North America's Wild Horses

the largest population of

wild

horses

in the world can be found in the USA

wild

American mustangs the history of mustangs is dramatic one hundred years ago these

horses

were ruthlessly exploited they were captured by the thousands and used in times of war and at the same time The Wild West was being colonized by settlers, resulting in reduced habitat and diminished food sources for mustangs. In the space of a single century, the number of wild mustangs fell from around two million to just forty thousand. Today, mustangs are no longer threatened and there is great respect. For these horses, the way they are treated when captured and tamed shows that Americans have truly taken Mustangs to their hearts.

Wild Mustangs live primarily in the western states, particularly the state of Nevada. Mom keeps them together in small groups of seven to twelve. horses each band has a harem stallion and the rest are mares and foals the stallion is almost always a slight distance from his harem keeping a close eye on rival stallions, but although the stallion is the leader of the herd, the main mayor always goes first and everyone else follows, there are often bands of young stallions close to the herd, they have not yet established a harem of their own and are grouped together in what are known as bachelor bands, these groups stay close to the herd waiting for an opportunity to escape. with some of the top stallions, the mares were unlucky this time and ran away.

Mustangs were originally gentle horses brought from Spain to America 500 years ago. The horses that escaped from the Spanish have run free ever since, living according to the laws of nature in the great mountains. American plains in an open and harsh environment American authorities want to maintain the population at its current level Authorities estimate that in the open spaces left in the American Midwest there is only enough food and water to maintain a population of about 40,000 wild horses that they abandon them unchecked, I mean that within a few years the population will simply explode and very soon you will have horses starving out here, they will fight for water, they will drink from dry water holes because some of the water has a very limited amount.

Mustangs are very prolific and the population would grow by many thousands annually if numbers were not controlled to keep the population at the current 40,000. American authorities have to round up around 10,000 wild horses every year. A work team is preparing to start. To them, they are Wranglers, not cowboys, cowboy is a derogatory word. They work for the American Authority known as the BLM Bureau of Land Management. Mustangs are fully protected. I can only be captured by BLM. They cannot be hunted or captured for commercial purposes. No. I mean, no, this, let's look at these traps, none, that's where all the Trumps are strategically placed to blend into the landscape, we try not to interfere with the animals in the field more than necessary and practically with that amount it says that we go out and monitor the herds evaluate their habitat evaluate the health of the animals and then when we have an identified need where perhaps the pasture is in poor condition or the animals are not responding well, we will do a removal even before the trap is finished, pilots Jim Hicks are dispatched in his helicopter, the helicopters and horse-riding Wranglers are used to round up the wild horses.

Jim was probably the best horse rider they ever had or will ever have. Not only does he have to be a skilled pilot, but he also has to understand it. wild horses and what a wild horse is capable of doing and somehow understands the tendencies of it. I think he often knows what he's going to do before he does it. The inside of the trap is almost ready. Large rolls of burlap have been erected. as a fence to guide the horses into the trap the horses see the burlap as a wall they can't get through Jim Hicks has found the first herd and is waiting to lead them first he wants to get an idea of ​​how many there are in the area Ed gathers several herds before to take them back to the corral.

A dusting of Claire reveals a new herd of Mustangs. He is almost 20 kilometers from the trap and now he sends a message that he is starting to lead the horses, but first he needs to get the horses out from under the trees and down to open ground these maneuvers are dangerous Jim has crashed several times when its rotor blades got too close to the treetops, but so far it has escaped unscathed three stallions have escaped from the stallions are the hardest to find enter and the helicopter does not spook them as easily in previous meetings. Jim has had to get close to the ground pushing the stallions with the helicopter skids to bring them back to the herd.

We always have radio contact with a helicopter and continuously. talking back and forth about the obstacles you are facing, what we should do, if there are any baby calls, if there are old horses that can't keep up, so communication is an important element and we We try as hard as we can to never let a cold weather fall and if we do, we always come back to look for it if we can find it on the open plain. Jim Hicks is careful not to speed the horses too much so that the folds and older individuals are not left behind as the herd approaches.

