I live in an area with a large "wild" horse population. They aren't technically "wild", they are actually "feral" horses. These horses are not native to North America, they are descendants of domestic horses who escaped the Spanish and American explorers and pioneers. You can see large herds of them within twenty miles of the town I live in.

The BLM's management of these horses has always come under fire, as long as I remember. The current course of action is to round them up and auction them off to buyers. One must fill out an application and agree to keep the horse for a period of time. Good in theory - just like the adoption process for shelter dogs and cats. However, what happens in practice is that most people find they got in over their heads in breaking and training. And the period of time they must keep the horse is relatively short. So, a good number of these horses end up being sold after a year or two ... often to NOT good places.

I fully agree with the author's statement that livestock is the biggest single damaging element to Western lands. A few thousand horses and pronghorn are absolutely NOTHING compared to hundreds of thousands of cattle roaming free on public lands.