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1. PRE-HISTORY OF THE HORSE:The evolution and development of North American eco-systems definitely included horses! 25,000 year old frozen remains of horses identical to today's wild horses have been found in the Arctic Tundra. Horses are generally believed to have become extinct in their land of origin about 8000 - 10,000 years ago - probably at the hands of the first human immigrants (if it ever could be proved that even one tiny pocket of original horses remained, it would make legal protections for this species so much easier - but so far, there is no such evidence). North America was the original home of the horse species. They evolved here, and thrived here for millions of years. The plant and animal communities of North American ecology evolved with horses playing an integral role. About 8,000 - 10,000 years ago (coinciding with Human settlement) they became extinct i the land of their origin, although luckily by that time they had migrated to Asia, where they spread into Europe and North Africa. It was long believed that the pre-extinction American horse was a more primitive form and not the true horse of today. But that changed in September of 1993, when some placer miners in the Yukon uncovered a horse and paleontologists were called in. Initially, nobody thought too much about the well preserved, brownish red horse in the permafrost layer. It didn't look different from any other horse that had died and been buried in the mud. Even the stomach contents were still in the gut, and the flaxen mane hung over the neck of the hide covered skeleton. Scientists might have been looking at a near carbon copy of some of the smaller wild horses in the West. Analysis revealed it was about 25,000 years old! proving that the horse is a true native species. THE NATURE OF HORSES:
Throughout Human history, people have tried to domesticate almost every known species. Only a handful have made the successful transition to domesticity. The horse is one of these, due to its innate hard-wiring to accept leadership, to live in a social unit, etc. The horse, along with the cat and perhaps the pig and parrot, is one of an even smaller handful of species that does equally well in domestic and wild situations, and in a wide variety of climates. It can live happily dependent upon human care, or it can just as easily shrug us off and live on its own in the wild. Emigrating out of North America, the horse spread across Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa. Originally, horses were a prey species that early humans hunted for meat. Somewhere along the line a wide-ranging variety of human cultures in various parts of the world and different time periods, all discovered that the horse had talents and usefulness far beyond "what's for dinner", and the horse became one of the most valuable of all species. CLICK HERE for the Oxford Journal's article about genetic research into horse origins CLICK HERE to read a "Science Daily" article about prehistoric domestication of the horse 2. HORSES RETURN TO AMERICA:When the Spanish explorers brought horses to the continent, the horses were returning home. When given the opportunity, the horses simply took up residence in the landscape their ancestors had helped to form. "Although the basis of legends, escaped horses from the early Spanish expeditions were not the seed stock of the wild horse herds of the American West. Only after the mission system in New Spain was established did horses begin to populate North America. Native groups, like the Apache, raided the missions for horses, and undoubtedly a few horses would have escaped. "The original horses brought to America from Spain were relatively unselected. These first came to the Caribbean islands, where populations were increased before export to the mainland. In the case of North America the most common source of horses was Mexico as even the populations in the southeastern USA were imported from Mexico rather than the Caribbean. The North American horses ultimately came from this somewhat non-selected base." - from NORTH AMERICAN COLONIAL SPANISH HORSE Part I, History and Type by D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, Ph.D. 3. WILD HERDS BEGIN AND SPREADHowever, only after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 could large numbers of wild horses be seen roaming the grasslands of the Plains." (from "The Horse in the New World" exhibit at the Buffalo Bill Museum) (For an eye-witness account of the 1680 Pueblo Uprising, told by a missionary click HERE; For historical analysis, click here) "The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was the single most successful act of resistance by Native Americans against a European invader. It established Indian independence in the pueblos for more than a decade, and even after Spanish domination was re-imposed it forced the imperial authorities to observe religious tolerance. " - http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-009b/summary/index.asp The Revolt, in addition to driving the Spaniards from the Santa Fe-Albuquerque region for more than a decade, also provided the Pueblo Indians with three to five thousand horses. Almost immediately, they started breeding larger herds, with the intention of selling horses to the Apache and Comanche Indians. As a result, the widespread use of the horse revolutionized Indian life. While mounted Indians found that buffalo were much easier to kill, some tribes – such as the Comanche – met with great success when they used the horse for warfare.
