Erik Molvar, Executive Director, Western Watersheds Project
Chad Hanson serves as a member of the faculty in Sociology and Religion at Casper College. He is also a co-founder and the Director of the Wyoming Mustang Institute. In addition, he is the author of several books, including In a Land of Awe , and the forthcoming title,
The Wild Horse Effect: Awe, Well-Being, and the Transformative Power of Nature . For more information, visit
chadhanson.org or
wyomustangs.org
Theresa Barbour, Executive Director – The Oregon Wild Horse Organization is a national nonprofit devoted to preserving native wild horses and their habitats, ensuring that these magnificent creatures remain part of our living heritage. Through our advocacy for legislation and engagement in litigation on wild horse conservation and public land management issues, we strive to create a better future. Moreover, we empower the public with the knowledge and tools needed to champion the welfare of wild horses, burros, and their environments.
Ginger Kathrens
Ginger is an Emmy Award-winning producer, cinematographer, writer, and editor as well
Janine Dallow is a wild horse advocate who experienced wild horse round-ups for the first time in 2024. She went to four: North Landers (2 days), Twin Peaks (2 days) , Devils Garden (4 days) and Buffalo Hills (1 day). She will share her experiences with us and talk about the Carter Reservoir HMA in CA/NV.
Heather Hellyer , founder of Save Our Wild Horses, has visited over 50 wild horse herd areas since 2020. A photographer and advocate, she documents the wild horses and the western range they inhabit. Heather will be discussing effective ways to contact your legislators and the BLM’s systematic elimination of our wild horse and burro herds.
Holly Bice, President and Founder of the Bice Policy Group , is a seasoned government relations and strategic advocacy professional with a proven track record of success, having achieved numerous wins in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures during her career. She has in-depth expertise in Appropriations and the Farm Bill and over a decade of experience lobbying on animal welfare, agriculture, judiciary, and natural resources issues. One of the few truly bipartisan lobbyists in Washington DC, Holly has a reputation for bipartisanship and collaboration, bringing together Republicans, Democrats, and diverse stakeholders to reach meaningful results, even on the most difficult issues. As a trailblazer who enjoys a challenge, she succeeds where others say it is impossible.
Carol Walker started her business photographing horses, Living Images by Carol Walker, in 2000. In 2004 she visited a wild horse herd in Adobe Town, Wyoming and became an advocate for wild horses after viewing her first helicopter roundup. She has three coffee table books about wild horses, an educational blog Wild Hoofbeats and Podcast, Freedom for Wild Horses.
Mary A. Koncel is a longtime lover of equines – both domestic and wild. She received her M.S. in Animals and Public Policy from the Tufts/Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine where she is now an adjunct instructor at the Center for Animals and Public. She has researched and written extensively on various equine topics, including wild horse adoption and the United States Forest Service and its management of wild horses with a special focus on Devil’s Garden. Mary lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and a small menagerie of animals, including Rain, a BLM mustang mare, and Huck and Puck, two BLM burros.
Marilyn Nuske is an Australian Litigation Lawyer, in sole practice in Victoria, and also works in animal rights law predominantly for brumbies and dingoes. As a horse lover she feels despair at the cruelty to which brumbies are being exposed, and draws a similarity with the international position for wild living equine. Her first ever pony was a brumby. She is also involved in the fight to protect Australia’s native apex land predator the dingo. She is a practicing artist and presently painting for a joint exhibition mid 2025, with another brumby advocate.
Michael Standaert is a correspondent with the North Dakota News Cooperative, a nonprofit media outlet serving newspapers across the state with in-depth feature coverage. Prior to moving to North Dakota in mid-2022, he worked as a freelance foreign correspondent in China for 16 years, mostly with Bloomberg Industry Group.
Ashley Avis is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and passionate advocate for the wild world. Professionally, she is best known for writing and directing Disney’s Black Beauty starring Oscar winner Kate Winslet and Mackenzie Foy; along with the critically acclaimed, Critics Choice nominated documentary Wild Beauty Mustang Spirit of the West. City of Angels for Warner Bros. for Oscar-winning producer Charles Roven; and American Wolf for Apple and Appian Way with Leonardo DiCaprio producing.
Christine Kman, Co-Founder and President of Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates (CHWHA) www.chwha.org
Wild Horse Solutions/Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition is a 501(c)3 promotes successful relationships with Mustangs, in the wild and as working partners. Gayle Hunt, founder, will be discussing the Ochoco wild horses found in central Oregon, and the role the US Forest Service plays in managing the herd.
Craig Downer is the Founder and President of nonprofit 501c3 Andean Tapir Fund and it’s breach Wild Horse and Burro Fund. He continues to work as a wildlife ecologist and has conducted several field studies including the Sulpher Spanish mustang herd in western Utah and several other herds in AZ, NV, CA, and Utah, all of which resulted in professional results.
