping removal, Love Wild Horses’ shared a video by her mother on Facebook that went viral, capturing Naima's heartfelt anguish over the capture and separation of a 5-month-old foal wild horse named Thora from her mother and family band.
In response to her passion and dedication, and to help empower Naima’s voice to save the horses-Love Wild Horses’ invited Naima to join their dream team, as the Warrior Youth Program Director!
Naima happily accepted and is presently being mentored by Jetara Séhart, LWH’s Founder and President
Now Naima is channeling her deep sadness for the sacred wild horses into positive action, rallying young voices to inspire policies for the preservation of America's wild horses.
Please join Naima’s voice to Save & Love Wild Horses, today!
Love Wild Horses’ Outreach PARTNER, in North Carolina
Virginia Pasborg has always felt a deep connection to horses, especially the Great American Mustangs. She is originally from Wyoming and has been photographing the wild herds along with her father for many years. To view their stunning photography work please visit: Their Pasborg Photography’s Facebook page.
Although she started her riding career at five years old, it was only during her freshman year of high school that she got her first horse, a rescued thoroughbred. Virginia says, “She truly rescued me as well. Before getting her, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Instead of grounding their teenager like most parents would, mine got me my first horse. Within a week, I cut off ties with my so-called friends and set off on my lifelong journey with horses. They are my passion and what keeps me going when life gets tough. Coming from someone who has witnessed the healing power of horses, I look forward to sharing that magic as a Love Wild Horses' Education & Healing Outreach partner in my new home state, North Carolina."
Accounting-Book Keeping - Roxanne Albin, MBA
Roxanne Albin has been in the financial services industry for over twenty years. Her financial career started off in bookkeeping. She later became the Business, Finance, and Administrative Director at a local 501c-3 nonprofit, where she worked for eleven years. Roxanne received her Bachelor of Arts in
Strategic Management and her Master’s degree in Global Management from Dominican University of California. She has a passion for helping nonprofits and is known for her ability to clean up and improve disparate systems.
Roxanne’s role includes: client relationship management, managing the AFS staff, cleaning up and streamlining client systems, contract management, and overseeing accounting processes.
Roxanne serves as a Board Member for Marin Alano Club, Postpartum Support Center, and Desire to Inspire Foundation.
In her free time, Roxanne loves to play with her grandchildren, spend time with her family and friends, hike, kayak, and play with her two dogs and new horse Nugget.
Special Campaigns Coordinator Gwendolyn Torres
Gwen uses multiple channels to raise awareness about indigenous sustainable practices, wisdom, and the restorative actions they have taken in an effort to rapidly reverse the imbalance in the ecosystem we now know as Climate Change.
Gwen is Filipino and has worked and lived in Northern California, the Philippines and Europe as a communications and design professional in diverse industries. As a single mother, she has devoted her career to building a more sustainable world for the next generation through sustainable design and inclusivity in education, business and policymaking. From 2015 to 2021, she worked with indigenous artisans throughout the Philippines using e-commerce and social media to educate various audiences on the importance of indigenous knowledge and crafts. Prior to that, she worked in the field of sustainably designed public school architecture in Silicon Valley, California. She holds degrees in Psychology, Architectural Design, and Entrepreneurship. She is currently pursuing a Joint Masters Degree in Economic Policy for Global Transitions in an effort to lobby for more inclusive economic policy.
Craig Downer, Supporting Wildlife Ecologist
Craig C. Downer On the Right ~Speaker at a Love Wild Horses Event with Jetara Séhart
We are thankful and honored to have Craig Downer's wild equine scientific contribution!
Craig, has collaborated with us for over a decade and he greatly admires our compassionate and forthright work for restoring the wild horse and burro herds to their rightful land and freedom. He supports and informs the Reserve Design approach to attaining truly long-term viable, ecologically harmoniously adapted, and naturally self-stabilizing populations of wild horse and burro herds throughout the West and in America. He supports our work, and has participated in the energetic and effective rallies we’ve hosted-with Jetara and Love Wild Horses at the Golden Gate Bridge, and in California's Capitol, Sacramento. Craig is proud to serve as LWH go-to wildlife ecologist.
Craig is also a University of California-Berkeley graduate majoring in Biology and specializing in Ecology with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He received the Marquis Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award.
He speaks three languages and is fluent in Spanish, and has a high proficiency in French.
Craig is the first person to have done an in-depth study of the endangered Mountain/Andean Tapir and to have radio-collared and tracked this excellent relative, the horse in Sangay National Park, Ecuador. He has helped protect millions of acres of Andean forests and paramos in northern South America.
His organization the Andean Tapir Fund / Wild Horse and Burro Fund has awakened the public to the many positive contributions these species make to ecosystems, as well as examining their North American origins and long-standing evolution. His dynamic, greater truth- and justice-serving organization upholds the pure intent of the WFHBA. Its website contains his reports, articles, videos and interviews and those of others and provides an important overview on this subject as well as a well-informed and timely call to action.
Photo: By Cathy Kindsfather
Neta Rhyne, LWH Volunteer ~Target Banning Horse Slaughter
Neta with her Husband Darrel at a Thundering Hooves Special Event
~held at the Chumash Museum in Thousand Oaks California
We are honored to have Neta join us to help empower our work together- for all the horses! Neta created a powerful film clip calling to Pass the S.A.F.E. Act HR3355 to stop America's horses from being exported for slaughter, and to support LWH raw short film "Let Them Live- Love Wild Horses!"
Neta Rhyne, an award winning director, producer, and writer, is a proud enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, Direct Descendent of the ‘Trail Of Tears’. Through her Cherokee heritage Neta has a deep rooted connection to the Earth and holds a special bond to the spirit of the horse. Neta founded Thundering Hooves 501(c)3 non-profit organization in 2011 to bring awareness to the many hardships horses face today, and the important role we play in protecting the environment.
Through film, art projects, and special events, Neta is able to bring awareness to the plight of horses and the destruction of the environment by the fossil fuel industry. Netas’ Award Winning Documentary Films have garnered the attention of audiences all over the world. The Official Trailer to her most recent Documentary Short Film, ‘A Horses' Prayer’, aired as a Public Service Announcement for the SAFE Act 961/S2006, a Bill in Congress that would protect the Global Food Supply and close our borders to Horse Slaughter.
Today Neta continues to be a tireless advocate for the Horses, both Wild and Domestic, and stays active in her mission to help protect and save a series of artesian springs that have flowed for over 11,000 years in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas now in danger of disappearing …forever!