My Life Following the Wild Horses of Oregon; What I’ve Learned Along the Way

Our next podcast guest is Sonya Spaziani, known as Mustang Meg to her followers.

Mustang Meg (Sonya Spaziani) is renowned for her photography, field research, and ongoing efforts to educate the public on the status of wild Mustangs. Currently, 75,000 wild horses are caught in political, emotional, and environmental controversy.

Mustang Meg is concerned for the future welfare of our wild horses. She chooses no other, but one side, the side of the wild horses and burros. It's her hope and ambition that she can reach at least one person daily, so they know that we still have these inspiring free-roaming animals on our wild lands, and how necessary they are on so many levels, but mostly our spirits.... These wild horses, an American icon symbolizing our own struggle to remain free~ A powerful icon to the citizens of the great Nation, and to so many around the world.

I hope you join us for a powerful and riveting interview with Mustang Meg as she shares her adventures and experiences with these beautiful wild horses. 
 

Transcript

Caroline Beste (1m 4s):
You are listening to Everything Horses & More! Podcast with me, your host, Caroline Beste. I'm the founder of my Tao of Horsemanship method, a pioneer in horse training and development, and a true advocate of the horse. I bring an intuitive and educated eye along with an experienced and intelligent perspective to understanding both horse and human nature and behavior. My experience in skill sets are the cornerstone to my worldwide success in training methodology. My experience with horses as intelligent sentient beings is what inspired me to create my highly acclaimed and proven training method. consensual partnership training for horses and humans.

Caroline Beste (1m 44s):
A model I pioneered in 2008. Consensual Partnership Training provides a comprehensive and impressive curriculum teaching horse owners how to fully develop their horses using a holistic, empathetic, and natural process. My training system teaches you how to achieve true partnership with horses and without the use of pain, excessive pressure, dominance, force or coercion, In addition to being a world class trainer for both horses and people. I'm an artist, author, entrepreneur, speaker, radio show host, licensed working equitation trainer and riding foundation specialist. I offer one of the largest and most comprehensive online educational platforms, the do of horsemanship, where I host a variety of courses produced and personally taught by me and my amazing school masters In.

Caroline Beste (2m 36s):
addition to sharing what I know in my in person training and online courses, I invite special guests and students each month to my radio show, everything, horses and More podcast. This platform allows us to engage with all of you and share our very personal and transformational journey with horses. I invite you to listen in and hope you find something that helps inspire you to reach your personal goals and aspirations with your horse. Thank you. And may you always be one with horses.

Caroline Beste (3m 26s):
Welcome back everybody to Everything Horses & More! Podcasts. Y'all know who I am, your host, Caroline Beste. You know who my lovely co-host is, Lydia Primavera. And today we have an amazing guest, speaker Mustang Meg is with us. Sonya. How do you say your last name?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (3m 47s):
Spaziani. I married an Spaziani.

Caroline Beste (3m 49s):
Was gonna say. It's beautiful, I can tell. And you married an Italian. Love it.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (3m 55s):
My father-in-law, Spaziani.

Caroline Beste (3m 56s):
Oh, that's perfect. Today we're gonna be talking to Mustang Meg, AKA Sonya, about her life following the wild horses of Oregon and what she's learned along the way. And so for those of you that are not familiar with Mustang Meg, I'm gonna give you a short introduction and then I'm going to give the mic over to you, my dear. So Sonya, you are a renowned photographer and researcher and you have ongoing efforts to educate the public on the status of the wild Mustangs. So currently, 75,000 wild horses are caught in political, emotional, and environmental controversy.

Caroline Beste (4m 40s):
Mustang Meg is concerned for the future welfare of our wild horses. She chooses no other but one side, the side of the Wild horses and the boroughs. It's her hope in ambition that she can reach at least one person every day. so they know that we still have these inspiring free roaming animals on our wild lands and how necessary they are on so many levels. but mostly our spirits These wild horses, an American icon symbolizing our own struggle to remain free, a powerful icon to the citizens of this great Nation and to so many around the world. And I'm looking forward to handing the mic over to you so you can talk a little bit.

Caroline Beste (5m 24s):
We can segue right into how this started for you and your dad specifically.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (5m 29s):
Well, my, my whole family is a wonderful support system and, and it began really my dad taking the family and immigrating from the Czech Republic in 1968 when there was some chaos in the country and, and he had two small children and just a little bit of money just to get 'em through. And, and I, I tell you what it was, was probably one of the happiest times. I remember when they got their citizenship, they worked really hard for them. They threw a big party. And, and as a little girl, I would sit back and marvel at listening to all of his stories and how just the way he told stories was amazing.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (6m 14s):
Which, which I have a more difficult time, I'm better at writing than, than to express the stories. But I would sit and marvel, listen, listening to him and watching his friends talk and engage in, in his stories. But he, he left the Czech Republic because it was an oppressed country at the time. And he wanted for us to have everything that, that the sky was our limit or the sky was the limit, that it was up to us to decide where we wanted to take our future. And, and he didn't want anybody to tell us what we can or can't do.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (6m 54s):
And so my sister and I have always all our lives, and I still hear it in my head. My dad always saying, never take freedom for granted. And so I, I found this one picture of him on a horse and he is looking back. And so I made that into a canvas for my mom. And, and I put his words on there and of course, you know, he supported everything I did as far as like the Mustangs and my art, cuz I lived and breathed Horses since I was really little. And he listened to all the stories that I had or, or my thoughts and, and he'd often, you know, call me like a dream, like you're a big dreamer, but in, you know, in a poke, you know, fun poking sort of way.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (7m 35s):
And, and, you know, one day I was just standing on a hill, I took him out to see the Mustangs. We were, I think that was like, oh, early nineties. And he stood there next to me and, and you know, basically said, you know, I guess dreams do come true. And, and that, that was, that was pretty neat. So long story short, the Mustangs, the wild horses are that symbol of freedom to me. Yeah. And that's how, you know, just my love for horses and, and learning about the Mustangs, it just all kind of goes hand in hand.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (8m 17s):
It's, it's really kind of just, it all feeds itself in a, in a sense. It just, it's a one big beautiful circle of Wild horses and freedom. Yes. In the spirit, in the, in the spirit of freedom. I mean, I c we talk about this stuff, we go really deep in our Podcasts and we're really deep, you know, so spirituality is a big topic and I can so appreciate having a relationship with your dad in, you know, in that way I did too.

Caroline Beste (8m 49s):
I was very close to my father and my love of animals and Horses comes from my dad. So that was something that we also got to share in. But I can only imagine as you were telling the story of your dad, you know, looking out into the, the big expanse openness of where you were with your dad, and he's telling you that your dreams do come true, you know, and look at the freedom that you have personally being able to make your dreams come true in this wonderful country of ours. And then the Horses are a beautiful symbol and metaphor for everything beautiful in life, everything beautiful in worth working for, and keeping and sustaining.