In the trap there are more problems with the stallions, they run everywhere and Jim Hicks has to ask the Wranglers for help. Dave prepares these specially trained Judas horses. These horses have been given this unflattering name because they live or are in the wild. horses in the trap once we get the horses to the bottom of the trap a Judas horse or a Prada horse has gotten loose this is a horse that is trained to go into the trap and the horses you know or herd animals . We are following the animals and once this larger horse has gotten loose and the wild horses will follow him into the trap and then the Wranglers come in behind and close the gate, the Judas horses immediately separate from the wild ones and calm down quite a bit. fast if you don't stir them up and we have learned over the years not to ride EMI.

A wild horse is very afraid of us. Someone is behind a horse and I think it's coming from something on his back that I associate with a lion or something jumping on him. his back, he took a helicopter, he was probably there for 45 minutes and then they are here, they are here, it's all over, he understands this and his feet haven't been worn out among the captured horses, it's a rarity and I won't be any horses, but It's over ten years old and will be released again. Some of these studs absolutely hate each other and I have seen them fighting backstage at the end of the trap fighting towards the trailer. they fight in the numerator and then we turn them into the stallion pin and they fight there and they don't ship, they slide on them, they fight in the truck and let me know Valley really means they can kill a mare, they can kill a Colt It's very easy, we separate them here for the same reason so that they don't get killed inside the corral here when things first started, more horses were lost.

I know that when I started in the horse program, even five percent was an acceptable kill. loss and now if you go over 1 percent, they wonder what's going on. Most accidents happen because the horses think they can go through the bars and run straight into them, but now black plastic snow fences are placed around the bars and these accidents rarely happen anymore before we worked on the laudanum before starting to use it outside. You know, we broke quite a few necks because you were jumping on those kilos and trying to go through them at the time when the mustangs were in the enclosure the foals are removed, they are also kept separate from the adult horses when they are transported in trailers, otherwise , the foals are at risk of being crushed to death in the very stressful conditions that we are separating for the foals that need a small pen there.

So where they don't go in the trailer loaded with the big horses to avoid them being kicked or trampled, because if we put them in a trailer with the big ones, they could kill them, they are tough animals and the more you get. To get to know them, the environment they live in, the life they have led to get to this point, the more you respect them, the meetings continue until late afternoon. Jim Hicks makes four more races and brings over one hundred and twenty horses that day, after five days. About 400 Mustangs have been captured and are being transported to the Palomino Valley.

The trap is dismantled and moved to another area. The Palomino Valley is the central reception area for US authorities for captured Mustangs. There is room here for about two thousand horses. The last captured horses usually arrived. When wild horses leave the field after a harvest operation, the first thing they will do is run them through our squeeze chutes and let the veterinarian check them to make sure if they have any physical injuries or if they have anything that requires immediate attention, then he could give them to them and then what they will do is give them the normal range of vaccines for a domestic horse and then we will also give each horse an individual identification number, that is what is frozen. mark that you will see on their neck each animal is individually identified they will tell you the age of the horse and that is linked to another code that we assign to them called mint signal key which is based on the sex of the animal the coloration of it face swirls and that way, through our computer system, we can track each animal individually, once it receives its freeze mark and its vaccines, we place it in these pens and we will keep it for at least 30 days so that it can receive vaccines from booster.

A Mustang is anesthetized so that the vets can clean a wound on its shoulder the anesthetic takes ten seconds to take effect the wound is disinfected with iodine and then you're in trouble a problem the vet opens the wound and presses on the cat okay guys I'm going Let's try this other hole Rick, the wound is superficial and will heal quickly. The health of the Mustangs is good among the 400 horses gathered. None is lame. Horses have what veterinarians call clean legs, no lumps in the joints, and strong, healthy hooves. You could ride them for weeks and weeks and never zoom because they have perfect hard feet.

