About Neda
Neda DeMayo is the founder and president of Return to Freedom (RTF) Wild Horse Conservation, a national nonprofit she launched in 1997 to advance humane, science-based solutions for protecting America’s wild horses and burros on and off the range. She established the American Wild Horse Sanctuary in 1998 as a model for pioneering minimally intrusive, natural family band management and regenerative, holistic grazing.
A lifelong horsewoman whose first word was “horse,” DeMayo vividly remembers watching wild horses being chased and captured on television when she was just five years old. Deeply moved by the injustice, she declared to her surprised parents that one day she would find the horses a safe home. DeMayo says that bold childhood promise became the inspiration for Return to Freedom.
Before founding Return to Freedom, DeMayo traveled extensively and was educated in holistic healing modalities, practicing for over 10 years before studying fashion design and working in the fashion and costume industry for theatre and film in Los Angeles. In the early 1990s, when the Associated Press exposed the Bureau of Land Management’s mismanagement of America’s wild horses and burros, DeMayo left her career in Los Angeles to pursue her childhood promise and take action.
Now with over 29 years of hands-on management of wild horses and burros, DeMayo has built one of the most respected voices for wild horse and burro policy reform. Under her leadership, RTF became the first equine program to implement non-hormonal, reversible PZP fertility control at scale, demonstrating its effectiveness as a humane alternative to roundups. Her collaborative approach has helped shift the conversation and national support — including in Congress — toward sustainable, on-range management practices.
RTF now operates three California sanctuary locations, caring for 450–500 rescued wild horses and burros, and has worked collaboratively to rescue more than 2,500 equines. The organization also manages a rare strain conservation program preserving historic Spanish mustang bloodlines and serves as an educational discovery center visited by thousands.
DeMayo partners with leading equine scientists and regenerative grazing experts, integrating mustangs and burros into land-restoration projects.
RTF’s work has garnered wide public support from prominent artists, activists, and conservationists. In 2003, DreamWorks Animation donated Spirit, the Kiger mustang who inspired “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” to the sanctuary. The late Robert Redford, the esteemed actor and environmentalist, joined the Board of Directors in 2014. For her innovative leadership, DeMayo has received multiple awards, including the 2023 EQUUS Foundation Humanitarian Award.
About Return to Freedom
Return to Freedom is dedicated to preserving the freedom, diversity, and habitat of America’s wild horses and burros through sanctuary, education, advocacy, and conservation, while enriching the human spirit through direct experience with the natural world.
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