Caroline Beste (9m 30s):
That's be, that's beautiful. I know there's so many, you know, I was reading up on you on your website and I know specifically you wanted to talk about a specific band of Horses the Voodoo today. But if you can just kind of encapsulate or summarize how many years you've been a protector, an ambassador, an advocate of the Wild horses and what that's been like for you. And then we can kind of dive into a more specific, you know, like the voodoo band. But I think for, for everyone, just like what it's like how many years you've been doing this, hopefully things are changing for the better and, and what we all can do to, to support this effort.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (10m 19s):
Well, I've been doing this, the advocate, the actual advocacy, What I. I was an a business entrepreneur first with my art and photography, drawing Everything Horses and riding horses. and I've kept You are a phenomenal artist. Phenomenal artist. Thank you. I'm an artist. You are. I went to school to be a fine artist. You are. I am a fine artist. You are phenomenal. Sorry. Very Thank you. Thank you so much. It it, it just does my good. I I, you know, it's, it's really the best form of therapy to just be able to get into the detail.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (11m 2s):
It's so, you know, you try and do so much detail. You forget all about the, the negativity around you. You know, to try and bring something to life on paper is, is really important. You do to me, you capture that specialness. Yeah, no, I get it. You capture that specialness and then he's there for everyone else, hopefully to connect to and appreciate and, and there's, and hopefully support your efforts. It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. So in 19, so I was a business owner first. And, and, and along with that I spent a lot of time camping. I love to hike and camp and, and everything that goes with it.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (11m 45s):
And so in 1994, newly married, we went out to the STS to camp and driving one of the back roads all of a sudden. Who are the EENs? Pardon? Who are the EENs? Who are the stains? The Steens Mountain range is, is one big, like 30 mile long mountain. It's a fall block mountain. Okay. Down in southeast Oregon's, one of the crown jewels of Oregon. There's like desert everywhere. And then all of a sudden there's this jetting mountain and often it has snow on the top and, and the Horses Wow. Are just on the west side of there. But we were driving on one of the little dirt roads and just unexpectedly, suddenly turning a corner there in front of us.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (12m 30s):
Were all kinds of Mustangs, like maybe 40, 40 head of Horses of different colors, different ages, different sizes and different colors and just trotting pr you know, some prancing, some loping, some walking. And I, I was absolutely just beyond beside myself in seeing. And then I wanted to know everything about them. And, and it started from there. In 2004, I started reading more about some controversial things about the Mustangs. And so I took notice and I followed the American Wild horse campaign and, and that they do such a great job of keeping people up to date with what's going on with the horses.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (13m 22s):
and by 2008 I got into the social media aspect and my goodness, what an easy way to share about thoughts, photos, video. It's such an easy venue just to, you know, I can be out on the range and, and have that information shared right to people that happen to follow my page. And yes. So we've been blessed with that of course. And, and, but by 2011 I grabbed a couple of my friends. We had little kids and strollers at the time and, and they were both horse nuts like me. And so I took them out there and that's where we started photographing.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (14m 5s):
And then I've been able to use some of my photographs with my art and write about them. So I was doing all the things that I love to do since I was a kid. Journaling, photography and art. Of course. Yeah. And so since 2011, we've been going out there several times a year up to a week stay. It's one herd management on the South EENs. And, but then there are also other herd management areas around the state as well. So the Burns area district has like seven, and then there's I think 17 in the whole state total in the west we have 10 west states that have Mustang populations and for, for herd management areas, which are the official management areas since the 1971 Wild Horse and Borough Act.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (14m 59s):
Protective Act. So, and they're all public lands, so people can go out to their public lands in those 10 West states and just take in the site of a Wild free running horse or bur. And they're really cute too. Oregon has one one, the Warm Springs has a borough population, a very small borough population, but it's fun to find them once in a while. But that's beautiful. Thank you. So yeah, I've been doing it for quite a while and, and there are, on, on Facebook, there are three different pages that each follow the, the Steens Wild horses and then which Facebook?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (15m 42s):
Which Facebook. Oh, which Facebook I have, I'm part of with a handful of other people. We populate the South Steins wild horses page. And there we keep track of, we build albums for each horse we want to track, or that we see often enough to track over the years. And we keep a running list of what's going on along with our photos from maybe when they're little fos all the way to, you know, currently, you know, generations down the line and they're grand band stallions or mares who've given us so many legends out on that, that mountain. So the South Steen wild horses page has multiple albums covering specific Horses.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (16m 26s):
Yes. That's Phenomen. Yes. But the audience, yeah, it's, it's wonderful to be able to, and you get to know the horses and if people, readers want to go back and, and learn about a specific horse and see his history, it's, it's right there. So I, I love Facebook for reasons like that. And so there's the three of us for South Steens, and then we chat under one umbrella called the Oregon Mustang Group and the Oregon Mustang group. I try and get photographers who cover other areas of Oregon to help monitor and watch those ranges. So we have the Oregon Mustang Group, which is the big umbrella group, and we chat together all our different, the three different South EENs pages.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (17m 12s):
We chat under the Oregon Mustang group and we keep each other that way. There's not like multiple names for one Horse. I think we've got a couple that have a couple names, but that's all right. That was from early on. But, but we do try and name these Horses range. I mean, they're not their official names or anything, but we pin these range names to keep track of them instead of just a number. We didn't wanna do that. So, and the names kind of help us remember and we, yes, we named them in themes. So like Chardonnay, which is a matriarch mayor out there, she has Merlot, she has Chak, you know, so we're, we're able to kinda go, let's see who, you know, it just helps jog our memory who's who, who, where they came from.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (17m 59s):
Otherwise I wouldn't, my memory is such that I, I need these little, little memory joggers. We have a perfect, pardon?

Lydia P. (18m 8s):
You have a question? Becky wants to know where your name, your, your AK Mustang Meg name came from?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (18m 16s):
Oh, that's a great question. Well, I'm always an entrepreneur, always thinking business. And so long before Mustang Meg, I, I had a little side business for coffee and it was cowgirls on coffee. That was during MySpace time, believe it or not. And so we had cowgirls on coffee and we named our barista mig. And so I was transitioning to the Mustang, it, it, you know, where I wanted to have some kind of a site that everybody can remember and an easy name to remember.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (18m 57s):
And I remember that we had that barista Meg and, and, and it just, you know, Mustang Meg and, and it and.com. And so I have Mustang Meg dot com and that goes directly to my Facebook page and it's easy, quick. And that's What I wanted just to, that's part of my, I guess, psychology, you know, I, I I studied branding. Yeah, good market. Exactly. Marking branding. So Mustang Meg, exactly. That's how it came about. Good question. It's perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Yay. Becky Becky's another student and a, and a great friend.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (19m 37s):
So we're all, we're all in this together. This is great. Terrific. Aw. So let's say you've been doing this 20 years, like, like creating these organizations and, and being really involved, I'd say for a good 20 years, right? Yeah. Well, Horses all my life, I mean, from What I sat on my first little leopard appaloosa in a circus in Germany. Once I realized there were Horses out went, the dolls out went everything. And I became just a full fledged horse, crazy tomboy.

