Wild Mustangs

The 1900s usher in the era of modern ubanization and technological advancement. Unfortunately, that did not include the wild horse.

The fate of the wild horse was left with three options. They either became pets, or lived in captivity on the BLM lands, or they found themselves on the way to the slaughterhouse. Whatever the path of the horse, one thing was clear, the days of the wide open ranges and the wild mustangs who roamed them, was no more.

The wild mustangs were once respected for their speed and their stamina. In the frontier days of the American west, it was romantic for the American cowboy to captured the finest wild stallions and mares to breed with their domestic stock. But as the era of the wild west drew to a close and the manufactured tractor began to replace horses as a valued resource on farms in the early 1900s, the wild horse would find itself lacking in any romantic notion. From prized obsession, the wild mustang had now become little more than a pest and of use to no one. By the 1930s, the United States Government authorized the removal of the wild horses from the public ranges and authorized the killing of the wild horses in mass numbers.

For the next 50 years, the romance of the American wild mustang turned into the killing fields, nearly bringing the wild mustang to extinction in the United States.

Finally, in 1971 Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act which proclaimed that mustangs are "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West and shall be protected from harassment or death." This law meant that wild horses were now protected from human hunters, eliminating their greatest predator. Other than an occasional mountain lion attack, there are no natural predators.

With the co-killing of the wild mustang's natural predators, the mountain lion and the wolf, a whole new dilema faced the survival of the wild horse. If not controlled, the mustang herds would grow so big they would overwhelm their range, leaving horses vulnerable to starvation, thirst and disease; crowding out other wildlife; using up much needed resources by rancher's herds; and causing even more problems as housing developments continue to spread into horse country.

When populations of wild horses, wild burros, or domestic livestock exceed the capabilities of their habitat, the environment begins to decline, and there is no longer a thriving natural ecological balance. Enter the government's solution ... the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The BLM conducts the removal of wild horses and burros from public lands. Their removal is based on years of monitoring the habitat and observations of the herd. The BLM is responsible for keeping the wild herds at acceptable numbers. Whether or not this actually occurs is a matter of intense debate.