You take a saddle horse, keep the crowd for 10 years and shoot them every six weeks. What are you doing? You destroy their feet halfway. Do you destroy their ability to pump? blood on your feet when you worry, your feet are like this, then you have fantastic healthy feet, with an accentuated farrier, you should chew it for six weeks and then trim it and leave it out for a month, six weeks, two months, that's the limit, no and then they should be barefoot for a while so the wild horses would have fantastic feet, but the reason they are is because no man won't mess with them in the mountains here on the Snake River.

Something very dramatic happened over three million years ago, a large number of horses died in a short period of time. What we currently think is that it was a drought and that a shallow river was drying up and the horses are very dependent on a water source, so eventually the animals will become extinct. and you can imagine the bottom of this dry river covered with dead horses. This mass die-off has left the area around the Snake River with one of the largest collections of horse fossils in the world. What makes this particular site so exciting is that it is the largest sample of the modern horse genus Equus, so we are looking at a population of over 200 animals that have been found here, allowing us to really understand the origin and evolutionary history of the group of modern horses in which the fossils are embedded. rocks that are impossible to remove on site, so the blocks of rock containing the fossils are transported to laboratories and here paleontologists work to free the fossils from the rock the horses founded Snake River are the ancestors of all horses alive today this is the oldest and first species of the modern horse genus Equus, so we can think of this as the ancestral form not only of the Przewalski's horse but of what eventually gave rise to zebras and zebras. donkeys, so this is sort of the basic model from which the other living horse lineages could be derived.

What did the complete father of horses look like? If you start looking at the details of the skeleton, we can say that it actually looks more like a zebra than a horse and apparently some features of the skeleton suggest that it looked a lot like the Grevy's zebra living in Africa today it is on the North American continent where The horse originated a process that has taken 55 million years and from here it migrated to Asia, Europe and other continents in the last fifty-five million years. Horses evolved from beingFrom the size of a cat to the large animal we know today, the horse became larger and heavier and at some point in its history it had to adapt to be able to run as grasslands developed, forests disintegrated.

We see a lot of this adaptation to running, probably related to the open field. there is no place to hide from predators if you look at this horse here, it already has a toe like the modern horse and this is part of the long evolutionary history of horses adapting to running, which includes reducing the number of his toes ten thousand years. Ten thousand years ago the horse completely disappeared from the North American continent ten thousand years ago Equus disappeared here in North America at the end of the Ice Age along with mammoths mastodons camels and other large herbivores and one of the great mysteries is why here in North America A group of animals like the horse that was so successful for so many millions of years disappeared and yet was able to survive in Eurasia.

American Mustangs are only indirectly descended from their original American ancestors and this was through horses that migrated to Asia and then to Europe. Two million years ago only to return to the North American continent with the help of man 500 years ago the horse returned to its place of origin. Apart from the authorities themselves, only one private individual in America has received permission to domesticate wild horses. His name is Steve Mantle and he is one of the famous ones. horse whisperers someone who can do things with horses that no one else can do newly captured horses are culled a variety of stallions over a certain age are not suitable for riding because it would be impossible to fully domesticate them stallions will be released into large sanctuaries it is necessary be able to identify them from the air, that's why they are fries marked with an extra large identification code.

To me, a good rider would be someone who is willing to learn new things and has no ego involved. They are there for the horse they are not out there for themselves, they are willing to be honest, they are not trying to fool anyone with anything false because if the horse can win in every situation, whether it is a Mustang or a domestic horse or what That is, ultimately the owner, the rider and the trainer will win if the horse does not win, no one wins. When Steve Mantle stands in front of an individual horse, you can see the very special abilities of him.

We will present this little horse with something he is looking for and what he is into. here alone and the natural thing for him is to be with a herd of horses, that is where he is safest, so we are going to try to take the place of the herd in his mind and teach him that when he is with us it is a good thing and when him being away from us is a bad thing and he will learn if you start coming with us and being with me here pretty quickly because he is already looking for someone that is why he is walking and working around here now.

