Wild Horses - 30-Sept-2010

The term Mustang brings to mind horses running wild through the plains.  To me it even brings to mind a couple of males standing on their hind legs, exerting their dominance over each other.

Running free.  Not a care in the world.  No one to answer to, nothing to worry about.

A mustang is a feral horse!  Often referred to as a wild horse, more correctly stated as a feral horse.

They are descendants of the first horses brought over by the Spaniards in the 1400's.  There are no native wild horses to North America.   To the people who say "This is their land!" I say why?

For a wild animal to naturally exist in their environment they need natural predators to keep the populations at manageable levels.  Horses have no such predator.  Mountain lions will hunt them, but with only a few cats per 30 square mile range (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/mountain-lion/), keeping a herds numbers maintained is highly improbable.

I have posted from other sites that naturally a herd will double every 4-5 years.  If you count the roughly 30,000 wild horses in the U.S. and take the higher number, in 15 years we would have 240,000 horses roaming free.

A horse drinks about 12 gallons of water a day times 240,000 horses equals about 2,880,000 gallons of water in a day.  Although not even close to an average families water consumption of 70 gallons (http://www.drinktap.org/consumerdnn/Home/WaterInformation/Conservation/WaterUseStatistics/tabid/85/Default.aspx), it is quite a bit.  Since most of these horses live in Nevada, a barren desert if I have ever seen one, probably a good idea to maintain herd size.

I am not saying the BLM has the best method to maintain herd size, but it appears to be working.  Your next option could be Fish and Game and people would be getting their "Mare" or "Stallion" tag...

What do you think?

**Notes:
Image from http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=179603