"Under the Red Sun," a photograph by Thomas D. Mangelsen, all rights reserved. This is a portrait of a member of the North Lander Herd in central Wyoming. To see more of Mangelsen's limited-edition collectible photography go to mangelsen.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: Wild horses, descended from equines brought to North America by Spanish Conquistadors beginning at the tail end of the 15th century, are cornerstones of modern rural Western human culture. Transforming indigenous life, especially among plains tribes, and literally vehicles for cowboy myth and reality, horses that escaped taming by humans and inhabit public lands have given rise to an intense modern debate.
There are no wild horses roaming in the geographic interior of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem but several herds can be found at the more outer fringes. The federal Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming has 16 wild horse management areas on nearly five million acres. The most famous herd in the region, however, may be population of wild horses in the Pryor Mountains of far south-central Montana and north-central Wyoming. Lovell, Wyoming is home to the Pryor Mountains Wild Mustang Center and is devoted to researching herd health and compatibility of wild horses with range land. All of the issues present here also dominate the conversation across the West about wild horses and burros. Should they be treated as a native or exotic species?
David Marston, publisher of Writers on the Range, sets up the debate: "Wild horses: too many, too damaging to the land?" he asks. "What to do about wild horses always is controversial, and any discussion tends to pit emotion against research. This week features a pro vs. con duo with Scott Beckstead defending wild horses and burros on public land, and Ted Williams portraying them as exotic destroyers."
Where do you come down? Email us your comments. Keep them short—no more than 200 words—and, if civil and on point, we'll publish them at the bottom of the exchange below between Beckstead and Williams. All photographs courtesy Thomas D. Mangesen, all rights reserved.—Mountain Journal
"Legends of the Plains," photograph of wild horses in Colorado by Thomas D. Mangelsen, all rights reserved. To see more of Mangelsen's limited edition collectible photography go to mangelsen.com
Wild Horses Deserve A Home In The West
by ScottBeckstead
I live in a rural county heavily dependent on ranching and agriculture, and though I often hear people talk about threats from large predators like bears or lions, I never hear complaints about wild horses living on our public lands.
Instead, I hear that these animals are living symbols of the American West. From Portland urbanites to Idaho ranchers, and also from the many Indigenous peoples whose forebears called the horse their brother, no one can imagine this region without herds of mustangs and burros running free.
From the federal government it’s a different story. Hewing to a strong pro-livestock bias, the Bureau of Land Management has for decades spun a false narrative about an “overpopulation” of equines that, the agency claims, are in danger of starving and destroying their habitat. The agency would have us dismiss what photographers, tourists and advocates document every day: thriving, robust families of horses living peacefully on vast stretches of federal lands.
The reality is that wild horse populations are negligible compared to the vast numbers of cattle and sheep, to which the BLM allocates up to 80 percent of forage on designated wild horse Herd Management Areas. The agency complains that 80,000 wild equines is too many, yet omits mention of the 1.5 million cattle and sheep it allows to graze on public lands at the taxpayer-subsidized rate of just $1.35 per animal unit month.
"The reality is that wild horse populations are negligible compared to the vast numbers of cattle and sheep, to which the BLM allocates up to 80 percent of forage on designated wild horse Herd Management Areas. The agency complains that 80,000 wild equines is too many, yet omits mention of the 1.5 million cattle and sheep it allows to graze on public lands at the taxpayer-subsidized rate of just $1.35 per animal unit month." —Scott Beckstead
Two prominent, mainstream environmental organizations — Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and Western Watersheds Project — exposed the BLM’s own grazing data that reveals commercial livestock, not wild horses, responsible for overgrazing. These organizations were joined by the Sierra Club last November in calling on the BLM to stop scapegoating wild equids for rangeland damage that is attributable to vast herds of beef cattle and flocks of sheep.
Then there’s the tired debate about whether wild equines are native to the West. The ancestors of today’s wild herds evolved on the North American landscape over millions of years, paleontologists say. It is true that wild horses were wiped out from their home turf at the end of the last Ice Age -- likely by human hunters -- but some Indigenous tribes insist the horse never completely died out.
Scott Beckstead
Whether they are a native species that never left this region or are native species reintroduced to their birthplace, wild equines evolved on this landscape. Because cows evolved in the cooler temperate pastures and forests of Europe, they struggle to survive in our harsh, arid ecosystems, while wild horses and burros prosper.
Driving around the West you’ll pass thousands of skinny cows while families of vigorous, healthy horses thrive on public rangelands. And while cattle congregate and trample sensitive riparian areas, wild horses will travel up to 20 miles a day in search for forage. With their simple digestive systems, they help spread native grasses far and wide.
Burros even serve as ecosystem engineers, digging wells in parched desert areas that provide a water source for other wild species. Horses and burros are prey animals that also serve as a food source for native carnivores, which, if spared from extermination to benefit livestock, help regulate wild horse populations.
The horse co-evolved in North America with the lion, the wolf and the grizzly. It’s instructive that while nobody laments the loss of a wild foal to a lion or a wolf, federal officials react fast when a steer or a sheep gets picked off by one of them.
