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Every day mustangs are faced with a challenge: staying alive. But some Americans are testing the horses' strength, and it will end in tragic consequences.
Mustangs roam the lands that include Nevada, California, Montana,
Wyoming, and Oregon. They live in herds that are made up of a single stallion with his mares and their foals. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, farmers and ranchers considered mustangs pests and shot the animals. The anger escalated until the shooting was practically a sport. In 1950, Velma Bronn Johnston was appalled when she came across a truck with blood trailing behind it. She followed it and discovered that it was crowded with mustangs headed for the slaughterhouse. Velma, later nicknamed 'Wild Horse Annie', vowed she would do everything in her power to help save the mustangs from such horrible fates. Twenty-one years and a lifetime of work later, President Richard Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, a law protecting wild horses and recognizing them as, "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West". The Act put the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, in charge of maintaining the animals. However, they just may be managing the horses and burros to an extinction. There are currently more horses in holding pens (over 38,000) than there are in the wild (less than 25,000), although these numbers are highly controversial. The BLM conducts a high number of roundups during which they chase the mustangs with helicopters. They force the horses to gallop at such high speeds that some do not make it to the holding facility alive. Without America's help, the U.S. could lose its horses.
Please explore this site. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us.
Mustangs roam the lands that include Nevada, California, Montana,
Wyoming, and Oregon. They live in herds that are made up of a single stallion with his mares and their foals. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, farmers and ranchers considered mustangs pests and shot the animals. The anger escalated until the shooting was practically a sport. In 1950, Velma Bronn Johnston was appalled when she came across a truck with blood trailing behind it. She followed it and discovered that it was crowded with mustangs headed for the slaughterhouse. Velma, later nicknamed 'Wild Horse Annie', vowed she would do everything in her power to help save the mustangs from such horrible fates. Twenty-one years and a lifetime of work later, President Richard Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, a law protecting wild horses and recognizing them as, "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West". The Act put the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, in charge of maintaining the animals. However, they just may be managing the horses and burros to an extinction. There are currently more horses in holding pens (over 38,000) than there are in the wild (less than 25,000), although these numbers are highly controversial. The BLM conducts a high number of roundups during which they chase the mustangs with helicopters. They force the horses to gallop at such high speeds that some do not make it to the holding facility alive. Without America's help, the U.S. could lose its horses.
Please explore this site. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us.