HISTORY

Wild mustangs. All sorts of colors. Wild as can be. They stand 13 to 15 hands high. Their herds mating, running, fighting. But now, we are destroying them.

Wild mustangs are a very important part of our country. But they haven't always been wild. Back before they were feral, they were domesticated animals, and lived as pets of people. Then they escaped and started breeding on their own, and now they have tons of herds, in the western states of America, all wild horses, that are now no longer tame.

The horses live in the Western States of America. The Bureau of Land Management,(BLM) handles 10 states of the land that the horses and burrows live on and there are 270 horse herds there. Across Utah, there are around 23 herds, and in all of those herds, there is about 3,600 horses! That just proves that there are a lot of mustang herds in the U.S.

The horses live on their land that was given to them by the Congress in 1971. When the land was given to them, congress agreed to legislation to protect, the horses and their public land. The ROAM ACT said, "these animals are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West." The mustangs are now being hurt, killed, and people are taking their land away from them. People or "cowboys" are running the horses into big pens with helicopters. In the pens some horses are killed for meat, or sold. The people are also fencing off the horses food and water, so they die of hunger. Many companies, and the government think that the horses will soon over populate the land and the ponies will die out anyway.

Not that many people around the U.S know what is happening to these horses. Some people are protesting at big presidential happenings, with signs and banners, trying to let everyone see what is going on to the wild horses in America. Groups of kids, like me are writing lots of letters to important people of the government. To the president, senators, congress men, some even get responses! There has even been some news about people trying to band round-ups. Some horse lovers, even say that the last time the government tried to take the pony's land it was kids, and protesters that stopped them.

Resources: Some of this is from my knowledge from the Marin Mustangs Club, the other bits are from these websites.

•Bremier, PJ. "Your Mustangs." Message to Olivia Falco. 1 February. 2010. E-mail.

•Dearing, Stephanie. "Bureau Of land Management Plans Round-up of 25,000 Wild Horses."Digital journal. 2010.

• Garcia, Oskar. "Wild Horse Round-Up to Begin in Nevada amid protest." yahoo.news.com. 2010. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_re_us/us_wild_horses