Free roaming horse management in North America

History

While the horse evolved in North America, it became extinct between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. There are multiple theories for this extinction, ranging from climate change to the arrival of humans.

Horses returned to the Americas beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1493, arriving on the mainland with Cortés in 1519. These were mostly Iberian horses now described as "Spanish type." The horse also became an important part of Native American culture. The horse population expanded rapidly. Additional European settlers brought a variety of horse types to the Americas, and from all sources, some animals eventually escaped human control and became feral.

Sable Island

Since 1960, the horses of Sable Island, unlike those in the rest of Canada, were protected under the Sable Island Regulations section of the Canadian Shipping Act. Following the designation of Sable Island as a National Park Reserve in December, 2013, the horses are now fully protected by Parks Canada as wildlife under the Canada National Parks Act and the National Parks Wildlife Regulations. Parks Canada considers the Sable Island horses as 'naturalized wildlife’ and, as such, they are being managed as a taxon equal to other species living on the island.

United States

In the U.S., there are free-roaming herds on some of the barrier islands along the East Coast, notably Chincoteague Ponies, Banker horses and Cumberland Island horses. Most of these herds are managed by the National Park Service with assistance from various organizations. Their populations are held stable through use of contraception and removal and adoption.

Management history

The population of free-roaming horses in historic times and today it is estimated to be less than 2,000 horses. Herds are found mainly on the Chilcotin Plateau of British Columbia, the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, and in Saskatchewan's Bronson Forest. There are approximately 800-1000 free-roaming horses in British Columbia. In 2014 the Alberta Government provided an official count of 880 for the horses of the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies and there are thought to be less than 100 horses in the Bronson Forest of Saskatchewan.

The free-roaming horses of Western Canada have been subjected to repeated attempts to reduce or eradicate the population. As early as 1896 the Government of British Columbia passed the Wild Horse Extermination Act that made it lawful for anyone licensed by the Government to shoot or otherwise destroy an unbranded stallion over the age of twenty months east of the Cascade Mountains. In the 40 years following implementation of the bounty system in B.C. in 1924, it is estimated that about 15,000 horses were killed. In a 1925 roundup in British Columbia horses were driven into corrals and offered for sale at $5 a head; the thousands that were leftover were shot. At the same time the Government offered a bounty of $2.50 for a pair of horse ears and a scalp. In 1943 an export market developed in Europe and the United States and thousands of free-roaming horses were rounded up in Western Canada and shipped for both food consumption and domestic use. In Alberta some roundups were done as far back as the 1950s and a horse permit system was in effect from 1962 to 1972 when about 2000 horses were removed over the span of the ten years. In 1994 the entire herd of over 1,200 horses, which at the time was the largest population of free-roaming horses in Canada, were removed from the Suffield military base on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. In 1993, Alberta introduced the Horse Capture Regulation under the Stray Animals Act which regulates the capture of wild horses, with between 25 and 35 horses being captured each year. However, during the 2011-12 capture season a record 216 horses were captured in Alberta. The Horse Capture Regulation expires on June 30, 2017.

Provincial management

In Canada, except for Sable Island, there is no federal protection for free-roaming horses because Environment Canada considers horses to be introduced foreign animals, not native; therefore they do not qualify for protection under the Species at Risk Act. Instead, they are protected and managed through provincial jurisdiction. Feral horses are considered domestic livestock, not wildlife, under Alberta’s Stray Animals Act. In British Columbia horses are controlled for range management purposes through the Grazing Act. In Saskatchewan the one remaining free-roaming herd is protected under the The Protection of the Wild Ponies of the Bronson Forest Act (Saskatchewan)

