Some people argue that North America should be “rewilded”-- that we should reintroduce camels, elephants (in place of mammoths), lions, cheetahs, and other animals that resemble early North American mammals. Part of the logic is that we caused an extinction and we should correct the unnatural changes we have made; the other is that our land could help restore endangered species like cheetahs and elephants. I personally don’t see the value in re-introducing animals just to restore ‘nature’; Nature tends to balance itself out, and is always changing anyway. Any efforts to severely change the environment in an effort to make it ‘natural’ are in themselves unnatural. Mustangs should stay because they have already been roaming the land long enough to have become a part of the ecosystem. In the mid-1800’s, there were estimated to be between two and four million horses; any impact that they had on the land would have been balanced out without human intervention. Today, there are only about 50,000 left, with many thousands living in holding pens. Mustang horses, unlike other Pleistocene mammals, do not need to be reintroduced; they already have been (although accidentally) and become a part of our landscape over the last 400 years. Like all grazing animals, however, horses can be a problem. Without natural predators, horses will multiply and overgraze some areas. For this reason, wild horses are managed by the BLM, and herds are rounded up and animals culled.

The fact that mustangs are descendants from once-domesticated horses is not very relevant. They have already reverted back to wild behavior and have adapted to living in their environments-- strong hooves and legs, good eyesight, and speed ensures that they can survive on the ranges. Animals have been bred in captivity and released in to the wild in the past.

One example is the Mongolian horse Equus Przewalksii, or the Przewalskii’s Horse that lives on the Mongolian Steppes. This endangered species used to live wild in Mongolia. A combination of human and wolf predation resulted in the animals going extinct in the wild. However, some remained in captivity in zoos, and after 13 generations of being breed in captivity, they were released back into Mongolia by The Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski Horse (FPPPH). Currently about 150 head of “takhi”, as they are called, live in the wild. The current goal of the FPPPH is to increase the number of wild takhi to 500, what they consider a stable number that will allow the horses to survive harsh winters (“Back to the wild“).

It is not an outrageous idea to reclassify horses as native, even if they are not exactly the same as the horses that went extinct. There have been examples of other animals of similar, but not exact, species being re-introduced into the wild. In Kentucky, elk went extinct about 200 years ago. The original species of elk, cevus elaphus canadensis, no longer exists; however, the national park service reintroduced a similar species, cervus elaphus manitobensis to the area and have started a program to manage elk in the area. In the case of the original elk, the extinction was likely caused by overhunting and habitat destruction by early settlers.

It’s true that in the case of the horse, the time between its extinction and reintroduction is comparatively large-- at approximately 10,000 years. But the time difference really doesn’t matter overall; In the first place, the horse survived on other continents and remained relatively similar to the original horse (as evident by the mtDNA research). Secondly, we are not reintroducing a species that has never seen its original land for thousands of years; In the case of the horse, it has been roaming the land for the past several hundred years. Any major problems that horses would have cause to the land would have logically already happened-- in the 19th and 20th centuries when the horse population was between two and four million. If the horse was going to damage the environment or threaten native species, it would have already done so. The land and the horses have had time to adjust already, so we are not risking anything environmentally in reclassifying the horse. This is not to say that horses do not have an adverse impact on the environment-- like any species that doesn’t have enough natural predators and isn’t managed, horses will overgraze the land.

Another point to consider is that populations naturally expand and shrink. Some populations of organisms may shift into different areas naturally, without human intervention. If the horse had shrunk into a small herd area and 10,000 years later expanded across North America, it would be native. If the horse had ‘‘naturally’ reintroduced itself before the Spanish explorers arrived, it would be considered a native species. On remote islands where plant seeds or migrating birds may be blown ashore and establish populations, they are considered native. We separate species that are reintroduced by storms or other occurrences differently than species introduced by humans-- but should we? One can argue that humans are a part of nature and as such everything we do is ‘natural’. I don’t agree with this position, but I do think that in some cases a species that is introduced by humans or by a violent storm are both ‘‘freak’ accidents that occasionally happen in nature, and each case needs to be handled separately.

A complication in labeling a species as ‘native’ is that all of our classifications are manmade. The line between species, sub-species, and related strains is blurred--in fact, all the distinctions we make are artificial. A common definition of a species is, “a group of related organisms that share a similar form and are capable of interbreeding.” However, the distinctions get tricky when you have animals like dogs-- usually considered all one species, but in some cases unable to interbreed--and when you have other animals that are capable of producing viable offspring but in the wild don’t. Species is merely a distinction we make in different animals for our own clarity. What does it really matter if the original wild horse was slightly different than the modern horse? Natural distinctions occur in members of the same species. What degree of separation should we tolerate? I think a horse is a horse-- regardless of the small genetic changes made of 10,000 years, the fact that the horse is able to survive in our current climate shows that it is similar enough to the original horses to earn a place in our ecosystem.

Ultimately, we have to decide what type of 'nature' we want on our lands. Very little about the wilderness is actually 'natural'. We manage animal populations, decide which areas of land should be preserved, and create hunting seasons, and introduce or trap predators as needed. Americans should be able to have some say in how public lands are managed-- whether they should be managed for the two million cattle and other livestock that graze, or for the native wildlife and wild horses. Overwhelmingly Americans have chosen to protect horses, and that's no doubt due to the romantic image that surrounds the wild horse. But the romanticism can be justified-- the mustang has been a huge part of our culture, and without it, America would not be the same. This was realized in 2004 when congress declared December 13 as National Day of the Horse, stating, “…the horse is a living link to the history of the United States; …without horses, the economy, history, and character of the United States would be profoundly different; … horses are a vital part of the collective experience of the United States and deserve protection and compassion”.
There is nothing wrong with romanticizing nature, because it motivates us to preserve and enjoy the wilderness. If letting a few thousand wild horses remain on lands they already thrive in makes the public appreciate wilderness more, then that's good. Wild horses have already become a part of our landscape, our history, and culture. To give them native status would help ensure their future survival.






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