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 Catching a Wild Horse, by George Catlin |  Wild Horses on the Plains, by George Catlin From http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/bison.html |
The American West at that time was much less a desert than it is now. Severe overgrazing by cattle and sheep in the 19th and 20th centuries have permanently altered the arid Western ecosystems. Much of the land that is now desert was then short grass prairie, supporting large bison and pronghorn herds, and the horses found it most easy and natural to join them on their ancestral grounds.
For the next 700 years, the wild horse herds became the haven for horses escaped from or abandoned by trappers, explorers, pioneers, miners, and ranchers.
When the Native Americans were subjugated and forced into reservations, thousands of their wonderful "Indian Ponies" were released into the wilderness.
During the Civil War through the World War I era, the US Cavalry released Morgan, Arabian, and Thoroughbred stallions into the wild herds, and then "harvested" some (but not all - the remaining ones are the ancestors of today's wild horse herds in many areas) of the offspring to use as Cavalry Remounts. Such foreign wars were the source of considerable profit for many Great Basin ranchers, who harvested the wild and semi-wild horses roaming near their ranches and sold them, during such times, at a hefty profit.
"In 1899 the Boer War in South Africa and later the Spanish-American War created a large demand for military mounts. Many wild horses were rounded up and shipped overseas.
During World War I, ranchers such as Harry Wilson went into business with the federal government raising horses for the Army. Wilson provided Standardbred mares acquired from the Miller and Lux ranches and the government furnished Thoroughbred studs.
Over 1,700 head of Wilson horses ran from High Rock Canyon north to the Oregon border, including all of the present day Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge." (from "MUSTANG COUNTRY)
An estimated 1 million captured and "broken" mustangs went to Europe and Africa during the later years of the Nineteenth Century and first half of the 20th Century, to fight various causes - usually European, occasionally American. None returned.
http://www.militaryhorse.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1995
Paul Scholtz photo of WWI-era Cavalry rider and horse in France
"Many of the wild horse herds originated as the result of large numbers of horses being imported into the area (Northwest Nevada) for the purpose of starting herds of high quality stock.
One of the earliest horse operations in northwest Nevada was in the Smoke Creek Desert. Reportedly, 500 head of Spanish-Barb horses were purchased for 50 cents a head in San Diego, trailed north to the Smoke Creek Desert and released in the early 1860s.
Ranchers and settlers also turned draft and saddle horses loose on the open range to pasture, gathering them as the need arose. Other horses escaped, were abandoned or were set loose when hard times made feed unaffordable. These horses commonly became referred to as "wild" horses or mustangs. Once the wild herds were established, it was common practice for ranchers to release high-grade stock to improve the quality of the herds." (from "MUSTANG COUNTRY)
Ranchers living in unfenced rangelands typically allowed their ranch stock to run freely when not being used for ranch work. Most ranchers made use of the wild herds as an important resource, providing new ranch stock as needed. Since the original Spanish horses were the result of hundreds of years of selective breeding for ranch work in Spain, most of these horses were by nature "cowy" and adapted well to ranch work. Ranchers often took pride in importing stallions of top European bloodlines, and releasing them into their local wild herds, to "improve" the herds - usually for adding size, as the "Indian Ponies" and Spanish horses tended to be small for the tall Anglo Americans.
In today's urban world, we lose sight of the fact that horses are hard-wired by nature to accept human leadership. The old-timers knew this, and catching and "breaking" wild horses for ranch work was a daily fact of life - not the big deal we think it is today.
Regionally, wild herds today bear the unmistakable marks of both their original Spanish ancestors and the domestic breeds added to them. Some herds carry the genes of carriage horses, trotting and pacing horses, heavy Percherons and Shires and Belgian draft horses, the American Standardbred, etc. Others type similar to Thoroughbreds or Quarter Horses, still others show Morgan or Shire ancestry.
SEE GALLERY OF HERD MANAGEMENT AREAS
The coming of the automobile and motorized tractor, as well as the Depression era of this century resulted in many unwanted horses, particularly drafts, but also carriage and saddle horses, being abandoned from farms and ranches. Many, Many horses that were no longer needed went to slaughter during this historical period. But if a rancher had access to open space, he often opted to simply release the stock to their own devices.
Today most wild horse herds are restricted to far Northeast California, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, one small area of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, with a few on islands along the Eastern Seaboard. But they were once common in the Great Plains and Midwestern states.
