The herds descend from horses brought by Spanish Conquistadors (the real mustangs) or set loose by ranchers, miners, or the U.S. Cavalry. In the 1950s and ’60s a secretary named Velma Johnston but known as Wild Horse Annie mounted a letter-writing campaign to have them protected from slaughter; it is said only the Vietnam War drew more letters to Congress.

“The public is not very receptive to the idea that these animals are out there dying a slow and terrible death,” Pogacnik says. “The public wants us to step in and help these horses.”

Population Running Wild
Even before this season’s fires and droughts, BLM horse and burro officials had their hands full.
The agency is charged under a 1973 law to protect, maintain and control the wild horse and burro herds in their areas. Its protection programs have worked so well that the population has almost tripled in those 25 years, reaching a level almost double what the land can support.

“The public is not very receptive to the idea that these animals are out there dying a slow and terrible death.”

“We feel the range can sustain 27,000,” Pogacnik says. “And each year the habitat is depleted by drought or a population that’s too big, that number goes down.”

Worse, the horses are “an aggressive species,” scientists say. They are not native to North America and, since they lack natural predators, would expand to the point where they stress the land and force other species out. They compete for habitat with some endangered species, including the desert tortoise and the willow flycatcher.

Then the wild horse and burro populations would start encroaching on human settlements, ruining ranches and getting themselves shot or hit by cars. Finally, when they depleted the food and water supplies, the entire overly large wild horse population would die out.

“We don’t want to gather them all up, we just want to gather up enough so the ones who were left out there would have a reasonable healthy life,” says Terry Lewis, a BLM spokesman. The bureau is also testing a contraceptive vaccine for wild horses, he says.