America's Vanishing Wild Horses

Wild Horses

“He who would venture nothing, must not get on a horse”
Spanish Proverb

After a very long courtship of perhaps six thousand years, mankind finally got smart enough to realize that greater benefit would accrue from riding horses than from eating them. So, sometime between four and six thousand years ago, the horse was brought into domestication everywhere that they then occurred in the world.

There is another important factor too: the first moment mankind bestrode the horse marked the beginning of modern warfare. The man on horseback became a conqueror who could raid his unmounted neighbor with impunity. Understandably, he was slow to trade or gift away this animal that was to him the very embodiment of power and speed. For all these reasons, it was not herds of domesticated horses that spread over the expanse of the Old world, but the ideas and techniques that made their domestication possible. The Spanish first brought horses to the Americas helping shape the history and destiny of the New World. The horse not only enabled our westward expansion, provided transportation, freedom to roam, commerce and mobility, but shaped how we view ourselves as nation.



“The Spanish Mustang helped shape the USA as we know it. Descended of the horse of the Conquistadors, Indian buffalo hunters and war ponys, cavalry mounts and Pony Express Ponys to The wild horse of the West, The Horse has a rich and illustrious history that forms an important part of our American Heritage.”

Frank T Hopkins, endurance rider and Inspiration for the Motion Picture Hidalgo, Based on The True Story of Hopkins Life


The rest is history, as the saying goes. Without the horse, our country woud not be what is today. Wild horses roamed the western landscape for many years since the pioneer days and many wild horses are descendents of the Spanish mustangs and other horse breeds brought over by the Spanish and later generations that settled the western US. Today, many wild horses still roam in shrinking areas of rangeland in the American West. Prior to 1971, wild horses suffered roundups for slaughter, shootings, and unspeakable cruelties until a group of horse lovers got together and persuaded Congress to act. Protection through legislation followed and the horses once again freely roamed the range lands of Nevada, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Colorado.

“In 1971, an unprecedented public outcry moved Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, granting federal protection to America's wild horses and burros as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the west that contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.” The American Wild Horse Preservation Society

The herds were once again thriving. Until recently, that is. Fast Forward to 2000, coincidentally the election of GW Bush and some brand new thinking on the management policies regarding the lands of the western US. Today, An aggressive wild horse removal campaign is currently under way by the U.S. government, at the cost of millions of tax-dollars. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) removal policy is contrary to the spirit of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act which effected the will of the American people; its intent was to preserve wild horses and burros as part of our national heritage.

Over the past 30 years, under pressure from special interest groups and in blatant disregard of the public’s wishes, the BLM has systematically favored subsidized livestock grazing on public lands to the detriment of wild horse populations. The Burns Amendment, slipped into the 2005 federal budget without so much as a hearing or opportunity for public review, was the last nail in the coffin of federal wild horse protection, opening the door to the slaughter of thousands of these living symbols of our Nation’s spirit. A few months later, while in the process of rounding up another 10,000 horses supposedly due to poor range conditions, BLM eased public land grazing restrictions for private cattle.
The AWHPC (American Wild Horse Protection Coalition) is calling for a Congressional inquiry into the government’s wild horse management policies, and coordinating a grassroots campaign in support of:

• the review of scientific findings that contradict BLM's claims of wild horse overpopulation and negative impact on the range;
• a moratorium on round-ups until actual numbers of wild horses and burros on public lands have been independently assessed; and
• implementation of in-the-wild management, which would save millions of tax-dollars.

For a few politicians to continue dismissing this issue as "emotional,"
simply because the American public deeply cares, is a slap in the face of democratic principles. Special interest groups do not hold a monopoly over sound public policy. The American public has enough common sense to see that scientific data, ethics and fiscal responsibility all fall squarely on the side of America's wild horses.

Historically the priority has been livestock, and in 2006 cattle and sheep consumed 20 times as much forage on BLM land as wild horses and burros. But in the past 30 years the tone of the culture has been changing. Ranchers in many parts of the West have been losing their dominant place, and the loudest voice is now coming from oil companies. With intensifying pressure to make the United States more energy independent, the BLM has leased 44 million acres of land for oil and gas, nearly five million of that in areas set aside for wild horses. It's an indelible use of the land: Even when capped, the wells don't go away.

"The BLM oversees some 30,000 wild horses, which are confined to 29 million acres of disconnected BLM herd management areas (HMAs). Under the 1971 act the BLM must keep the herds at what it decides are appropriate management levels (AMLs). Some horse advocates believe the AMLs are arbitrarily low, threatening the genetic viability of the herds; ranchers say they're unrealistically high, threatening vital grazing. Jay Kirkpatrick of Zoo Montana agreed that wild horses "can exceed carrying capacity in places and cause problems not only for livestock and wildlife but for themselves. But," he said, "the key to understanding why wild horses are the scapegoat for poor land management and worse politics is that, unlike huntable wildlife and livestock, they have no economic value." National Geographic Magazine, February, 2009


Limited by the carrying capacity of the land and tugged between the demands of ranchers, miners, and hunters on the one hand and the indignation of wild horse advocacy groups on the other, the BLM has settled on keeping 30,000 horses in permanent captivity (about as many as exist in the wild) at an average daily cost of more than two dollars each. This arrangement soaks up funds and provides, at best, a stopgap solution to the animals' tendencies toward prolific breeding. Every year thousands more horses are rounded up, and every year thousands more end up in long-term holding. Last year the agency said it might have to euthanize horses to reduce costs (which prompted Madeleine Pickens, T. Boone Pickens's wife, to offer to adopt many, if not all, of the BLM's captive mustangs). "Everyone could see this coming," said Chris Heyde of the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C. "Every year they pull more and more horses off the range to keep the ranchers happy. Meantime the scenario for the horses is just awful."

Kirkpatrick said contraception offers a humane alternative to rounding up the animals, but that the BLM is resistant. He said the agency is spending too little studying fertility control and too much on helicopter roundups. When he suggested to a BLM official that the agency inject the mares with the wildlife contraceptive vaccine porcine zona pellucida (PZP), he recalled being told, "That's not how we do it out here. We do it with horses and ropes." According to Tom Gorey, the BLM spokesman, PZP has been administered on an experimental basis to about 1,800 mares since 2004. "The effects on population growth are being monitored," he said. Horses will likely be around as long as there are humans to attach themselves to a saddle. What is less sure is whether there will always be enough wild to allow mustangs to run in secure, functional, genetically viable herds. National Geographic Magazine February, 2009,

In 2008, I visited one of the several large BLM holding pens for Wild Horses. The herd families are separated with stallions in one huge holding pen and mares and foals in other pens. The stallions were kicked and bloodied as being taken out of their natural families, their instincts are to fight. Mares and foals stood in blazing hot sun with little or no shade looking miserable. Most of these horses will not be adopted. The question remains, how long can the American public stand for public agencies using politics and poor land management to continue keeping wild horses in inhumane holding pens and continuing to run up the bill to taxpayers with helicopter roundups and forced captivity? Many wild horse groups advocate for better birth control methods and land use policies which would keep the wild horse populations from over reaching in certain range areas. There are several major animal welfare groups with enough funding to take many wild horses off the BLM’ hands but government bureaucracy is still the biggest obstacle. The answer is not for the American taxpayer to be saddled with the expense and poor treatment of the wild horses, whatever the politics of the day may be. Politics and opinion aside, my personal belief is whether there is economic value or not, wild horses should be running and roaming on open range where they were meant to be, not used as a scapegoat for poor land management practices. Let em’ run free.