Caroline Beste (20m 16s):
She wanna keep me in dresses. It's like, yeah, no, yes, I can relate. I think we all can relate. Yes, absolutely. Oh my God, that's so cool. So since you've been, you know, publicly promoting and supporting and being an advocate of the Mustangs, I guess that's What I wanted to say for at least 20 years what you've seen, I mean, 20 years, that's a long life for a Wild horse. They don't live from What I understand. They don't live as long as our, as the domesticated Horses there, there's a huge spectrum. We've been surprised with how old some of the Horses are that we have out there too.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (20m 60s):
But yeah, the, and a lot of that comes from mostly the stallions and their fight injuries. And what we find is a common theme out there when we find a horse that's deceased is their teeth wear. And, and that comes from the grit and the r the the roughage that, that they have, they love their minerals too, and that's all kind of gritty. So it, it just files down their teeth faster than their teeth can, can regrow. So tooth wear and fighting for the stallions. But, but then again, there are, there are those that, that live very long.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (21m 44s):
There's one, so Nopa, she might still be around and we're thinking in her thirties, Picasso from another range down over in Colorado, he's gone now, but they were estimating him around thirties. So I mean, there's a wide range, but the average goes down mostly for the tooth wear and the fighting and of course the weather. That's plays a part too. Yeah. I mean, and that makes sense just with the teeth wear, because when you look at even our domesticated Horses, if we didn't maintain their teeth, I mean, how many of us have senior Horses or have had senior Horses that needed, you know, wet food, you know, they couldn't eat, they're quitting their hay, they couldn't, you couldn't ground anymore.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (22m 30s):
And and that's in your twenties. And if we didn't give them moist, you know, wet their feed down or soaked cubes or soaked mash. Yeah, mash, yeah, they they'd be, they'd be gone. Yeah, we've got, we've got a stallion. Yeah, we've got a stallion out there copperhead for, for breeders that have been following along. And by November he, well, he's been looking bad for the last two years, and usually when they, they're aged and they start looking bad, then we, we figure it's, it's tooth wear. And he, but he's, he's an old guy, but, well, we don't know for sure that he's gone, but, but he is, he's been hanging in there.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (23m 12s):
And I still hope to see him this spring when I go back out there, but I really suspect it's teeth. And then of course they get kicked in the mouth or the jaw. We had a band stalling ranger in August. I found his whole face swollen on the side. So I can imagine there must have been broken teeth. They brought in the Horses in September 753 Horses they captured. And, and so some of them were seen with the broken teeth and probably from kicks to the mouth. And, and you, you can see how that could happen. And gratefully, we have adopters that have taken Horses like that in who can give them that extra care, like what you were talking about, the different feeds, if, if they need it.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (23m 55s):
So, so grateful for adopters also. Wow. Beautiful share with us. You know, I do my best talking to my audience and my student students about the vast differences between Wild horses and their behavior compared to domesticated horses. and I bring that up often. And I've worked with wild Mustangs and Wild horses and I, and I've studied them to the extent that I could. My first, when I got back into Horses, my, my parents lived on the eastern shore of Maryland. And so my first farm that I was able to buy was on the eastern shore of Maryland.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (24m 36s):
And I was extremely familiar with the chin and aite ponies who are feral, I wouldn't call them Wild because there's some level of de domestication meaning, you know, the tourists that go down there, you know, you're on the beach, the Horses are on the beach, you're, you're in miles long lines waiting to get to the beach and your, you know, your car is standing still and the wild horses are coming up to you because people feed them french fries and they like french fries. So there's that level, I know there's that level of domestication, but that's it, you know, they're untouchable, they are still crazy Wild when you go to gentle them in, tame them.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (25m 24s):
And then the biggest problem I found was the roundups that they would do every year, the fire department, the Tik Fire Department every year would do a roundup of the wild horses for, for good reason, one to, to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the wild horses, but also to clean out the herds. And they started introducing maybe 20 or 30 years ago, maybe 30 years ago, wild Mustangs Arabians and Quarter Horses, those three specific breeds. They started to mix into the, the Conquistador, you know, that's where the Tik ponies come from, the shipwreck, the Spanish shipwreck.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (26m 6s):
So they started in, you know, mixing those breeds to, to clean out the bloodline. So they're, you know, you know, What, I'm saying everybody. And so what would happen is when they would do these, they'd swim them and, and raise this money, the fire department, and you'd get the, the water cowboys or the saltwater cowboys they're called on Chincoteague Island that would help round up these horses. and they'd separate the babies and they'd sell the babies for thousands of dollars. and people were buying these, they had no idea what they were buying. You know, they, they look at these small little Horses ponies and think that, that they're gonna be cute little pets. And that became a big issue.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (26m 47s):
And that's when I started getting back into horses. and that was my first experience working with wild, feral horses is here. They, they adopted or adopted, they bought these babies at these roundups. And four years later, they don't know what the hell to do with them. They've grown up in their backyard and they're absolutely rogue still, you know, they're Wild and they have that level of domestication when you feed, but the instincts are still so strong that they were not easy to, to tame obviously to the average person. So that became My experience was, okay, let's go and, and see what we're looking at. And, and basically can I take these ponies from you and I, so I do a lot of talking.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (27m 35s):
I've also spent time riding my Horses, the beach is open and on Aceee Island, October through April every year. And you can ride your horse on parts of Aue, Maryland side, not Virginia side. And I would ride my late Arabian legend. He loved the water. I mean, I could l I could send him loose at a dead run and whistle and he'd come right back. I mean, we had that kind of relationship. So I would often go by myself with legend and ride and we would just observe the herds. And it was amazing. I'll never forget coming up around one of the dunes and there was a, you could smell the carcass of a young whale that had been washed up and was decomposing on the other side of the dune.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (28m 19s):
And so, you know, of course the lay legends instinct, you know, he's kind of like, okay, I'm like, take your time. You have nothing to worry about. Let's go investigate this. We're by ourselves. And as we come around the dune, there's a small band of mares and one stallion. And it was so beautiful. We came around and they might have been 20 or 30 feet from us, you know, not too far from this whale eating, whatever the, the, the scrubby grass is there, of course. And le and I just stopped and the stallion was on the other side of the band of mares. And there might have been eight or nine and some, some fos.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (28m 58s):
And everybody, nobody moved except the stallion. And all he did was very quietly, calmly, just look up at legend. And I, and Lay was frozen. And I was like, okay, back up and turn sideways. I do not wanna be confrontational. I don't, you know, my first, my first instinct was just look the other way towards the ocean. And he, the stallion just came around head low, very calm, it was amazing. And came around and just put himself now on the other side between us and the mares. And that was it. And he went right back to grazing.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (29m 38s):
And I, I could feel legend's heart, you know, my heart. I'm like, oh my God. Cuz I'm thinking, you know, what's plan B and C, you know, we're pretty fast. I think we could beat home, you know, you're an Arabian, but holy count bareback, I'm in a neck rope, you know, if my horse decides to flip out on me, I'm on the ground, you know, so it, it was amazing. And that was so exhilarating and blew my mind. And because here I am, you know, taking these young, you know, young Chi, the babies that these people had bought that know nothing, they don't know how to handle them. And I'm looking at how crazy they are.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (30m 18s):
And here I come up to the actual wild herd and they were so calm and in their parasympathetic nervous system, you know, rest and digest. We didn't present a threat. It, it just, it was absolutely amazing. And that was my first understanding, like that aha moment of how screwed up our domesticated Horses are, you know, how we really messed them up compared to the natural, you know, the wild horses, they're in their natural instincts, you know, they're in their parasympathetic nervous system all the time. And so, I don't know how much of that you talk about or think about, you know, when you're out there spreading the information on how to support these amazing, beautiful free animals, there's so much to learn from them.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (31m 9s):
Yeah, it, you know, it is, it is very true. I, I think back cuz I've had Horses a lot of my life and, and I would, before being around the Mustangs, I would, in training my own Horses, I would look at them in a, like a human child viewpoint. Like they should behave more like this and they should behave more like that. They should have better manners and this, and they shouldn't, they shouldn't rub up against me. You know, that sort of thing. Like, you want them to have respect and you do, because Horses, of course, when you're training 'em, you also wanna make sure there's a boundary there.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (31m 52s):
But that, that's a whole other piece to it. But after being around the Mustangs, then I started understanding more of their communication and how it, how they interacted. And so I was able to turn a lot of that knowledge into any training I did. It became their idea, you know, and, and more from the horse's social aspect rather than What I thought they should behave. Like since my, my background is psychology, you know, trying to force them into, you know, certain ways of being when that might not be so natural.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (32m 33s):
So I'm much more aware of the natural now just being around the Horses. So yeah, it's, it's vastly different. I, I, I think that's the biggest thing I'm, I wanna impress on people is just, I, I'm so happy that there's more people like you and there's more information and research out there to shed light on, on We, so and I, there is a huge shift in training today and there, and God bless there needs to be in horse training, you know, there needs to be this whole enlightenment about how to go about training. I hate that word. You know, it's, it's, I, I don't like it.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (33m 13s):
And I am a trainer. I can't stand that word though. It's, I don't wanna train my horse, you know, to be What I want them to be, I wanna learn how to have that natural connection, which I do in, in communication. Because once you, you have that, that language that they share and that relationship, I mean, everything is easy. You just gotta, you gotta earn that, you gotta earn that and then everything falls into place and it makes it very effortless. Yeah. Do

