09/17/2026
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Near Craig, Colorado, a former cattle ranch once called Rio Ro Mo Ranch has been transformed into what its operators call the largest mustang sanctuary in the United States.
The Wild Horse Refuge is a private, nonprofit initiative launched by The Wild Animal Sanctuary, based in Keenesburg, Colorado. The organization purchased the original 22,450-acre property in January 2023, and the refuge has since expanded to more than 30,000 acres, roughly 46.8 square miles of contiguous open rangeland.
The refuge exists because of a specific chain of events. Beginning in 2021, the Bureau of Land Management conducted large-scale roundups of wild horses from Colorado's Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area, removing hundreds of mustangs to bring the herd within federally designated population targets. Similar roundups followed at the nearby Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area. Horses removed through these roundups typically face adoption, sale, or long-term holding in confined facilities, outcomes that Wild Animal Sanctuary founder Pat Craig wanted to offer an alternative to.
More than 230 mustangs now live at the refuge, with room to expand further. The refuge deliberately avoids paddocks, stock pens, or small fenced pastures. Instead, horses move freely across open terrain, choosing when to graze, travel, rest, and interact within their own social bands, much as they would on unmanaged rangeland.
The location was chosen deliberately. Sitting just 30 miles from Sand Wash Basin and roughly 40 miles from Piceance-East Douglas, the refuge's sagebrush terrain closely resembles the landscapes many of these horses originally came from. "When they were brought here and turned out, it had to feel like a homecoming for them," said Scott Beckstead, the sanctuary's Chief Equine Programs Director. "They thrive in this habitat because this is what they're used to."
It is worth being precise about what this refuge represents. It is a sanctuary that exists after removal, not a solution that prevents horses from being taken from their original herds in the first place. But for the mustangs already displaced by federal roundups, 30,000 acres offers something genuinely rare: room to run until they choose to stop.