Alberta Mountain Horses or "Wildies" of Alberta

Free-roaming horses on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta are known locally as the Alberta Mountain Horse or "Wildie". On November 1, 2014, the non-profit advocacy group Wild Horses of Alberta Society (WHOAS) entered into a five-year agreement with the Alberta provincial government's Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD). This agreement authorized WHOAS to effectively and humanely manage the feral horse population in a 490 km2 portion of the Sundre Equine Zone on the Eastern Slopes. In May 2016 WHOAS completed the first year of a selective contraception program using Zona Stat-H, a form of Porcine Zona Pellucida vaccine, or PZP. WHOAS has vaccinated 73 mares to date, 16 of which have received booster shots. With one shot a mare is 70-80% less likely to conceive for the 1st year, depending on the time of year in which she is vaccinated. This increases to 90% with the administration of a booster shot. The contraceptive effects wear off with the chance of conception increasing every year post-vaccination. The WHOAS contraception pilot program aims to maintain the population at manageable levels and replace Government captures and culls. WHOAS also runs a 20-acre horse rescue facility west of the Town of Sundre for those horses that run into trouble and have to be removed from the wild. The rescue facility will also take in orphaned foals to be raised, gentled and adopted out.

Wild ponies of the Bronson Forest, Saskatchewan

The last known herd of free-roaming horses in Saskatchewan inhabit the Bronson Forest in a remote area of northwestern Saskatchewan about 170 km north of Lloydminster near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. In 2005 the wild ponies of the Bronson Forest numbered around 125 animals, but by 2009 many of the animals had been shot by a person or persons unknown and the herd had been reduced to 37 animals. The shootings brought public attention to the plight of the horses and in the fall 2009 legislative session, Tim McMillan, MLA for LLoydminster, Saskatchewan introduced a private members bill in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Bill No. 606 received royal assent on December 3, 2009 and the The Protection of the Wild Ponies of the Bronson Forest Act (Saskatchewan) came into immediate effect. The Act makes it an offense to "in any way willfully molest, interfere with, hurt, capture or kill any of the wild horses of the Bronson Forest". It was hoped that the passing of the Act would protect the wild ponies of the Bronson Forest so that they would continue to provide both a living and historical tourist attraction as well as highlight the Bronson Forest for the future and also recognizes the value and unique nature of the wild ponies of the Bronson Forest.

Management history

In 1930, there was an estimated population of between 50,000-150,000 feral horses in the western United States. They were almost completely confined to the remaining General Land Office (GLO) administered public lands and National Forest rangelands in the 11 contingent Western States. Most of those herds had originated within the past 75 years. Some horses in Nevada originated from escaped Comstock Lode miners, most of the rest horses escaped from various settler's or ranch horses that had been turned out to forage when not in use. Some were bred up for use as cavalry horses. Most were managed as "mavericks" or "unbranded stock" under estray laws of the various states, and efforts to control their population were left to "mustangers" and local ranchers. Population control was hampered due to the difficulty of discerning which horses were truly "mavericks" and which were owned by ranchers, and in the process, sometimes branded horses were shot.

After decades of unregulated cattle, sheep and horse grazing, the range was overgrazed and deteriorating, which led to the passage of the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act. Its purpose was to "stop injury to the public lands by preventing over-grazing and soil deterioration; to provide for orderly use, improvement and development; to stabilize the livestock industry dependent upon the Public Range." The U.S. Grazing Service was established to administer the Act. The Grazing Service began establishing grazing fees and determined that the fee for grazing horses would be double that for cattle and sheep. As a result, ranchers, many of whom had gone broke during the Great Depression, frequently ignored the Act and simply released their unpermitted horses on the range. The Grazing Service and the US Forest Service began to pay contractors to assist in rounding up the free-roaming horses. Ranchers were given notice that a roundup would occur in a particular area and to remove their unpermitted horses. They would do so, but after the agencies had swept through and rounded up the horses still estray, the ranchers would return their horses to the range. As a result, most ranges were simply closed to horse grazing altogether. Any horses rounded up were either considered estrays or, if branded, in trespass. A rancher could reclaim his horses if he paid the back fees and fines, but in practice, many were relinquished. The contractors were allowed to take possession of the horses they captured, to dispose of as they saw fit. Tens of thousands of horses were removed from the range between 1934 and 1940. With the outbreak of World War II (WWII), the government efforts to remove the horses stopped.