He has come to this door here because it is where he entered and it is where he wants to return. These wild horses naturally focus on things like that, so let's first strengthen the right side of the horse and build up the right side. strong eye and take him now to lead a horse, you have to do it from the hips, you can't do it from the rib to the shoulder, so we're going to keep leading him around here and then we'll offer him the chance to come back he's starting to sink in very quick now we lost his attention now we get it back look how we have both ears here it's not like he lost it now we get it back Austin now we get it back once you get this here your training process is really build fast now I have to send it in the other direction , now it's okay with me on the right, so now we have to do it right with me on the left, you got the hustlin coping.

He puts the camera back down and lets him slide as much as he wants, so he's a pretty smart little horse. He is finding the answer. The horse can read your body language and he reads it better than you ever thought when you first read it in his mind. a predator when you approach the crow and then after a while he finds out that you haven't really attacked me yet, so yeah, you can set up your body language so he can work with that and then you start building that relationship right there and Lo Believe it or not, this horse has never been worked, he's been run down the chute gelding and Brandon that's it, but like I say now, I see he's having a hard time staying here, so let's put some pressure on and get back to it. hook it up, yes.

I'm going to come again and make another adjustment there, that's better now that this little horse doesn't know that being petted is a good thing so you have to teach him, but it's a good thing and you might get bitten, you just have to be aware of it. Be prepared for it, be careful once you discover that being petted is a good thing, the rest of the process is quite easy, there is a saying that if you look these horses in the eyes, you will dismiss them, well my experience. The eyes are the window to the soul and if you want to know what is happening in him, it is mine, you better look at his eyes and his ears and check it while I am looking directly into his eyes and he sure doesn't want to. to get out of his bed now I don't know what we've been out in half an hour and 45 minutes maybe yes, I know this is fast, yes, and we have a two-year-old wild mustang that Actually, at this point, here is not very different from a two-year-old domestic child.

He has run out on the field. The only thing is that his sense of self-preservation is like he's up here and his pet horses are down here because everyone. the horse has it, I mean, that's how they survive, we're going to use this flag as a training tool instead of a weapon. A lot of people use this flag as a weapon because they get scared and don't know what else to do so they made a shake it daylight let's let it prove it this represents your head your hat your shoulders and if the wind blows your hat off and it falls floating to the ground, he'll be upset if you haven't taken this away now, if you're riding this horse somewhere and the plastic bag flows, I see the front foot lift off the ground right there, he had two naturals, I mean, he couldn't avoid it, but he quickly healed this down here and this will float by and he won't even look at it, okay now he got ready for us to see if we can teach him something that he'll put enough pressure on there, so he just did the turn right there and now it's so ticklish that he knows he did something, he doesn't know what he did, but he did something and it turned out to be pretty good because he's really preoccupied with that rope behind him, he let go and there was no more. pressure and now we are here and we were going to give him a little reward, let the horse learn that he can relieve the pressure and that he can find relief when he is released from that pressure, if the pressures were never released.

There's no incentive to leave him, but if so, he'll just, I mean, he'll start as far as they resist, and then there'll be pretty employees who won't accept it, and then they'll go so light and handle it so. well because they're wanting it, I mean it's like, oh yeah, I can do this and they want to do it if he wants to continue, it's okay because what we're going to teach him is that by continuing, he's going to put himself under pressure. but if we stop right where you are, there's no pressure after just two hours of work.

Steve Mantle judges how much progress he has made if the horse allows him to lift his leg, he has gained the horse's trust. The legs are extremely sensitive and many horse owners even after. After years of riding they are not allowed to touch their horses' legs. I usually get this here on the first day or two. Do you think that this trust that you gained, you will give the horse to someone else or will you take a step too far back plus someone else? You can do it? try me, I think you get between these eyes after you, sir, I really admire them, they are for me, they are like the coyote, they are adaptable, probably the last three things left in the face of the service will be them, the Kyles in the house fly, the free life of Mustangs has forced them to survive on nature's terms, this has made them strong and healthy, so veterinarians and other people interested in horses have begun to study Mustangs and compare them with a modern saddle horse. many veterinarians have studied them to see why wild horses don't become navicular in all of this.