Lydia P. (33m 43s):
They know you now?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (33m 44s):
The Horses?

Lydia P. (33m 47s):
Yeah. Do they know you? Are you part of their family?

Caroline Beste (33m 51s):
I do you mingle with horses or No, you kind just observe.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (33m 57s):
I prefer the observ the natural observation. I wanna see what they're doing. I wanna understand the more, I don't want them to habituate to people so much. And, and, but there's been young Horses that have come up, you know, towards us. And so I'll raise my monopod or you know, do something where they just look at me go, oh my gosh, that's really weird. And then they back off. It's the younger Horses, like yearlings, two year, two-year-olds and sometimes some of the Stallings that have seen us around for 10 years, you know, they, they, they get our, they know who we are and they'll often, you know, they'll look at us and then put their head back down and graze. And these are the what we call the Hollywood Horses on the EENs, the ones kind of on the west side, low down where a lot of the tourists see them.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (34m 39s):
So they're familiar with people. But of course then there are those Horses that'll see you coming from a half mile away and all you see is a dust cloud. And then there's Horses in between depending on how much experience they've had with, with people. But as far as them knowing me, I, I'd like to think so. But like I said, I'd like to capture photos that are a little bit more natural. But the psychology, the social piece of it, of, of the Mustang herds is probably the most important to me. And then I have such a big lens and I have a lot of fun cropping. So a lot of these Horses that you, you see close up on some of my photos, it's just because of a big lens with a teleconverter and then also further cropping and, and whatnot.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (35m 26s):
But, but I try not to get close, close, of course. Yeah, of course. You know, other bands will come in and get behind us and, and, and then we have to just, just re maneuver so that we're out and, and away from there. Once they start paying too much attention to us, then we back off more and, and everything. Yeah. Just, yeah, it's just interesting that behaviors that makes, that makes total sense to me. So tell us a little bit about, with your psychology background and your observations, tell us what do you wanna share with us to, for us to learn about the Wild horse, their socialization skills, their family bonds are so, so strong, right?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (36m 9s):
Yeah, we've had mares and stallions that have been bonded since I've been out there. And so, you know, this, this roundup that happened in September, it was necessary. We got down to one little water hole the rains didn't return for, I think they were late for like a month or more, but good to say that it's been raining and snowing. So, you know, that's improved. But there have been bonds that, that have been there since we've been there. And then, and unfortunately because of the captures, they've been split up. So that's the heartbreaking piece. But I have to keep telling myself it was really necessary. But the Mustangs have an incredible, really complex social dynamics and it's all, I'd say, hormone driven.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (36m 58s):
And so that's my, probably my biggest stance in advocacy is no permanent sterilization. Because once they change the hormone, once they, once the hormones are out of play, then they become a completely different animal. I love geldings. I've had geldings, my rope Horses were geldings and I've had mares off the racetrack thoroughbreds too. And, but on the wild horses, the hormones are definitely important. In 2009, Oregon B l m decided to do a trial and had 15 males gelded and returned to the range for, to see if population would, you know, but it, it did nothing.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (37m 43s):
It didn't touch the population growth because as we know, one intact stallion among a bunch of geldings and mayors will service all the mayors that need to be serviced, you know, for breeding. And, and so it's futile to return geldings. It's a waste of money, resources. Good point. Let me ask you though, getting back before the geleen, so you're talking about hormones, what do you mean exactly that it's that the wild horses, what you see vastly different than domesticated is what do you like what's with the hormones? Like that's, I mean, I know Yeah, it's, it's mainly bond. Yes. Family bonds, of course the, the families will, the, the structure of the bands will often change because it's necessary.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (38m 32s):
And as we know, the stallions, the hormones will, the band stallions will kick in and drive out, like say the two year old stallions as they're coming of age for instance, or the hormones of a young Philly coming of age. And we've seen it as early as 13 months old will get extremely social and curious about stallions and other horses and other bands. And then naturally, a lot of them, a lot of them get picked off by other stallions around that age. I, it was surprising how early, like we saw some, but, but, so those hormones are, are very important as far as those kind of dynamics as well as constant movement and the drive to defend a band, the, the drive to acquire a band.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (39m 22s):
So it, it just, the hormones have so much play in this and the 15 geldings that they returned, as I said, it, it made no difference in population growth. But we could see them from a long, with, even without our glass, like our binoculars, we can see them from a long way away. They're heavy cuz all they do literally because of the lack of hormones is eat and sleep and they habituate to one area overall. They have no desire to go chase down another stallion. They have no desire to go catch that marere. And, and most of the time they're really heavy.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (40m 2s):
Some are even obese in an un unhealthy way. We have bruiser who's, he's just rot. So it it, it does no service to, to these Horses that are wild. And it hurts the, the dynamics population control works in a domestic situation in a paddock or a corral because you know, you've got mares and you've got your geldings and you don't have to worry about breeding. So in a domestic situation, oh yeah, geldings are great, but not out in the Wild. It changes everything. It changes those important dynamics.