In 1946, the Grazing Service and the GLO were combined to create the Bureau of Land Management. In the same time period, a surplus of airplanes after WWII made aircraft widely available. The BLM would issue permits for airplane use, and mustangers used them and other motorized vehicles to capture the free roaming horses. In the 1950s, Velma B. Johnston, who became known as "Wild Horse Annie", led the push for federal protection of the horses and burros. By 1958, there were 14,810 to 29,620 free-roaming horses remaining in the 11 western states. A year later, the first federal feral horse protection law was passed. This statute, popularly known as the "Wild Horse Annie Act", prohibited the use of aircraft or motor vehicles for hunting "wild, unbranded" horses or polluting water sources.

Passage of the Wild Horse Annie Act did not alleviate the concerns of advocates for free-roaming horses, who continued to lobby for federal rather than state control over these horses. At the same time, ownership of the free-roaming herds was contentious, and ranchers continued to use airplanes to gather them. Federal agencies also continued to try to eliminate horses from areas where they were perceived to be causing resource damage. In 1962, public pressure lead to the establishment of the Nevada Wild Horse Range, and in 1968, the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range was established. In 1969, the National Mustang Association, headquartered in Utah, persuaded Senator Frank Moss to introduce a bill (S. 2166) to protect the remaining mustangs of Spanish descent under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. However, since the bill also called for the removal from public lands of all non-Spanish horses, it came under heavy opposition. Federal protection for all free-roaming horses was ultimately accomplished by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971(WFRHBA). The bill specifically stated: "A person claiming ownership of a horse or burro on the public lands shall be entitled to recover it only if recovery is permissible under the branding and estray laws of the State in which the animal is found." This eventually alleviated the problem of horses being rounded up under the auspices of belonging to local ranchers, but right after the law passed, many ranchers claimed all the horses on their allotments, and set about rounding them up.

Management under the WFRH&BA

The WFRH&BA called for management of free-roaming horses to be "designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands." Since horse numbers can grow 15-20% per year or double every four years, populations began to rise rapidly from the original numbers of horses estimated to remain at the time the Act was passed. The agencies began rounding up horses by paying contractors to use saddle horses to chase them into traps for removal. In 1976, the BLM established an "Adopt-a-Horse" program, to place excess horses that had been removed, but had no authority to pass title to the adopters. By 1977, there were 60,000 animals on the range, the lower end of numbers estimated to be on the range in 1930. In 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLMPA) authorized the agencies to use helicopters to push the horses into traps. Unlike airplanes, helicopters can push horses along at a trot rather than a run, but using them is still controversial. The American Wild Horse Preservation claims that the 2010 Calico Mountains roundup injured dozens of horses, 40 pregnant mares spontaneously aborted, and 130 horses were killed. However, the contractor hired to conduct the roundup claims that interference of three helicopters hired by Madeleine Pickens caused "a lot of unnecessary stress to the horses" The BLM asserts that the helicopter roundups are humane.

In 1978, the WFRH&BA was amended in the Public Rangelands Improvement Act requiring the agencies to set "Appropriate Management Levels" (AML) and remove excess wild horses. AMLs for each Herd Management Area began to be established through the Land Use Planning Process. The FLPMA required the BLM to manage public lands under the principles of "multiple use and sustained yield," thus livestock grazing and wildlife habitat are managed along with free-roaming horses and burros. When the BLM develops land use plans, its official position is that it "will consider wild horses and burros in a manner similar to the way it treats other resource values (e.g., cultural, historic, wildlife, and scenic, as distinguished from authorized commercial land uses, such as livestock grazing or timber harvesting)." As of 2015, the current total maximum AML for both horses and burros is 26,715, down from 30,158 in 1986. Advocates for protection of free-ranging horses argued that the AML was set too low, particularly in contrast to the forage allocated for cattle. However, in the intervening years, Congress has not suggested that AML be raised, but instead has directed the BLM to look into more effective forms of population control.

