page_title: Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range
section_title: Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971
hierarchical_section_title: Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range / Changing legal status of the range / Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971
caption_attribution_description: English: A feral or "wild" horse in 2009 at the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range in Montana in the United States. This image depicts the classic features of this animal's unique genetic makeup. DNA testing has shown that the Pryor Mountains herd is directly descended from the Spanish barb horse, brought to North America in the mid 1600s A.D. by the Spanish. The horse is generally 13-15 hands high, and weigh 700 to 800 pounds (more if raised in captivity). The majority of Pryor Mountains horses are dun or grullo in color, but some are red or blue roan, bay, black, chestnut, and (rarelhy) buckskin in color. They minimally express calico paints. Pryor Mountains horses look much like primitive horses, with a dorsal stripe down the back, stripes on the withers, and tiger stripes on the legs. Most have just five lumbar vertebrae (an anatomical feature distinctive of primitive horses), although some have a fifth and sixth vertebrae which are fused. Pryor Mountains horses have medium-length necks, long manes and tails, convex or straight heads, wide-set eyes, and hooked ears. The forehead is broad, and tapers well to the muzzle. The teeth meet evenly, upper lip is usually longer than the lower, and the nostrils are small and crescent shaped. The horses have sloped croups and low tail-sets, the shoulders are long and sloping, the withers are prominent, and the chest is medium to narrow in width. The hooves are hard and ample, and the horse exhibits the classic paso gait.
context_page_description: The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range is a refuge for a historically significant herd of free-roaming mustangs, feral horses colloquially called "wild horses", located in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and Wyoming in the United States. The range has an area of 39,650 acres and was established in 1968 along the Montana–Wyoming border as the first protected refuge dedicated exclusively for mustangs. It was the second feral horse refuge in the United States. About a quarter of the refuge lies within the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. A group of federal agencies, led by the Bureau of Land Management, administers the range.
  Because of the unique genetic makeup of the Pryor Mountains Mustang herd, equine geneticist Dr. E. Gus Cothran concluded in 1992 that "the Pryor herd may be the most significant wild-horse herd remaining in the United States." Dr. D. Phillip Sponenberg, equine veterinarian at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, agreed, noting, "[These animals] don't exist anywhere else."
context_section_description: Also at issue were BLM practices for managing horses in protected areas.  Under BLM policy, ranchers could release a branded mare into a herd and then, the following year, round up the band the mare ran with for slaughter or sale. In Nevada, state law permitted ranchers to round up any unbranded horses on their private land and slaughter or sell them. Concerned about these practices, and about continuing horse hunts in unprotected areas, Johnston and her group began working to pass federal legislation to protect feral horses throughout the U.S. She was joined by a number of prominent people, including country music singer Judy Lynn, Gunsmoke actress Amanda Blake, and New Hampshire Union Leader publisher and conservative William Loeb III.
  On December 18, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA), which made it a crime for anyone to harass or kill feral horses or burros on federal land, required the departments of the Interior and Agriculture to protect the animals, required studies of the animals' habits and habitats, and permitted public land to be set aside for their use. In addition, the act required that feral horses be protected as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West", and that management plans must "maintain a thriving natural ecological balance among wild horse populations, wildlife, livestock, and vegetation and to protect the range from the deterioration associated with overpopulation." Although feral horse ranges were principally for the protection of the horses, the land was required to be maintained for multiple use. BLM was also permitted to close public land to livestock grazing to protect feral horse and burro habitat.
  The WFRHBA gave jurisdiction over challenges to BLM and Forest Service management of feral horses and how the act is implemented to the Department of the Interior's Board of Land Appeals. The act also contained provisions for the removal of excess animals; the destruction of lame, old, or sick animals; the private placement or adoption of excess animals; and even the destruction of healthy animals if range management required it.
  The destruction of healthy or unhealthy horses almost never occurred. The WFRHBA left range management policy unresolved in many respects, although it did specify that BLM and the Forest Service consult with state wildlife agencies. In practice, BLM struggled to accommodate the needs of feral horses among its other priorities (which included livestock grazing, prevention of soil erosion, and accommodating big game hunting). In November 1971, BLM announced a major effort to save the Pryor Mountains herd from starvation after a poor summer growing season left vegetation stunted on the range. By 1974, the herd on the Pryor Mountains range had increased by 17 percent over the 1968 level. However, there was strong disagreement over whether the population had increased as much as this, if at all.
caption: A feral horse grazes on the Pryor Mountains refuge.
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