Scratching the surface

As of a few days ago, I've started my research on the history of the American mustang. As it turns out, they have a pretty extensive history. As the title of this entry would suggest, I'm just now scratching the surface. Basically I've learned that mustangs originate from horses brought over by conquistadors in the late 1400's. They were spread north and east from Mexico and what are now the bordering US states of Mexico by the Native Americans. Once more Europeans started arriving in America, they also brought horses and some of those horses were released into the wild which obviously increased the wild mustang population. Until the mid-1900's, people would just release their horses into the wild, and mustangs could be brutally captured and then sold for horse meat or other purposes. Many people became enraged about the treatment of these horses, so in 1971 the US congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, which gave the responsibility of managing wild horses and burros and the land they roam on to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). As far as history goes, that's an overview of what I've learned so far.

In looking for information about the history of the mustang, I also came across lots of current information. I learned part of what the BLM does is keep track of the carrying capacity of the land mustangs are on and when their population exceeds that the BLM goes and and captures mustangs to sell them or put them up for adoption. I learned the mustangs can double their herd size in just 4 years. I also learned that there are almost 37,000 mustangs roaming across 10 states, and that Nevada alone holds almost 18,000 of those horses.

I'm researching these topics so I can write my essay on the history of the American Mustang and then so I can write one on a current issue they are facing.

Here are the sources I found all this information at-

www.nationalwildhorseadoptionday.org/

www.blm.gov

the DK Horse Encyclopedia