From 1971 through 2001, the BLM removed 193,000 horses and burros from the federal rangelands, but still could not maintain the populations at AML. The 1978 amendment had provided guidelines for adopting out horses. authorizing passing title to adopters and the BLM managed to place 189,300 of the 193,000 animals in private care. But, in addition to requiring the BLM to set AMLs, the 1978 amendment required that, "excess wild free roaming horses and burros for which an adoption demand by qualified individuals does not exist to be destroyed in the most humane and cost efficient manner possible." BLM instead initiated a self-imposed moratorium on destroying excess unadoptable animals in 1982, instead, starting in 1984, placing 20,000 horses with large-scale adopters who took a minimum of 100 horses each. Non-compliance for approving and monitoring those adoptions caused inhumane treatment and death to hundreds of the horses and many adopters sold thousands of them to slaughterhouses after gaining title. BLM terminated the large scale program in 1988 after negative publicity and pressure from the Congress and from 1988 until 2004, Congress prevented the Bureau from destroying excess healthy unadopted animals by stating, in the Department of the Interior’s annual appropriations acts, that "appropriations herein shall not be available for the destruction of healthy unadopted wild horses and burros in the care of the Bureau of Land Management or its contractors." As an alternative, since 1988, the BLM began sending excess horses to "sanctuaries". The first sanctuary was the "Institute of Range and the American Mustang" in the Black Hills, which the BLM paid to maintain 1,650 horses. In 1989, Congress directed the BLM to establish more sanctuaries. Sanctuaries were meant to "encourage tourism and economic development in the area as well as public understanding of BLM'S wild horse program" but as time went on the concept evolved into "long term holding." The long term holding facilities are generally located in the Midwest where conditions are more conducive to the welfare of the horses than the desert ranges, and the life-span of the horses is greatly increased than in the wild.

In 2001, BLM committed to reducing the population to AML by 2005 by increasing the number of animals removed each year. From 2001 until 2008, over 74,000 animals were removed, but with adoption rates having dropped 36% since the 1990s, only 46,400 were adopted out. In 2004, Congress approved an amendment to the WFRH&BA, called the "Burns Amendment" or "Burns Rider," which repealed the policy of the preceding 22 years by not including the prohibition against euthanizing healthy horses in the 2005 Interior Appropriations Act and allowed excess wild horses to be sold without limitation if not adopted. This resulted in public outcry. From fiscal year 2006 through 2009—though there was no restriction on selling or euthanizing excess horses—BLM chose not to exercise either option due to "concerns over public and Congressional reaction to the large-scale slaughter of thousands of healthy horses." By FY 2010, implementation of the Burns Amendment was further curtailed by the "Rahall Rider," which reinserted into Interior Appropriations the prohibition on money being spent to euthanize healthy horses, while also prohibiting funds from being used to sell horses to parties’ intent on sending them to slaughter. Though not directly repealing the Burns Amendment, the annual Rahall Rider has been added to every appropriations bill from FY 2010 through FY 2017. To comply with these annual restrictions, the BLM purchase contract has a statement prohibiting purchasers from processing horses into commercial products.

