Institute of Range and the American Mustang Mission Statement.

DBA The Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary

     The Institute of Range and American Mustang (IRAM) founded by Dayton O. Hyde in 1988 is a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation registered in the state of South Dakota.  IRAM manages the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary and owns thousands of acres of private land located in the Southern Black Hills. The principle mission is to save this land from development, preserve the natural habitat of the wildlife on the land and provide a home for hundreds of unwanted American Mustangs.

     IRAM’s finest gift is the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, whose purpose is to provide not only freedom for unadoptable and unwanted wild horses, but also a research area dedicated to solving wild horse herd management that will contribute to the well-being of wild horses everywhere.

     Donations to the Sanctuary will be used to save the lives of mustang family groups from an uncertain future and offer them a second chance at this Forever Home here at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. Thousands of the mustangs gathered from their Herd Management Areas in the United States by the Bureau of Land Management first go to an auction and are purchased by Kill Pen buyers then end up going across borders of Canada and Mexico to their slaughter plants. Many of the mustangs here on the Sanctuary were first sold to slaughter and then rescued by wild horse advocates before coming to their new home.

       Donations, tourism and grants from individuals and private foundations fund the many programs here at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. Our Conservation Program includes protecting the bloodlines from several different herds; Spanish and Sulphur Mustangs, Choctaw Indian Ponies, small bands from the Navaho, Yakima, Apache Indian Reservations, a small herd from the Kisatachie Forest of northern Louisiana, and various mustangs from different BLM Herd Management areas such as Kiger and Appaloosas from the Adobe HMA.

     The Sanctuary and its staff are devoted to the spirit of the wild mustangs by giving America’s unwanted wild horses a second chance for a quality life of freedom.  IRAM continues their principles for the conservation of the land, native plants and wildlife, and America’s Wild Mustangs!