Sometimes it is popular to characterize the mustang and burro as endangered species. That is inappropriate. There are many thousands of wild horses and burros in several of the western states.

Although it is difficult to get accurate population figures, simply because of the remoteness and rugged nature of the land where the mustangs and burros live, reasonable estimates put the number of wild horses at between 30,000 and 45,000. Approximately 75% of the mustangs are in Nevada. Oregon, California, Wyoming and Montana have most of the rest, with smaller numbers in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and Arizona. The preponderance of burro population ranges in southeastern California, southwestern Nevada and northwestern Arizona, from Death Valley to Kingman.

Beginning in July, 1993, and continuing for the next five years, George Berrier and a group of AMBA, Inc. members spent most of a week each summer on horseback (always riding mustangs) surveying wild horse herds in northern Nevada and northeastern California. We found those herds to be in good condition, with plenty of water and forage, in sufficient numbers to provide a viable gene pool for continued reproduction. In that part of the country the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has done an adequate job of managing the land properly so as to balance the needs of the wild horses, antelopes, deer and cattle, all of which share that little corner of the world. AMBA,Inc. will continue to do these rides from time to time in the summer and will invite AMBA, Inc. members to participate.

One of the problems which occurs from time to time among wild horses is overpopulation. Except in rare instances, the wild horse is not bothered by predators. In one small area of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains there is a wild horse herd whose population growth is controlled by mountain lions. But that is the exception.

Therefore, when there is plenty of water and forage the horses become healthy and produce good foal crops. More horses are born than die of old age, so that there is an increase in population each year until eventually competition for the available forage becomes very strenuous.

Then, when a drought comes along, as was the case for six years from 1988 to 1994 here in the West, many horses simply die from lack of water. Also, when there are too many horses for the amount of forage the condition of the horses is much poorer, rendering them less capable of surviving severe winter weather and then many horses either starve or freeze to death.

The BLM adoption program has been beneficial, in that it has provided an outlet for excess numbers of horses beyond that which the range will sustain. The determination of what is excess and the gathering process are certainly imperfect, but it is one vehicle which can be employed to control overpopulation. Some horses which are captured cannot be adopted. The AMBA, Inc. solution for those horses is to have a sanctuary system.

Another population control method which has been utilized, very little by BLM, but for years, and with success by the Wild Horse Sanctuary in Shingletown, CA is contraceptive innoculation. This type of fertility control is administered to mares by injection and prevents pregnancy for at least a year. Efforts to develop an innoculation which will be effective for at least two years are underway at this writing and appear likely to succeed soon. Hopefully, BLM will move forward in implementing this method on a widespread basis, to complement its program of gathering for adoption.