The concept today is that every horse has to have a halter for running, he will have good shoes if the shoes are left on for twelve months. a year over the years will shorten the lifespan of their legs by 50% at least joint and bone diseases are some of the most common ailments among modern saddle horses, these diseases often become Chronic conditions that cause the horse to be lame and therefore useless as a saddle horse, this often ends with the animal being euthanized. Mustangs and modern saddle horses are both descendants of Spanish horses from the time when Spain was the homeland of horse breeding, they were euphoric both in terms of breed and constitution, but although Mustangs have roamed free during the For the past 500 years, the evolution of the modern saddle horse has been controlled by man.

All the horses we breed today came out of Stockton like that, it's just that people bred them for what they preferred, to have long legs or a certain face or a certain head shape. Mustangs weigh about 900 pounds and are fast and very athletic. Modern saddle horses, on the other hand, are bred as large, heavy animals weighing around seven to eight hundred kilos, but retain the angled leg joints, characteristic of a horse weighing only 400 kilos. kilos, this gives saddle horses a certain flexibility and speed, but when a horse weighs 800 kilos, its legs cannot withstand the tension for long, the legs wear out and develop joint disorders, Mother Nature, I think she is a better breeder than us.

Animals with that conformation Flaws that have the potential to compromise the breed generally do not have the opportunity to reproduce, therefore those components are removed from the breed, while we have the ability to breed anything and even though we know we have potential problems that will be passed down genetically. We will continue to breed them due to greed or misplaced affection or other problems. Riverton Wyoming is home to one of five state prisons in the US where wild mustangs managed to be an open prison with one hundred and fifty inmates who have served part of it. their sentence in other prisons and must exhibit good behavior to be placed in Riverton some of the things they learn here are farming and how to train wild mustangs is it different to come to prison and serve my sentence doing something I like I'm not not Excellent at training a horse, but there is a big difference between a wild horse and a domestic horse.

They have much more spirit. These, most of the inmates that we get here have never worked with horses, so I think some of them I know come in and they don't want anything to do with it if they're afraid of horses, but you know once they get involved , most inmates really see it as a good program and I don't understand it. that a lot of job change requests once they start 17 months and you still don't get used to it is probably better than one more cup of coffee it's just a big rush it's fun Twelve years ago there were several prisons that BLM would do I used to train the horses and we looked at it and saw it as a very good opportunity to present the same program here at Honor Farm and it seemed like it would fit very well with what we're trying to do, which is that. concentrate on the work and try to give the inmates a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride in what they are doing, in the sense that they know that if they work hard and do the right thing, they will do well for educational reasons, training keep going. at different levels, new arrival inmates start at level one and only work with completely wild horses, yes, strong, a little nervous, not too bad, although I have been around horses a bit.

Oh, 8 to 10 men around here and we'll have put four or five right through this so start laying down in the circle fell to our long fence the first thing they teach horses is not to run at the sight of humans, okay, what you see, how he looks at us here a little, that's what we want him to do here there is a stop there he is finding out here when he stops and look let him discover us here we are not pressuring him we are not trying to do anything to him here until it calmed down a little here later that day they test how horses react when they are tied with a rope or Sal, this is what we do, this is what we like right here, if we can get that horse to look and there is the first step that leads there, look there and see that the children had not even pulled the rope there, so that tells us that the horse is willing to do what we want it to do, this is a good horse, right here, keep his nose towards you just a little bit, I'll make him brown, if you get close to his nose, just rub his nosea little bit and then just slide your hand back over that, now I'm going to turn around and walk away there just a little bit. there you go, lower the rope a little bit now, when you stop right there, Brown, next time walk up to him and rub his nose a little bit and turn your head and just back down the rope a little faster than that don't be afraid, No, don't be, don't think he's not going to do anything there now, I did, you go, just keep going, a little fast, that's good, but not all horses give up. so easily there is a start we ask the horse to turn around we ask him to stop we ask him is there weight for us if you don't then I'm wrong I was too fast too fast and then it's my program, not the horses Mike Buchanan runs the program of horses their philosophy is that inmates are not horse trainers but horse trainers.