Today’s wild horses are a true American Melting Pot of horses, and with the help of Natural Selection, they are intelligent, sound-minded, sure-footed, and strong. Mustangs normally have excellent feet that often do not require shoes, and strong, hardy constitutions. Having had the benefit of life within a functional natural social unit, they are well-socialized and savvy.
Once they overcome their natural fear of people, they can be trained to ride, drive, and perform, just like any other horse.
Up until the 1970’s, wild horses were frequently slaughtered for pet food. The capture and slaughter processes were particularly cruel, and numbers were decreasing toward a second extinction.
Velma Johnson, aka "Wild Horse Annie" led a campaign of public awareness, and persuaded Congress to pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act. Under the provisions of this law, wild horses and burros may not be captured for slaughter. Instead, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is charged with protecting and managing the wild herds.
"In 1971, Congress introduced and passed The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. President Richard M. Nixon signed the new Act into law (Public Law 92-195) on December 15, 1971. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act required the protection, management and control of wild free-roaming horses and burros. Local livestock operators now had to claim and permit their private horses and burros grazing on public lands or lose ownership of them. After a specified time period following passage of the Act, any remaining unbranded and unclaimed herds inhabiting BLM or Forest Service lands were declared "wild free-roaming horses and burros" and became the property of the federal government." (from "MUSTANG COUNTRY)
To maintain herd levels at numbers that are acceptable to local ranchers and hunters of the game that lives on the same lands, and to keep the herds from overpopulating the BLM periodically rounds up wild horses. After branding, worming, and being given their vaccinations, the captured wild horses are available at BLM Wild Horse Facilities for adoption for $125 each to whoever can provide a proper home and care for them.
Statement for the 109th Congress (1st Session) in support of H.R. 297
A BILL IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
House Committee on Resources
Introduced January 25, 2005
To restore the prohibition on the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros.
Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife
By Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D.*
Are wild horses truly “wild,” as an indigenous species in North America, or are they “feral” weeds – barnyard escapees, far removed genetically from their prehistoric ancestors? The question at hand is, therefore, whether or not modern horses, Equus caballus, should be considered native wildlife.
The genus Equus, which includes modern horses, zebras, and asses, is the only surviving genus in a once diverse family of horses that included 27 genera. The precise date of origin for the genus Equus is unknown, but evidence documents the dispersal of Equus from North America to Eurasia approximately 2-3 million years ago and a possible origin at about 3.4-3.9 million years ago. Following this original emigration, several extinctions occurred in North America, with additional migrations to Asia (presumably across the Bering Land Bridge), and return migrations back to North America, over time. The last North American extinction occurred between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago.[1] Had it not been for previous westward migration, over the land bridge, into northwestern Russia (Siberia) and Asia, the horse would have faced complete extinction. However, Equus survived and spread to all continents of the globe, except Australia and Antarctica.
In 1493, on Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas, Spanish horses, representing E. caballus, were brought back to North America, first in the Virgin Islands, and, in 1519, they were reintroduced on the continent, in modern-day Mexico, from where they radiated throughout the American Great Plains, after escape from their owners.[2]
Critics of the idea that the North American wild horse is a native animal, using only paleontological data, assert that the species, E. caballus (or the caballoid horse), which was introduced in 1519, was a different species from that which disappeared 13,000 to 11,000 years before. Herein lies the crux of the debate. However, the relatively new (27-year-old) field of molecular biology, using mitochondrial-DNA analysis, has recently found that the modern or caballine horse, E. caballus, is genetically equivalent to E. lambei, a horse, according to fossil records, that represented the most recent Equus species in North America prior to extinction. Not only is E. caballus genetically equivalent to E. lambei, but no evidence exists for the origin of E. caballus anywhere except North America.[3]
According to the work of Uppsala University researcher Ann Forstén, of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, the date of origin, based on mutation rates for mitochondrial-DNA, for E. caballus, is set at approximately 1.7 million years ago in North America. Now the debate becomes one of whether the older paleontological fossil data or the modern molecular biology data more accurately provide a picture of horse evolution. The older taxonomic methodologies looked at physical form for classifying animals and plants, relying on visual observations of physical characteristics. While earlier taxonomists tried to deal with the subjectivity of choosing characters they felt would adequately describe, and thus group, genera and species, these observations were lacking in precision.
