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| AZ Equine Rescue Org. Inc | Equine Voices Sanctuary/AZ | |
| KBR Horses/Burros/CA | Return to Freedom/CA | Mustang-Spirit/CA |
| Mustangs4us/CA | Least Resistance Training/CA | Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue/CA |
| Wild Horses In Need /CA | Wild Horse Sanctuary/CA | National Wild Horse/Burro /CA |
| Wild Horse/Burro Alliance/CO | Virginia Range Wildlife/NV | Friends of the Mustangs/CO |
| WHOA /NV | Columbia Basin Rescue/WA | Wild Horse Spirit, Ltd. /NV |
| National Mustang Association/UT | Horse Rescue Links | Intermountain Wild Horse/UT |
| Last Chance Ranch/OR | Western States Wild Horse/NV | Whispering Winds Ranch/OR |
| What about the mustang? (Many early subspecies (Equus) some "PhDs" say they were apparently hunted out by humans, particularly in North America, where the horse became completely extinct.) The horse was reintroduced to the New World by Columbus in 1493. Hernando Cortez, the Spanish Conqueror of Mexico, is generally credited with being the first to land horses on the North American mainland. When animals escaped from an expedition north from Mexico led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1543, accounts of the exact date and number of horses vary—they formed the basis of the continent's first feral horse population. These became known as "mustangs," from the Spanish word "Mesteno," meaning "wild." Between 1600 and 1850, vast herds of mustangs, totaling millions of horses, ranged from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Their number was constantly added to by new escapees and animals deliberately turned loose. Native Americans, who had become acquainted with the horse in Spanish frontier settlements, soon learned to break and ride mustangs. By the late eighteenth century, these horses formed the basis of the Plains Indians' warrior and buffalo-hunting cultures. The development of modern ranching, these emblems of the American West came to be regarded as pests that competed with domestic stock and depleted the range. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, mustangs were rounded up and slaughtered without limit. Many were sold for pet food. Eventually, though, the tide turned. In 1971, when about 17,000 feral horses were left, the US Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act mandated the protection of these animals as a "national heritage species." | ||
| Dun Characteristics | Site Map | Wild Sulphurs in Utah |