Caroline Beste (40m 33s):
That makes sense. I know we have a question real quick from somebody that wanted to know if, if you know, that is there communication between Wild horses and domesticated Horses? Is there a difference if I read that correctly?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (40m 52s):
Yeah. With with behavior.

Caroline Beste (40m 54s):
Yeah. How different is the communication styles between Wild horses and domesticated Horses?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (40m 58s):
It's kind of like I, somebody asked me that and I likened it too. So I'm from the Czech Republic and, and I know the language of my parents when they, when they spoke was very refined and clear. I'm more watered down version. So I've though I've, I've learned English, I still speak Czech, but it's not very clear. And I interject a bunch of different English words among my cche just to try and explain something to my mom. So, so it's kind of like that when they communicate, you know, it, it's just a, it's different.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (41m 41s):
They've, the domestic Horses take on our, a lot of, you know, what we've been trying to teach them. There's, there's still that natural, you know, communication among Horses. But, but just the Mustangs have spec, I mean, one little movement of a head, the other horse reads very well and, and it's interpreted as it's meant to be. So it it's just like a watered down version. So it's not as clear, I guess to, to, I totally agree. Yeah. Domesticated Horses, you know, one of the things that I've always had until recently is, is all of my training facilities have been behavior facilities with the focus on returning the domesticated Horses to a healthy level of socialization and self-regulation.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (42m 35s):
And, and, and so that how many of our domesticated Horses don't get along. And one of the things i I like talking about is in the Wild, you get to pick and choose who you wanna be with. You get to pick and choose stallion and mares. Do you wanna stay with the family, go get impregnated, you know, young Philly like you were talking about. Even then they can come back pregnant. They go out and get impregnated and come back and decide to raise, you know, their baby with the matriarch of, of that band or that, you know, all the mares. So one of the things that is, it, it's so hard for the general public to understand with their Horses in typical boarding facilities is just the level of anxiety that our domesticated Horses have because we've dumbed down and taken away so many, we've dumbed down their natural instincts, we've dumbed down their ability to socialize properly and pick and choose who they wanna be with.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (43m 35s):
We force them in situations, they create anxieties around food, around, you know, not being able to, to, to create a herd. So you have buddy sour, you have so many insecurities and anxieties, and I wish, and I know it's gonna happen eventually because of people like you with all your support and advocacy that, that we just keep bringing, you know, more education of where Horses really need to be. Like the Wild horse, you know, so many of our personal issues, not personal issues are issues with our personal Horses, you know, have been created because of us, you know, because of old tradition, old ideas, old dogma.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (44m 18s):
And, and if, if there's so much that we could, there's so much that would help the domesticated horse if we could give them more of a natural lifestyle, you know, I know I'm kind of going around, but you, you know, the wild horses are in a natural lifestyle and they're, they're self-regulated, you know, they're healthy emotionally and mentally and of course physically for the most part. And so I think the communication styles, like you were saying, are, are vastly different, even on an instinctual level because we've influenced them for so long that they don't even know who they are. Like, like you, like until you start socializing domesticated herds of Horses, they don't even know how to socialize correctly.

Caroline Beste (45m 4s):
So much of that's been taken. It's like my quick, my little eight month old that's now five, when he came to me, his mother was a disaster. And she was a, a, a thoroughbred breeding, a brood marere. And so his parents were both on the track and really, really good pedigrees here in Florida for racing. Of course, I'm not racing, I don't believe in that, but when he came to meet in eight months, he was cribbing, he had high anxiety, he had ulcers, he had diarrhea, he had food, aggression, and he couldn't bond and he couldn't socialize. So his mother did a shitty ass job. She, there was no grooming.

Caroline Beste (45m 45s):
I was like asking the owner, you know, you're breeding these mares, so he's out with other brood mares and other foals. What is going on here? Well, the mother won't let him socialize, but when he's with her, she doesn't bond with him. I'm like, oh my god. You know? So just look at that one incident. And I know that that happens unfortunately more often than we'd like. And if you don't know how to help that young horse, which I threw him into my healthy socialized herd and gave him, you know, the opportunity to be mentored by one of my late horses who was just phenomenal. So he got that good energy, he got that level of protection, but he, he had to learn how to groom.

Caroline Beste (46m 30s):
He could not connect that way emotionally. He was destroyed. And I see so many horses doing the work that I've done for so many years. You see so many Horses like this, you know, older that are detached emotionally and they have so many displaced behaviors because of the anxiety that it's created. It is just heartbreaking. And yet it's normalized in our, in it's normalized for us. This is what we think is normal. So it's like, oh, it's mind blowing to me. Yeah, it's not normal. Yeah, it, I mean it's, it's interesting in terms of domestic horses and that just keeping in mind, you know, natural is best and and it's actually really, if you think about it really simple and the simpler, the better and, and you know, will come more of the natural horse, you know, when, when we don't overdo this or that or confuse them more.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (47m 31s):
Yes. Act like a smoothered child.

Lydia P. (47m 35s):
I have a question. Oh, I have a question. It's part of a question over on YouTube too, and it's about, she says, regarding microchipping as a way to follow life morbidities and modalities of herd members from young to death. And I wanna add on, is there a way to keep bands together when they're captured and adopted? How could we, I mean, you know, temple Grandon came up with this idea of, of making it better for cattle is have you thought of a way to make it better for the way they're captured and adopted?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (48m 13s):
Well, I think it would have to start earlier than that. And that's to, to minimize the volume of captures. And that starts with fertility control, in my opinion. I know a lot of people may not be into that, and I certainly am not for sterilization, but for contraception that they just re reapply and, and that would help slow down the population growth. So it would, it would eliminate as many Horses as they're now trying to gather. So we've got tens of thou, tens of thousands of horses and captivity and it's horrible.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (48m 56s):
Yeah. As for instance, just 700 and Slaughter pipeline, they go to auction or they go to slaughter pipeline. How could you not be for fertility? I mean, what's the, what's the the opposite of that? These horses live a horrible life in captivity or they go to slaughter. Yeah, so it would be best to keep the population reduced and contraception. It could be very simple. You know, it's, my thinking is capture, treat release by bands. You, you go through, you capture, you can move the trap sites around the H M A stains has 134,000 acres. So you move the trap sites, you bring in bands, you treat the mares, you mark 'em with a temporary color so you don't recapture 'em later and retreat 'em temporary color that washes off and let them run back out with their band.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (49m 46s):
It's so simple, it's not rocket science and they can do this regularly and keep the population down. But as it is right now, for instance, STS alone, 753 Horses were taken necessary. It was, but that's a lot of Horses that are saturating an already oversaturated market. Luckily the STS are so well loved and, you know, applying and teaching them about these Horses, we get a lot of adopters. So the adoption rates are high, but then there's a lot of Hmas or Haas or Horses taken off of private lands that just, when they're not on an hma, they're the ones that run through the, the pipelines and that don't have, you know, I don't even wanna think about what happens to them.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (50m 32s):
So it's just an oversaturation it needs to start with regular, each state has its herds and, and, and have regular treat capture treatment, release of fertility control to keep those populations down. So we don't know who saturate the market.

