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THE HORSE wasn’t just skinny, she was skeletal. Not just thirsty, desperate. Alive, but just barely.

When the scrawny filly wandered into Joey Ferris’ yard, he knew exactly where she had come from. Ferris was a lieutenant at the Mingo County Sheriff’s Office, where operators frequently fielded calls about horses like this. In addition to putting out food and water, he decided to use the opportunity to call attention to their ongoing plight.

He began the video he uploaded to YouTube in 2017 with a matter-of-fact assessment: “Bad things are happening in Southern West Virginia.”

“People get a horse,” Ferris says into the camera, eyebrows furrowed, “and they leave the horse on the strip mine.”