He has left behind the old rodeo methods in which the horses' will was broken through the use of force. Now they use teamwork, trust and respect, just try what you can. It is paid when a horse is born in the wild, the first thing your mother does is start caressing it with her nose right at the tip of the shoulders until the withers are stacked and then a massage, that is the bond we want to start massaging and caressing around the top of the neck right at the main part they're right at the withers that's the first contact the wild horse and the baby make contact right there tied up again pay you're doing good just keep going keep looking he wants to do it now stay stay your hand now keep your hand now keep your hand there keep it there keep it there keep it there that's good there that's betterthat's better for the first time in their lives the horses are bridled and little by little they must get used to using a saddle first when We saddle them up, they're a little rough, you know, but after a little bit of wildness they calm down and they know that we're not going to hurt them, you know, so they trust, they trust us, we teach them some little things here before we even get on, if we tie a right or left rein and we move away with the head, we turn the horse will understand to the right and left and in What we are looking for here is a cross on the left hind leg, we will cross on the right hind leg.

The reason why that's important is because some are on top of it and the horse decided to do something wild, we can pull the rain. we can hit it with the left side and it will unlock itself and trigger a dash, it will unlock and cross over there and now it will hold its head like this, that's very important here, that dish is not fully cooked after a month. after intensive training the horse is calm and confident with people now it will be clear if the training has been a success the horse will accept that a person gets up and sits in the saddle now just go up a little count to three a little there and They have known that they paid a little they stop a little yes, okay, now if you want to stay there we will release this horse and then we will see what happens, you don't know. these untied, so we kick that inside leg, relax a little, there, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, kick that inside leg, there you are, relax, relax, give me just a little head, like you said just a little, that's fine and eight.

Days I killed my number and I'm going to Alaska and hopefully work at some riding stables. A lot of the programs didn't really help me, but the horse program is life changing. I mean, it doesn't have to be treated. money or girls or drugs or anything that if I'm happy with myself and who I am and I can achieve it and that's why I want to continue working with horses, the inmates really form a bond with the horses, you'll even see at the auctions when the horses They are offered for public sale, as they go, you know the inmates will express a little emotion, maybe even see a tear from time to time, so yeah, the bond is pretty close between the horses and the inmates. another solid late system always stopped your horse by stopping and turning your glasses Billy in this diary we are looking for that's good, that's good friend, that's good, adoption is the last stop on the Mustang's road from freedom in the plains to a new life around people.

Trained Mustangs are sold at auction although it is called adoption due to strict restrictions regarding their sale. People must apply to be approved as adopted and are required to give the horse a good life. Authorities constantly verify that people live up to these obligations, if during the first year it is discovered that a horse is suffering from neglect, the authorities can remove it. Adopting a Mustang has become very desirable, especially the rare Mustangs with Spanish blood in their veins that sell for large sums of money. It was a real surprise to us when we arrived Monday morning and heard we had a wild horse adopted for $19,000.

We have many horses adopted for that in the special $1,200 range, especially those that have been trained in correctional facilities. but $19,000 was a one-time deal and I hope you can see that one day experienced horse owners brave enough to adopt a wild horse can purchase a purebred Mustang for an administration fee of only one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Horses that are too old to be domesticated or adopted are not euthanized, but released into large grassy sanctuaries in Oklahoma and Kansas, where they live until they die a natural death. Wild horses, symbol of the West and the frontier movement, and will always be its form.

A living legend who lives in freedom and without obstacles. Except for the regulation of the population by man, Mustangs have become more than ever a symbol of wild and untouched nature.