The Safe Landing Project
We're turning 200 acres of pasture into a peaceful place to land for every wild horse we pull out of the slaughter pipeline. The first pens are already up!
Every wild horse rescued from the slaughter pipeline deserves to have a taste of freedom again, even while they're in quarantine.
By the time a mustang reaches us, they've been rounded up, crowded into pens, forced through chutes and bid on by kill buyers who are paid by the pound. Then comes quarantine: months of care & healing before they can join the herd on big acreage.
For many horses, this will be the first peaceful environment they've experienced in years.
The first quiet night.
The first soft landing.
The first leap toward freedom.
Most quarantine facilities are built around small pens. Ours is being built around freedom.
The Safe Landing is the missing middle: the place between the worst day of their lives and the rest of their lives. This project gives them freedom from the very beginning of their story with us.
01 The auction
Run through the chute and sold
Wild horses are pushed through the processing chute for their Coggins test and auction stickers, then sold. Kill buyers bid by the pound.
02 The Safe Landing
Quarantine, reimagined
Months of care, healing and decompressing in 5–15 acre pastures, with room to move and their family & friends beside them.
You're building this
03 Sanctuary
Home, for life
Released into herds across thousands of acres. They don't wait to be adopted out. Nirvana is their forever home.
Rolling pasture. Old oaks for shade. Room to run, even in quarantine. This is the land as it looks today, before the first pasture fencing goes up.
Now picture a trailer door opening here, and a frightened mustang stepping out into grass instead of another pen.
This isn't a “someday” plan. Here's how it's coming together.
Oct 2025
The search begins
We decided to begin searching for a property to become this landmark facility.
July 10, 2026
Walking the land
Open pasture, oak shade and summer sky, as far as you can see. A perfect taste of the freedom to come after quarantine!
Sept 30, 2026
The working pens go up first
Smaller 60×240 ft pens at the front of the property, wired post by post until the sky turned pink. Whenever a group needs vet work, a hoof trim or a closer eye, they'll be brought up here from their pasture through the central alley system.
Sept 30, 2026
September's rescues settle in
Some of our September rescues, still in quarantine, have already moved in while the pastures are built.
Next
Your chapter: the first run
Next come the quarantine pastures, water lines, shelters and the central alley. Then comes the day we open the gates and these horses run down into fresh pastures for the very first time. Every donation brings that day closer!
Help build what's next
$500,000
builds out the whole 200-acre facility and makes it fully operational, from the first fence to the last water trough.
This isn't temporary. It's built to serve wild horses for DECADES to come.
America is paying attention.
A recent New York Times investigation brought national attention to the path some federally protected wild horses take after leaving government custody, including into the slaughter pipeline.
People are talking. They're angry. And new people are showing up, ready to do something about it. Public attention can disappear as quickly as it arrives, OR it can become the beginning of lasting change.
But, awareness alone can't unload a trailer.
Outrage can't quarantine a newly rescued family.
A post can't provide the water, shelter or care.
Infrastructure CAN.
Long after today's headlines disappear, these fences will still be standing. This water will still be flowing. These shelters will still be there.
600+ horses. One promise.
More than 600 horses call Nirvana home. When we rescue a wild horse, they aren't rehabilitated so they can become someone else's horse. We become their home, across thousands of acres, in their own herds, with space and freedom for the rest of their lives.
The Safe Landing brings that same promise to the very first chapter of their life with us.
For transformational donors and partners, key spaces on this property can carry your name. You will forever be part of the story of the American mustang, carried into future generations with honor and respect.
Major partners are also recognized with permanent plaques, in project updates and through lasting legacy recognition.
Talk with us about naming$640
raised toward our $500,000 goal to build the Safe Landing
Updated Oct 2, 2026
Every fence post, water line and shelter on this land will be there because someone chose to build it.
Everyone who gives becomes one of the founding builders of the Safe Landing Project.
Choose your donation
Donations here go to building the Safe Landing Project.
Planning a donation larger than $30,000? Send us a message and we'll get you all the information you need.
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Secure checkout through our website. Nirvana Mustang Sanctuary is a registered 501(c)(3), and all donations are tax-deductible. EIN 87-6699274.
Questions? Contact us or email info@nirvanamustangsanctuary.org
There will be horses who walk onto this land ten years from now whose names we don't know yet. Mustangs running wild today whose lives may someday depend on whether a sanctuary has room for them.
Help us build it. Help us preserve America's Wild Horses.
Build the Safe Landing