"The horse co-evolved in North America with the lion, the wolf and the grizzly. It’s instructive that while nobody laments the loss of a wild foal to a lion or a wolf, federal officials react fast when a steer or a sheep gets picked off by one of them." —Beckstead
The federal government has a built-in bias against wild horses no matter the critical ecological role they play in promoting rangeland health. The BLM’s wild horse program is largely staffed by self-styled cowboys with a “round ‘em up” mentality for the equines and a “graze-at-your-will” attitude toward livestock.
Where necessary, wild equines can be managed humanely on the landscape with proven fertility control or an emergency gather. But these are the exceptional circumstances.
It’s time to reject the BLM’s false narrative that wild horses harm public lands and embrace an approach that truly protects them. Wild horses and burros belong right where they are.
Scott Beckstead is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org. He lives in Oregon where he teaches classes in animal law and wildlife law. He also serves as director of campaigns for Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.
"High Desert Drifters," photograph by Thomas D. Mangelsen, all rights reserved. The image is of a wild horse herd in northwest Colorado. To see more of Mangelsen's collectible photographs go to Mangelsen.com
Wild Horses Need To Stop Ruling The Range
By Ted Williams
They are icons of America’s past, symbols of our pioneering spirit. Eyes flashing, nostrils flaring, tails obscured by a cloud of dust, they tear across the landscape. I am, of course, referring to feral hogs.
More on feral hogs directly. But first some background on another feral ungulate. Few issues in the West are more incendiary than management of “wild horses.” Advocates proclaim them “natives” that should be “wild and free.”
Opponents submit that these proliferating aliens are harming land and wildlife belonging to all Americans.
The federal management goal for these horses on public lands is 27,000. Yet the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency charged with tending them, estimates the current population at 64,604. TheJournal of Wildlife Management reports 300,000 on all lands — public, private and tribal. Federal law precludes effective feral-horse management. Unmanaged populations increase by 20 percent annually.
No less prolific are feral hogs. They’re “wild and free,” too. Having grown up with horses and hogs, I can attest that hogs are more intelligent than horses. And while feral hogs are destructive of native ecosystems, they’re no more so than feral horses. So why are there no feral-hog support groups protesting their culling on public lands?
"No less prolific are feral hogs. They’re 'wild and free,' too. Having grown up with horses and hogs, I can attest that hogs are more intelligent than horses. And while feral hogs are destructive of native ecosystems, they’re no more so than feral horses. So why are there no feral-hog support groups protesting their culling on public lands?" —Ted Williams
Happily for native wildlife, there has yet to be a Wild Hog Annie. “Wild Horse Annie” was the Nevada woman whose campaign to save “wild horses” inspired animal lovers across America to write impassioned letters to senators and congressmen, demanding that feral equines be protected forever.
The result was the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which mandated the BLM to manage these animals so as “to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance.” That task is impossible. No invasive species can thrive or even exist in “natural ecological balance.”
Ted Williams
So we spend $160 million a year rounding up feral horses and placing them on perpetual welfare, with almost 50,000 permanently held in corrals or pastures. That’s more than half the $300 million we spend on all 1,618 endangered and threatened species native to the United States.
Horses and burros are the only ungulates in North America with solid hooves and meshing upper and lower teeth. Most native vegetation can’t deal with that. Yet in some areas BLM range management goals call for 15 or 20 horses when its own science tells it that 100 is the threshold for genetic viability. Why aren’t these marginal herds zeroed out?
“Feral horses are worse than cows,” declares retired BLM biologist Erick Campbell. “When the grass between shrubs is gone, a cow is out of luck, but a horse will stomp that plant to death to get that last blade. When cows run out of forage the cowboys move them, but horses are out there all year. BLM exacerbates the problem by hauling water to them.”
"So we spend $160 million a year rounding up feral horses and placing them on perpetual welfare, with almost 50,000 permanently held in corrals or pastures. That’s more than half the $300 million we spend on all 1,618 endangered and threatened species native to the United States." —Williams
And this from Dave Pulliam, former Nevada Department of Wildlife habitat chief: “Horses will stand over a spring and run off other animals. In desert country, seeps and springs are the most important habitats for a whole myriad of species — sagebrush obligate birds, mule deer, bighorns, pronghorns, everything. And horses absolutely beat springs into mud holes. But our wildlife constituents don’t get as vociferous as the horse lovers.”
“Vociferous” is an apt adjective. Feral-horse groups confound the media, bully the environmental community, terrify Congress, beat up BLM and spew junk science. They are also well-funded and adept at manipulating people who have dreamed of owning horses since childhood. And they chant three mantras:
Cows do more damage than feral horses. That’s like saying we should ignore Covid because more people die from heart disease. The only thing wrong with cattle grazing is that it’s not always done right. When it is done right it can benefit native ecosystems by duplicating the range-renewal role of bison. That’s why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy lease land to ranchers.
Feral horses are historical treasures because they descended from animals brought from Spain by the conquistadores. They’re not. They’re mostly mongrels — a morass of domestic breeds that have recently escaped or been discarded.
Feral horses are native because a somewhat similar species was found in North America before it went extinct 10,000 years ago. That’s like calling elephants native because the continent once sustained wooly mammoths.