Lydia P. (50m 49s):
He's saying it's about each state having a good birth control.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (50m 52s):
Well, you know, there's human to me too. Yes, yes. There's, there's birth control and then there's also the birth control, like it's called GoCon. And, and that's a sterilizing chemical, which which has been on our radar and it works on both mares and stallions. So unless they've changed the formula, my last research is, is just that, and it changes the hormones. So when people are talking fertility control, then they need to make sure that they're talking about the right one.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (51m 33s):
Because I've heard, I've heard people complain about P Z P, which is the one that I'm for, and that has been studied for 30 years and it, it, it's the least invasive, minimally invasive if you do the treat cap or the capture, treat release program. And it really doesn't affect them. Hormonally, there's a lot of other beliefs out there, which, you know, it is what it is. But then there's other birth control that they call birth control or contraception like Gyne Con, which is a sterilizing agent. So it definitely need to be careful what we're talking about, which one we're referring to because there, there's a lot of confusion out there.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (52m 14s):
It's, you know, whether it's that or whether it's the lands that the Horses come off of. If there are hmas, they're protected to a point. But if there are Horses that crossed an unseen boundaries onto ha's, those are unofficial ranges. Like Snow will go over a cattle guard, for instance, and the Horses get out and they can be rounded up and shipped to who knows where. But it's, it's the hmas only that are protected right now. Or if a horse migrates on two private lands, there doesn't have to be any transparency. They could just round those Horses up and, and take 'em where they, you know, where we don't want them to go.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (52m 55s):
It's very complicated and people, you know, they'll talk about this and that, but not realizing that there's a lot of different aspects and it's kind of muddy to, you know, trying to wade through all this stuff in talking about the wild horses, whether it's contraception or what lands, checkerboard lands that, that they come off of.

Caroline Beste (53m 17s):
And, and it, we, we, we could have like a whole week's worth of dialogue on this, but there's a lot to it. It's very complicated. Maybe we could have you back. Oh, I'd love, thank you. I would love it. I'd love it every month. I mean this would be our way of contributing and doing our best Absolutely. Effort. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Well we'll talk more about that layer, but, so Lydia, what was that other question? Microchipping? Is that, is that, what do we need to microchip with all of that, with the tracking? Yeah, do you have a good tracking system currently just the albums and photographs.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (54m 1s):
I know that they've put in callers, which I completely am against also tracking Horses by callers. I've seen way too many accidents of babies, you know, trying to scratch and get, they get their legs caught in these collars. That's a whole other piece. And that, that's like a whole other segment that we can talk about. But that's a no brainer though. Like, hello? Like we don't turn Horses out in the pastures with their halters and so they're wanting to, to do radio callers to track 'em. But anyway, we'll work on that one another time. But no, I they, they aren't doing microchipping on these Mustangs I think now, right now it's based basically on recognition.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (54m 47s):
There's a sanctuary in Bend that that is really good about trying to keep Horses together. Return to Freedom also does a great job trying to capture or trying to rescue Horses that have been captured by band. So the band Stallion still is able to maintain. I love that. Yeah, I, I love that kind of stuff because those social, yeah, parts are so important. These stallions have worked their whole lives to acquire and then maintain this band. They have their lead mayor that usually stays bonded to them while, you know, the other Horses may come and go, but, but there's certain nuclear pieces of a band that are important to try and maintain.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (55m 29s):
But again, with the volume of horses out there, it's really hard to try and navigate through for, you know, places out there. So for now, all we really have is what people know of the Horses that we talk about and the sanctuary. What about the brand? Pardon? What about branding? So where does the brands, where do the brands come in when, when they brand the Mustangs it, the freeze branding? Yep. So Oregon practices it in such a way that they, that they will bring in the horses and then they, they'll worm, give them all their shots, they'll check their teeth and do all that.

Caroline Beste (56m 17s):
And then they brand all the horses and a lot they prepare for adoption for, for the Horses off the, the Hmas for adoption. And, and then they'll select some to return. So they, they have like a capture quota and they'll capture a little more than that capture quota that gives 'em room to return Horses. But because they freeze brand them all on the left side of their neck, then, then the Horses that they select to return, they happen to have freeze brands. So we've had, oh like Stallion Honor a big old Dunn stallion that that had a freeze brand and he was captured in the 2009 capture. He's no longer with us, but there's other Horses on EENs that have brands that I get questions about a lot.

Caroline Beste (56m 59s):
Why are they branded? And and that's why, because they're all branded when they're captured and then so some are selected to be, to be like back onto the range. Yeah, so in My experience, and I've got a little Wild Mustang here that I worked with to gentleman Tame a couple years ago who was on, who was being shipped to the kill pen and his owner intervened and turned, you know, got him and got another one off. She, for whatever reason, she had fancied these two specifically and had followed them and before you knew it, they were being shipped to Slaughter, but they were both freeze branded. And so I just never knew, you know, why do you brand some and it seems like everybody that's adopted Mustangs in the Mustang makeover and whatever, they're all branded.

Caroline Beste (57m 49s):
So I guess you, they're branded when they come in, like you just said to get adopted out. But the free roaming Horses that are not captured, or I guess if they're in holding pens, they're all branded too, aren't they? Cuz then they have to go, they're all branded when they're captured. They're just branded and then we're set out. So we'll still see branded Horses out there and, and Got it. So the Horses that are branded, that, that go, like you were saying through like into the pipeline, they probably fall under the Burns amendment, which in 2004, if they're over 10 or passed by, passed over adoptions three times, then they, they can be sold without limits.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (58m 36s):
So that's where that comes from. But typically the brand protects 'em. So like if some of our Horses that were previously branded got out of the H hma and they were picked up, then they'd be processed like regular, like protected Mustangs off in hma n not so much. These guys were protected. Yeah. And so the, the one was an older mayor that had definitely been handled and tamed and this little guy was under 10 and he is absolutely the most pitiful looking and cutest little Mustang. He is definitely got passed over many times. He was, and he was starved by the time I got him, you know, he was in horrible shape.

