What Difference Does A Word Make? PLENTY!

What difference does a word make? In the world of wild horses it makes plenty of difference. That word is the difference between life and death.

Thousands of years ago, the horse ran free in the America's. Smaller and very agile, it was once a prey species in great numbers. The horse, along with other mammals such as the Woolly Mammoth became extinct. Maybe it was climate change... there were severel weather changes from droughts to ice ages during those times. Maybe it was the rise of a superior predator that wiped out it's own food supply and thus passing to extinction as well. What really happened is not known.

Then about 500 years ago, horses returned.

Domesticated at that point and part of the war machine of conquering nations, horses were brought back by early explorers. Many died on the journey, many died in shipwrecks and many died in battles but many also escaped to run free in this new land. The land welcomed the horse, providing plentiful fodder, plentiful water and untouched areas on which to run and to flourish.

Horses that survived shipwrecks swam to small coastal islands and flourished there. Horses escaped inland to the forests of this untouched land. On the plains horses ran with the buffalo. Small groups evolved to live on the desert rivers of Arizona learning to feed on water vegetation, others the salt grasses of the coast.

In the hundreds of years which passed, man saw the benefits of these horses. A cheap, easy supply of labor, transportation and even food. Horses were captured and used and became the backbone of nation building. Yet a few horses remained wild, remained free like the deer and antelope. But times change and the vast lands were no longer thought of as open and free but as places for raising food, for recreation, for hunting, for mining, and the BLM was born.

The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) was created to watch over and control the use of the public lands in America. They have a large task, balancing the many and often very different points of view regarding the use of these public lands.

Miners wanted access to dig it up. Hunters wanted unlimited access to kill game. Ranchers wanted more grass for their livestock. The publc wanted more areas to play. Each group had reasons for their claim on the land... so the one group with the least representation had to go. That group become the wild horses.

In order to accommodate everyone the BLM began to play a word game.

They renamed the wild horse... our mustangs... feral livestock. FERAL livestock are domesticated animals which have wandered off and are living a wild life. In the cities you will find feral dogs and cats... so it stands to reason that un-owned horses are just feral as well. So in one step, the BLM changed the status of wild horses and changed their fate as well.

Feral livestock are a nuisance animal and must be removed, was the new policy. Thus began the BLM war with wild horses and war it was. Wild horses were systematically rounded up and taken from the public lands. At first secretly and then very openly. Wild Horses were gathered and most went for slaughter.

The public became angered and went to their government and had laws passed to protect the wild horse. All good but by using the words FERAL LIVESTOCK, the great debate began on interpreting the legislation and thus the value of wild horses. They were after all 'just livestock' and unwanted livestock at that. They were NOT wild but only FERAL. Wild good... Feral bad!

The capture and removal goes on... and with no place for the captees to really go, many end up on slaughter trucks. The process itself is brutal... some are run to death, some break legs in the chase and many die on the capture fences. The old and often very young are culled.

The BLM claims there is no natural control for feral livestock and removal must be done. No predators because the BLM ruthlessly removed all those predators. The BLM claims there are too many and that they will soon outstrip the supply of food... if that were the case why are not domestic livestock impacted... or wild life? Are ELK ever rounded up and removed?

Wild Horses are just that... wild animals. You can capture a Zebra in Africa and train it to ride but would you call it FERAL LIVESTOCK... never. It is a wild animal. You can capture an elephant or lion and teach it tricks but it will never be domesticated. You can capture the wild dog of Africa but it will never be a house pet.

Five hundred years of surviving, of weeding out the weak, of only the fittest and strongest and yes, the most intelligent surviving has created a truly wild and unique animal. The wild horse has adapted to the environment it finds itself in... from eating water vegetation in Arizona to the salt grass of Assateague Islands.

It is true that during those 500 hundred years that more horses escaped captivity and added to the wild gene pool but those horses had to pass the most stringent tests nature could muster. Those that failed died and those that succeeded strengthened the genetic diversity that remains today. The modern horse is not bred to survive in the wild...the Thoroughbred, the Arabian, the Gypsy Van would soon perish. The WILD HORSE is a truly unique and wonderous animal.

To save the Wild Horse from extinction, a change in wording will make all the difference from the BLM designation back to the wild animals that they are. Wild Horses are WILD. They should be free to live their lives in the protected spaces designated for them. Wild Horses are part of the history of the America's... the history of man. Don't let a word change it all.

Let's put the correct label on these horses... WILD... let them run wild, forever free!