Nestled on 90 acres of land on the west side of Vashon is Ghost Owl Farms, a recently opened horse sanctuary that is home to about 45 animals including horses, goats, alpacas and more.

Ghost Owl Farms, which is owned and operated by Seattle-based Emerald City Pet Rescue, opened in Nov. 2021.

According to Emerald City Pet Rescue’s founder, Vivian Goldbloom, the process of establishing Ghost Owl took about four years – from the time she purchased the property, spent a year with architects, took another year with permitting and finally had construction begin on the farm in 2020.

Goldbloom stated that she also felt a special pull towards having Ghost Owl Farms on Vashon, despite others telling her about challenges she could face finding a property or issues with ferries. However, she remained undeterred.

“It’s been quite an experience, I can tell you that,” said Goldbloom in a phone interview with The Beachcomber. “But to see it all completed and to see the animals out there, especially the horses… running out there with their buddies and having a grand old time makes it all worthwhile.”

Her motivation for opening the sanctuary came when she turned 50 years old and decided to rescue a horse herself. With help from a friend, Goldbloom rescued a horse, Sky, from California. To this day, Sky lives in sanctuary at Ghost Owl.

Following the process of rescuing Sky, Goldbloom came to learn about horses being kept in kill pens – cramped, poorly-kept places where hordes of horses are kept until they are auctioned for slaughter. This horrified Goldbloom and moved her to rescue additional horses.

“To me, it’s reprehensible you make a living off these animals that are so loving and trusting, and then you turn around and the last thing you do to thank them is to sell them to a butcher,” said Goldbloom.

Most of the animals in sanctuary at Ghost Owl do come from situations where they are in danger, said Goldbloom, as some of the horses were in kill pens or were going to be sent to Mexico or Canada for slaughter. In the past, her organization has rescued horses from Washington, California, Texas and Louisiana.

In other cases, animals are also relinquished by their owner, who are no longer able to care for them, Goldbloom added.

Since Ghost Owl Farms is a sanctuary, none of the animals are available for adoption. According to Goldbloom, many of the horses have certain conditions that require extensive care or medication that would be challenging for a family and require lots of upkeep.

For example, some of the horses on the farm have a neurologic condition called Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis (EPM), which is caused when a horse ingests feed or water that has been contaminated with opossum feces.

As for the horses and the rest of the animals at Ghost Owl, Goldbloom hopes to provide “education and empathy” to others through her work and show that the animals are “just like us, only bigger.”

“It was just a lifelong dream to save animals,” she said.