Caroline Beste (59m 17s):
But he is, you know, he is ugly, he's beautiful, but he is ugly. So I'm, I'm sure he got passed over, you know, he is not a pretty little guy, but I think he's, I'm in love with him, but I, anyway, that's, everybody else is in love with him too. But you know, What I mean, I can see when I looked at him, you are pitiful, you know, you're, you're not shaped right. He's, he's a, his brand, I forget which part, I don't know if it's Nebraska, the Dakotas, he came,

Lydia P. (59m 45s):
I think he came from the same place. My horse came from the Nevada Area. Nevada, and I thought it was with an n Nevada. Okay. And he's got, he's part draft in part Welsh. So he is got this big head, short neck. He's, he's downhill. So when I, we first saw him, we, you couldn't touch him, so I couldn't see his teeth, but he looked like he was a, a yearling or a two-year-old cause he was so small and he is so skinny and just misshapen. He's not built well God love him, but he he's a doll baby. Yeah, he's lucky to have you it sounds like. Oh, he's lucky to have his owners.

Lydia P. (1h 0m 26s):
Yeah, he's, he's, he's well loved.

Caroline Beste (1h 0m 30s):
He is well loved. Yeah. So,

Lydia P. (1h 0m 33s):
So should we talk about the Voodoo band just a little bit before we

Caroline Beste (1h 0m 38s):
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about it before we wrap up.

Lydia P. (1h 0m 40s):
The Voodoo Band, this beautiful black band of Horses. Yeah. People ask me a lot. So was was the Voodoo band captured and, and I tell him, you know, if the Voodoo band was captured, I think the whole world would hear about it. The whole, whole world would know it. But he hasn't been captured since 2014, well since actually 2012, he and a black mayor, Raven got together and, and he's only maintained that one mayor and all their offspring are black and, and it's just, it's an, an, an amazing site to see a band of all black horses.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 1m 26s):
and how his name, how the name came about was a friend of mine and I were walking for exercise and we, we decided we, we needed to that maybe sometime we can name a band Voodoo. And then of course then we started laughing about all the names that we can add to that to kind of fit. We've got Mojo, we've got Juju, we've got Jinx, and

Caroline Beste (1h 1m 53s):
I love it. So it's, they're named in themes.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 1m 58s):
And so we were laughing and laughing and then we went out like that next fall and we found an all black band and we were saying it'll have to be a black band. I mean, we're just being silly girls just walking laughing go, oh yeah, we have to find a black band. And we found a black band. And so and so sure enough, we, we named him Voodoo, the Band Stallion. And then Raven already had her name. There was also Black Magic. There was a Rain Dancer, rain Dancer, rain Dancer, way back 2012. That was all's name. But it's, it's an amazing sight to see these Horses. But you know, and this is more whimsical storytelling, however, it's really true too.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 2m 45s):
I mean, it's just my interpretation, which is more on, on the level of it, it just feels magical. And, and that's whenever we come across the Voodoo band or we're in there in his territory, something odd happens and it's usually weather related. And I think, well the first time we were, it was Alice and I and we were out on a, on a road and we were way in the back country and we were skunked and we were getting ready, we were tired, we're getting ready to turn the rig around and go back and, and so we sat there trying to figure out which crossroad to go.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 3m 26s):
And so I pulled out a candy bar and it's like, oh, we're not gonna see Horses today. And, and I sat down in, in my side view mirror, I saw a bunch of black Horses.

Caroline Beste (1h 3m 34s):
So it's like I could barely get the words out and, and we, we only got a few pictures of them there. But, but then that's when we, you know, we already knew about Voodoo and so we were excited to find 'em and everything and, and, but there was one time with the gal that my neighbor that where they, where we named them Prema, pre name them before we even saw them, before we even realized they existed. And Alice, so Alice Ginger and I went out there and it, we happened to go out into the voodoo area and the sky was completely blue, completely blue.

Caroline Beste (1h 4m 14s):
And there was one tiny little speck of white, you know, kind of like a little vapor cloud vapor in, in the sky, but it was completely blue. And we saw the voodoo band. We took pictures of them and everything. This was 2016. And, and it was great, great pictures of just this stallion that's built like a thoroughbred. He's really tall, really leggy jet black. And he's got kind of like a triangular, triangular blaze or like, almost like a yin and yang blaze. And he's, he's incredible. He's, he's just, I can't even explain just how incredibly he is.

Caroline Beste (1h 4m 57s):
He's glossy black, tall, he's at least 16 hands. And his boy's mojo and juju are nothing to sneeze at either black magic. I mean, they're not with him anymore. They're off on their own in the back country with bands now. But of course, he and Raven have had offsprings since then, and which we haven't really met anyway, there's just so much to say. But back to the story about the blue skies. So we, we saw voodoo and we left the area after they left, and we were done with photos. And it was probably about an hour later and we hadn't noticed, but somehow the whole sky turned black and it was windy and we weren't really dressed for it.

Caroline Beste (1h 5m 42s):
And this is the coldest I've ever, ever felt in my life. We all had kind of bluish, purplish lips. I still had my sunglasses on from, from being in the sun with voodoo under that blue sky. But thank goodness I had these sunglasses on because there were shards of ice little, it wasn't hail, but like they were thin, long shards of ice blowing in sideways into our eyes. And the glasses were our only protection. It, it was so cold. And, and then at the same time, what happened was thunder snow, which I have never experienced before, because usually you don't get thunder during a snowstorm, thunder, snow.

Caroline Beste (1h 6m 23s):
It's a, it, it's a, it's a real thing. And we heard, we could hear the rumbles against the mountain, the highlands of the mountain, like a, an acoustic thing. And it was, yeah. And that was such after seeing voodoo. And then more recently, 20 20 20. Yeah. It was Alison, I, and we were going through a prairie with, and I, I noticed an area with beautiful butterflies and it was just incredible just seeing these beautiful butterflies for like an acre acre to walking through butterflies.