Jen Britton and Christain Hunold
Ginger Fedak has spent decades teaching about and advocating for domestic and wild horses. Her work has appeared in The Observatory, AlterNet, Countercurrents, CounterPunch, LA Progressive, and NationofChange. In Defense of Animals and continues to teach natural horsemanship classes on weekends.
Scott Beckstead is a lifelong student and admirer of horses and all equines, Scott Beckstead grew up with horses on his family’s farm and spent much of his childhood and youth on horseback in the mountains of Idaho. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Utah State University and his JD from the University of Utah, Beckstead worked as an attorney in private practice for 17 years on the central Oregon coast before going to work full-time in the animal protection sector as a legislative lobbyist, agriculture policy director, and equine welfare specialist. During his time on the coast he also served as the mayor of Waldport, Oregon from 2002 to 2007. Beckstead became known for his special expertise in the field of animal law, and has taught that subject as well as classes on wildlife, animal agriculture, cannabis, and polar law at Willamette University College of Law as an adjunct professor of law since 2010. In 2000, he co-authored Animal Law, the first casebook on the subject. Because of his familiarity with horses, livestock, and farm animals, Beckstead provides training to law enforcement agencies on how to handle and work with those animals, and how to investigate equine and livestock cruelty and neglect. He currently serves as Chief Equine Programs Director for The Wild Animal Sanctuary, overseeing the organization’s work to save and protect equines both wild and domestic. Beckstead is married to Jackie and has four children, two grandchildren, and an assortment of pets.
William E. Simpson II Wild Horse Fire Brigade
William spent his formative years on the family ranch, and attended Oregon State University and Lane Community College where he worked as a scientist in several doctoral projects ranging from marine biology to agricultural production. William, together with his partner Michelle Gough and the nonprofit WHFB, own and manage one of the largest herds of free-roaming wild horses living in the western wilderness today, numbering 200 horses. The ownership of the herd came about due to William’s unique approach to using existing law. In 2018, William served CALFIRE as the technical advisor for 9-days on the fire-line of the deadly Klamathon Fire. During that wind-driven wildfire, William documented the beneficial effect of wildfire grazing by wild horses during the fire, as well as wild horse behavior during the fire, thereby advancing that science with empirical, first-hand data. That wildfire and the impacts of the wild horses is now the subject of an award-winning documentary, HORSE of NATURE . William’s research into the environmental benefits of wild horses as ecosystem engineers and wildfire mitigators has been the subject of dozens of feature articles in publications such as; The Atlantic , NPR National Science , GrazeLIFE , The Guardian, National Institute of Health (‘NIH’) and many others. William was the keynote speaker at the Guild Theater in Sacramento CA during the EQUUS 2022 Mustang Summit . William’s most recent speaking engagement was a presentation to the faculty and students at California State University’s Environmental Science Department. Over the past decade, William has been a guest on dozens of TV & Radio shows, including CBS, ABC & NBC, and is recognized as an expert in wild horse ecology and management by horse advocates, government officials and university professors. In 2019, William was nominated to serve on the National BLM Wild Horse and Advisory Board by a sitting U.S. Congressman (Greg Walden) and numerous other elected officials. In November 2024, William was nominated at the Robert Kennedy MAHA People’s Nominations, a collaborative with President-elect Trump to fill an expected 4,000 government agency appointments, to serve at the Bureau of Land Management (‘BLM’), possibly as the head of the national Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Michelle Gough Wild Horse Fire Brigade UC California Irvine to initiate and complete two new studies; a wild horse grazing study and wild horse dung germinability study. Michelle’s M.S. degree included a minor in behavioral ecology. Michelle has spent the last 4+ years living at Wild Horse Ranch , the research site the nonprofit Wild Horse Fire Brigade in the wilderness, and studying the herd of 200 free-roaming wild horses that live in that remote mountain habitat. According to the doctoral dissertation of Yvette ‘Running Horse’ Collin, Ph.D, the ancestors of the local herd of wild horses were documented by Sir Francis Drake in 1580, making the herd one of the oldest documented herds in North America. In 2023, Wild Horse Fire Brigade signed a 5-year contract with California State University – Sacramento to provide a wilderness study program to teach wild horse ecology-ethology by allowing university students the unique opportunity of living-with and studying wild horses using the ‘Goodall Method ‘, a term originally coined by WHFB’s founder in honor of Dr. Jane Goodall who pioneered close observational wildlife study with the Apes in Africa. Interestingly, the Goodall Method of study has revealed new insights into the lives of naturally-living wild horses. The research by Gough & Simpson and resulting new insights into wild horse behavioral ecology will be invaluable in the successful implementation of any wild horse re-wilding project.
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