Controversy over wild horses and burros
The controversy over wild horses and burros in the western United States centers around their management and protection, with strong opinions from various stakeholders. Ranchers advocate for the preservation of rangelands for livestock, citing the negative environmental impacts resulting from competition with these feral animals. Meanwhile, animal activists, environmentalists, and historians emphasize the need to protect and preserve wild horses and burros in their natural habitats. These animals, descendants of those originally brought to North America during the Spanish Conquest and other migrations, primarily inhabit public lands across eleven states, including Nevada and Wyoming, as well as some eastern islands.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service are responsible for overseeing these populations, which have seen fluctuations in numbers due to factors such as fertility control and adoptions. Despite a recent decrease in their population, BLM claims that current numbers remain well above what the land can sustainably support. The legal and ethical debates surrounding their status are complex, involving historical treatment, animal rights, and the classification of these animals within wildlife laws. Efforts to balance the interests of various groups continue to evoke passionate discussions about the appropriate strategies for managing wild horse and burro populations while addressing budgetary constraints faced by federal agencies.
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Controversy over wild horses and burros
DEFINITION: Feral horses and burros living in the rangelands of the western United States
What should be done with the wild horses and burros of the United States has long been the subject of debates, primarily between ranchers who want to protect rangeland for their livestock and animal activists, environmentalists, historians, and others who want to preserve and protect the animals in their wild state.
Bands of untamed horses and burros can be found on the publicly owned rangelands of the western United States. The largest herds live on the public lands of eleven states: Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, California, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, and New Mexico. Feral horses also can be found on islands off the eastern coast of the United States, including Assateague and Cumberland. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service are the primary custodians of these animals.
History
Horses are natural denizens of grasslands, but they have migrated beyond their original native territory owing to human migrations. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, equines abandoned after mining collapses, for example, discovered bioniches in arid lands, where the hardiest survived. Such horses formed herds or joined herds that had been created earlier by horses descended from those originally brought to the New World during the Spanish Conquest in the sixteenth century. Other equines originated in the great horse cultures of the Native Americans that the US Army destroyed in the nineteenth century. Thriving populations gradually became competitors with the ranching industry (chiefly cattle and sheep ranchers).
Environmental disruptions that resulted from the wild and domesticated beasts sharing unrestrained access to fragile desert ecosystems included overgrazing, soil compaction, degradation of riparian environments, and overpopulation owing to the lack of natural predators (ironically, natural predators such as wolves and mountain lions had been annihilated because they threatened livestock). Before passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, ranchers routinely grazed livestock on federal lands and their private holdings as well with no restrictions.
According to the BLM in 2024, 73,520 feral horses and burros were living on millions of acres of public lands in the United States. This is a drop of about 9,363 horses from 2023. Experts are not sure of the reason for the population decrease but believe it has to do with a combination of factors, including the use of fertility control vaccines and the thousands of horses taken from overpopulated herds and adopted. Despite the drop in numbers, BLM contends that the population is three times what the land can support.
Debates
A lengthy legal history accompanies disputes over the fate of wild horses. Animal activists, wildlife biologists, environmental impact analysts, and historians often line up on one side to oppose ranchers, underfunded government agencies, and other vested economic interests. During the 1950s, a Nevada woman, Velma Johnston, derisively dubbed “Wild Horse Annie,” exposed the inhumane treatment of wild horses that were being corralled, shipped, and slaughtered to make pet foods. Her national campaign contributed to the eventual passage of groundbreaking national legislation in 1971 with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. In 1978 that act was amended to “protect the range from wild horse overpopulation.”
Debates surrounding the treatment of wild horses and burros often include examination of whether these animals can be classified as wildlife. Investigation of the genetic history of wild horses has demonstrated that they are indigenous to North America. Genus Equus migrated to Asia via the Bering land bridge in Paleolithic times, expanded into Europe, and then returned in the company of the Spanish conquistadors during the sixteenth century. This finding subverts a legal strategy to declare these equines invasive species, which would allow them to be disposed of as nuisances, as they would no longer be protected with native wildlife status.
Battles over the handling of wild horses and burros continue to be waged in the courts. Severe budget cuts have strained the care-taking capabilities of the BLM, and a sense of urgency surrounds the question of what to do with the horses collected in the annual roundups that are not adopted or sold. Debates continue, as advocates for wild horses and burros argue against euthanasia for healthy animals, and many US taxpayers express an increasing unwillingness to continue funding their care.
Bibliography
Lindholdt, Paul, and Derrick Knowles, eds. The Individual and Public Lands in the American West. Spokane: Eastern Washington University Press, 2005.
Marshall, Julie Hoffman. Making Burros Fly: Cleveland Amory, Animal Rescue Pioneer. Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books, 2006.
Ryden, Hope. America’s Last Wild Horses. Rev. ed. New York: Lyons Press, 1999.
Stillman, Deanne. Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008.
"Wild Horse Numbers Take Sharpest Drop in Decades." The Wildlife Society, 26 Mar. 2024, wildlife.org/wild-horse-numbers-take-sharpest-drop-in-decades/. Accessed 24 July 2024.