Caroline Beste (1h 7m 3s):
And we had seen a bunch of other, some of the back country Horses we took pictures of and then, but we were always on the lookout for voodoo and he was nowhere to be seen. And we went up on a little Noel, sat down under the juniper tree and for snacks and water, and then we both caught movement.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 7m 21s):
We looked down the hill to the tree line of Junipers and there was a black stallion staring right at us. And we both immediately thought voodoo. I mean, we were just in shock. He was standing there in front of the trees and by the time we could get our camera up and take photos, he had turned his head Winnie at Horses that were inside the tree line and ran back in. So, so we missed him for photos, but we saw we're both Allison and I think we saw him and we even climbed higher to try and look down into the trees, try and figure out his trajectory so we can somehow intercept and, and we never were able to. So heading back to the car, going through that same place where we walked through the butterflies, they were all little white moths.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 8m 10s):
That's very same place. And I mean, it could be that I just mistook the butterflies earlier or, you know, that is crazy. But walking there in the sunshine, there were these beautiful yellow butterflies heading back and, you know, it was getting late in the day. And there were all these little moths in that very same place. Complete, yeah. Completely different species. Little white moths. That's really mystical. That is very mystical. Yeah, for sure. And it could be just my interpretation, could be lack of water, could be that I was in the desert too long. I don't know. But those are true stories.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 8m 48s):
It's all, I guess a matter of how we interpret a, a moment or something like that. But it's always very interesting, every time we're in the voodoo area or we see the stallion and you witnessed an event, a weather event is what you Yeah, yeah. There's always some form of weather with him and like that. Yeah. Yeah. And we happen to see him most in a specific area around October. And, and that's when we have more varied weather, of course. But, but yeah, he's very, but the of it, it's like sar you could say it's serendipitous. I don't think it's coincidental. I, so I get into all that woowoo stuff, you know, the mystical stuff.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 9m 31s):
I so believe in that, especially if it just keeps happening, you know, we're Oh yeah. When it's regular, especially with one horse. Yeah. Yeah. That's, to me, that's evidenced based research, you know, this is something that just keeps happening. It's a pattern. It's not just a one time occurrence. So that's, that is amazing. It's, it's been really interesting to be in its presence for sure. Do you write about that? Do you share those stories with the public good? Yeah. On my Mustang Meg page on social media Media, I have one album and well, I have, well, I have a bunch of albums, but I have one album on range notes, like specific things about Horses, like how they keep their hooks so trimmed.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 10m 14s):
So I have that album. Then I have a story journal album and the voodoos, I have the voodoo stories in there.

Caroline Beste (1h 10m 21s):
Several times of What I have experienced being around that stallion and, and among other stories too. Wonderful. So we're getting ready to wrap this up. Mustang, nag Sonya. Where can people find you? If you can list your website, especially they, you guys have to check out her artwork. It's amazing. Thank you. So where can they find you, support you, and then support the Mustangs? Let's see here. So I, each year, at the end of the year, I also pick up, pick out an organization I, that I think is most helpful to donate to, because, you know, people purchase my photos, they'll purchase my arts or they'll send in donations.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 11m 7s):
And at the end of the year, I always like to give back and pick one organization. And, and people always want to know who, who do I choose to for, for my contributions? And the, and I'm, there's a number of 'em, but I'm gonna list the top three. And that's the American Wild Horse campaign. There is the Cloud Foundation. And, and then my recent very in big interest is Heroes and horses. and that's combat veterans that, that go out to this place. And they work with horses and they work and they camp is, and it's very helpful for people, for these combat veterans with P T S D.

Caroline Beste (1h 11m 49s):
So that one's near and dear to my heart. And we'll return to Freedom, there's, there's so many. All of those are, oh, and Sky Dog Sanctuary now. And so I do, I like to donate at the end of the year to one of these that are making a difference. But they, let's see, my art currently is not on a website, but they can see my art on my Facebook page. And they can go to Mustang Meg Facebook page, or they could just put in their browser Mustang Meg dot com. That'll take you to my Facebook page. Also Mustang Wild dot com, that's where my photography is.

Caroline Beste (1h 12m 29s):
And any photograph they can per, well, it's a, it's a photography website, but they can also contact me for specific canvas or metal hanging metal art, which that's metal back there. That's that one's of Shaman with an eagle. That's, that's metal. Beautiful. And then of course, there's Mustang journey.com and that goes to my YouTube channel. So all my videos are there. So if you wanna take a walk with me out on, out on the range, then that would be a good place to go. So all my different videos are there by trip. That's fabulous. You can have video out the on one, on one of those videos. Okay, cool.

Caroline Beste (1h 13m 10s):
That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah.

Lydia P. (1h 13m 13s):
Do you ever take anybody with you to raise money for Mustangs?

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 13m 19s):
Not, I, I get asked that a lot. And of course, first born and, you know, all that good stuff. And, and I, I, I usually don't just because the, there's tremendous amount of liability. There's never a guarantee of finding horses. There's so many hazards, and we literally are up from dawn to, to, well, well past dusk, so we hike a lot of miles, but mostly, you know, it's, you're out in the middle of nowhere and things can go south fast.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 13m 58s):
So all those reasons together, I, I really don't.

Caroline Beste (1h 14m 2s):
But I do wanna add that, that we have all these public lands, HMAS and anybody can go on their public lands to observe these Horses, our Oregon Mustang group, if you look through the albums of our Oregon Mustang group on Facebook, then I even have a segment that show, or an album that, that will list out all the different hmas across our 10 West states. So where you live or where you wanna visit. So you can, you can find them there, message me, and you know, I'll, I'll send that to you. And, and so you have all these different places to go, you know, and I'll even offer, you know, where they, where they can go.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 14m 46s):
But there's just never a guarantee with wild horses, and especially now for Steens with the gather there, there's, you know, much less Horses to find, they were hard to find th then let alone now with this massive gather. So it's a lot harder to find them too. So because of the lack of guarantee and weather and predators and everything that can go south, I, I really don't like too, you know, I, I worry about people too much and wanna make sure that they're having a fun time when they might find Horses. So, so I kind of keep that separate,

Lydia P. (1h 15m 19s):
I think question four of those.

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 23s):
Pardon?

Lydia P. (1h 15m 24s):
You might be getting 144 of those this month. Yeah, I have a friend who's getting 144 for a Mustang makeover deal here this month. Wow.

Caroline Beste (1h 15m 34s):
Wow.

Lydia P. (1h 15m 35s):
I don't know if they're part of yours or where they're coming from yet, but I'll find out.

Sonya - Mustang Meg (1h 15m 39s):
Yeah, yeah. It's been, I I, I've been hearing from people that have been adopting some of the Steen's horses and it's fun to follow, you know, these horses, once they've been adopted, they're so, they're, the horses are so forgiving, they kind of meld and, and become their environment, you know, with the right gentle techniques. So it's fun to watch where some of these horses go and how they progress in their new domestic life too. Hmm.

Lydia P. (1h 16m 9s):
I think we should be accountable. I think we should be held accountable to them. I do. Yeah.

Caroline Beste (1h 16m 15s):
Yep. We, we should be to all of our animals and our, our earth, our planet, you know, we need to take care of it. Yep. Everything. Yep. Do a better job. For sure. Well, thank you. We're gonna wrap this up. I look, thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate being able to talk about Mustangs, you know? Yes. Love to have you back. So Lydia and I will talk about that with you, you know, off air. Of course. Okay. Yeah, we'll, we'll figure that out. Yeah, thank you. And I just wanna say, just announce next week real quick, February 15th, we have Jonas Feeley, so we have one of our male students, there's very few of them.

Caroline Beste (1h 17m 2s):
So, but he's gonna talk about being a student of my work. So that's next week's podcast you guys. And he is is an amazing person with a very interesting and colorful life. And he is also a former veteran and was in the military. So he's got a lot to, a lot to offer, a lot of experiences and Well, thank you again. Thank you Sonya so much. God bless everyone. And may you always be one with horses and thank you. Thank you. Nice talking to you girls. Bye. We'll, we'll catch up. Thank you so much. Bye everybody. Bye-bye.