Reclassifications are now taking place, based on the power and objectivity of molecular biology. If one considers primate evolution, for example, the molecular biologists have provided us with a completely different evolutionary pathway for humans, and they have described entirely different relationships with other primates. None of this would have been possible prior to the methodologies now available through mitochondrial-DNA analysis.
Carles Vilà, also of the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University, has corroborated Forstén’s work. Vilà et al have shown that the origin of domestic horse lineages was extremely widespread, over time and geography, and supports the existence of the caballoid horse in North American before its disappearance.[4]
Finally, the work of Hofreiter et al, [5] examining the genetics of the so-called E. lambei from the permafrost of Alaska, found that the variation was within that of modern horses, which translates into E. lambei actually being E. caballus, genetically. The molecular biology evidence is incontrovertible and indisputable.
The fact that horses were domesticated before they were reintroduced matters little from a biological viewpoint. They are the same species that originated here, and whether or not they were domesticated is quite irrelevant. Domestication altered little biology, and we can see that in the phenomenon called “going wild,” where wild horses revert to ancient behavioral patterns. James Dean Feist dubbed this “social conservation” in his paper on behavior patterns and communication in the Pryor Mountain wild horses. The reemergence of primitive behaviors, resembling those of the plains zebra, indicated to him the shallowness of domestication in horses.[6]
The issue of feralization and the use of the word “feral” is a human construct that has little biological meaning except in transitory behavior, usually forced on the animal in some manner. Consider this parallel. E. Przewalski (Mongolian wild horse) disappeared from Mongolia a hundred years ago. It has survived since then in zoos. That is not domestication in the classic sense, but it is captivity, with keepers providing food and veterinarians providing health care. Then they were released a few years back and now repopulate their native range in Mongolia. Are they a reintroduced native species or not?
And what is the difference between them and E. caballus in North America, except for the time frame and degree of captivity?
The key element in describing an animal as a native species is (1) where it originated; and (2) whether or not it co-evolved with its habitat. Clearly, E. caballus did both, here in North American. There might be arguments about “breeds,” but there are no scientific grounds for arguments about “species.”
The non-native, feral, and exotic designations given by agencies are not merely reflections of their failure to understand modern science, but also a reflection of their desire to preserve old ways of thinking to keep alive the conflict between a species (wild horses) with no economic value anymore (by law) and the economic value of commercial livestock.
Native status for wild horses would place these animals, under law, within a new category for management considerations. As a form of wildlife, embedded with wildness, ancient behavioral patterns, and the morphology and biology of a sensitive prey species, they may finally be released from the “livestock-gone-loose” appellation.
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Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Director, The Science and Conservation Center, Billings, Montana, holds a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. Patricia M. Fazio is currently a freelance environmental writer and editor residing in Cody, Wyoming and holds a B.S. in animal husbandry/biology from Cornell University, an M.S. in environmental history from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in environmental history from Texas A&M University, College Station.
(Distributed March 2, 2005)
Please note: This document is the sole intellectual property of Drs. Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio. As such, altering of content in any manner is strictly prohibited. However, this statement may be copied and distributed freely in hardcopy, electronic, or Website form (March 2, 2005).
[1] "Horse Evolution" by Kathleen Hunt from www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/horse_evolution.htm; Bruce J. MacFadden, Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 205.
[2] Patricia Mabee Fazio, "The Fight to Save a Memory: Creation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (1968) and Evolving Federal Wild Horse Protection through 1971," doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, 1995, p. 21.
[3] Ann Forstén, 1992. Mitochondrial-DNA timetable and the evolution of Equus: Comparison of molecular and paleontological evidence. Ann. Zool. Fennici 28: 301-309.
[4] Carles Vilà, Jennifer A. Leonard, Anders Götherström, Stefan Marklund, Kaj Sandberg, Kerstin Lidén, Robert K. Wayne, Hans Ellegren. 2001. Widespread origins of domestic horse lineages. Science 291: 474-477.
[5] Hofreiter, Michael; Serre, David; Poinar, Hendrik N.; Kuch, Melanie; Pääbo, Svante. 2001. Ancient DNA. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2(5), 353-359.
[6] James Dean Feist and Dale R. McCullough. 1976. Behavior patterns and communication in feral horses. Z. Tierpsychol. 41: 367.
