A Look At Mustang Horse Information

By Marissa Velazquez


History books tell us that horses were first introduced to the Americas when they arrived with the Spanish Conquistadors and explorers. The beginning of mustang horse information comes from the log books kept by the leaders of these groups. The logs tell of the high number of horses that escaped or were released into the wild when the explorers returned home.

Native Americans were eager to bring the horses into their lives and quickly turned them into the main source of transportation for the tribes. Tribal members used them for hunting, for waging wars and for general transport for the tribe to new hunting areas. Another use soon arose as the horses became valuable for trading with other tribes.

The Native Americans soon began breeding their horses to accent the strong points of their stock. This selective breeding was common among the Comanche, Shoshoni and the Nez Perce. The Appaloosa was first bred by Nez Pence tribes and is the first distinctly American breed of horses.

By the early nineteen hundreds there were over two million free range horses and burros in the Americas. The military viewed them as a free resource to be caught and trained for use by troops. Later they would be rounded up and slaughtered for their use as pet food. They were hunted from airplanes and poisoned by the thousands.

In the 1950s the Wild Horse Annie Act was passed and gave some protection to the animals. They could no longer be hunted by motor vehicles. They received very little protection from that point until in the 1970s when the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was passed. This new legislation was designed to protect any remaining herds from being hunted or harassed by all people.

This new law gave complete control of the animals to the Bureau of Land Management. They were to protect them and control the size of the herds on public lands. The largest herds can be found in Nevada high desert areas where they forage on plants that are not digestible to cattle. You will also find some herds in several North Western states that border Canada.

Because fossils have been found that show the ancestors of horses lived in the Americas there is some discussion as to what they should be called. One group wants them designated as feral animals because the basis of their history comes from domesticated animals while others consider them as wild horses that have as much right to public lands as the cattle they are said to displace. If designated feral they could be in danger of attempted eradication by ranchers who want the land for cattle.

The mustang horse information gathered by our Bureau of Land Management must be reported to their Washington agencies. To control the number of horses they have arranged adoptions for over three hundred thousand of them. That is, to some, a good start.




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