As a result, the BLM now maintains excess horses in long- and short-term holding facilities. More animals are removed from the range than can be adopted or sold. As a result, by June 2008, 30,088 excess animals were held in captivity, up from 9,807 in 2001. That same year, the BLM predicted that the "number of wild horses on the range would reach about 50,000, or about 80 percent over AML, by 2012." In February 2007, BLM estimated it was 1,000 animals over AML, the closest it had ever been, but researchers had found that BLM's census methods "consistently undercounted" them. After 2008, adoption numbers began to drop. By 2014, just over 2000 animals a year were being adopted. The BLM continued removing large numbers of horses, but by 2013, had no more space in long-term or short term holding facilities for the excess, and removal rates dropped from 8,255 in 2012 to 1,857 in 2014. As of July 2015, there were almost 46,000 animals being maintained in holding facilities, but numbers on the range were estimated to be 58,150, or 31,435 over AML. Total federal spending on wild horse management was over $77 million in fiscal year 2014, of which over $43 million of was for off-range holding costs. In House Report 113-551 - Department or the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2015 it was stated "The horse and burro management program in its current state is unsustainable and the Committee cannot afford to perpetuate the situation for much longer." However, in both the 2015 and 2016 budgets the language to prevent euthanizing and selling without limitation excess horses and to continue to allow funds to be used for long term holding was carried forward. The language was included in the fiscal year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee on July 14, 2016, but As of 18 February 2017 the Federal Government was operating under a continuing resolution that would expire on April 28, 2017, and it was unclear what language the final budget would hold. In January, 2017, Representative Morgan Griffith from Virginia revived the Holman Rule due to frustration over the cost of maintaining horses.

Free-roaming mustangs are freeze branded on the left side of the neck by the BLM, using the International Alpha Angle System, a system of angles and alpha-symbols that cannot be altered. The brands begin with a symbol indicating the registering organization, in this case the U.S. Government, then two stacked figures indicating the individual horse's date of birth, then the individual registration number. Mustangs kept in sanctuaries are also marked on the left hip with four inch-high Arabic numerals that are also the last four digits of the freeze brand on the neck.

Western US herds not managed under the FRWH&BA

Since the WFRH&BA applies only to unclaimed horses that were free roaming on lands managed by the BLM and USFS at the time of passage of the Act, there are a number of other free-roaming horse herds in the west, including:

Land use controversies

Due to the presence of Equus ferus on the North American continent until the end of the Pleistocene era, two researchers have advanced an argument that mustangs should be legally classified as "wild" rather than "feral". They argue that "the two key elements for defining an animal as a native species are where it originated and whether or not it coevolved with its habitat." and "E. caballus can lay claim to doing both in North America." However, the idea that horses in the Great Basin coevolved with their habitat is highly debateble, considering that, since the Pleistocene, the region underwent a major ecological change. so horses are usually considered an introduced species that draws resources and attention away from true native species.

Cattle and sheep ranchers and those who depend on the livestock industry, argue essentially that feral horses degrade rangeland and compete with private livestock for public land forage. The debate as to what degree mustangs and cattle compete for forage is multifaceted. Horses are adapted by evolution to inhabit an ecological niche characterized by poor quality vegetation. They cover vast distances to find food and water. they may range nine times as far from water sources as cattle, traveling as much as 55 kilometres (34 mi) to 80 kilometres (50 mi) from a water source. In addition, horses are "hindgut fermenters", meaning that they digest nutrients by means of the cecum rather than by a multi-chambered stomach. While this means that they extract less energy from a given amount of forage, it also means that they can digest food faster and make up the difference in efficiency by increasing their consumption rate. In practical effect, by eating greater quantities, horses can obtain adequate nutrition from poorer forage than can ruminants such as cattle, surviving in areas where cattle will starve. In addition to consuming more fodder than cattle, horses' incisors allow them to graze plants much closer to the ground. For these reasons, the number of horses has to be kept low enough to not exceed the carrying capacity of a given area. While the BLM rates horses by animal unit (AUM) to eat the same amount of forage as a cow-calf pair, 1.0, multiple studies of horse grazing patterns indicate that horses probably consume forage at a rate closer to 1.5 AUM. Modern rangeland management also recommends removing all livestock during the growing season to maximize recovery of the forage. Allowing livestock to graze year-round is not good for the range, and so mismanagement of feral herds can also degrade the range for the wildlife that shares the same area.