THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FACING THE PRYOR MOUNTAIN MUSTANGS is not the rugged land in which they live. Like that of all of America’s wild horses, their biggest challenge is Man.
Wild horse management in America has a bloody past. Although many settlers cherished the tough, wily little horses as partners in the conquest of a vast new land, others saw them simply as competition with cattle. For decades the United States Grazing Service (later to become the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM) authorized shooting wild horses on sight. Wild horses once blanketed the plains, thriving in the land of their forefathers. By the late 1960s, it became clear that generations of merciless slaughter had all but wiped them out. The voice of the American people — appropriately enough — finally demanded their freedom.
With the signing of the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burros Act of 1971, the agency that once oversaw the annihilation of wild horses became responsible for their management. Today there are only about half as many wild horses as when the law was passed to protect them.
The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range falls under BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and National Park Service management, all of which juggle the health and well being of the horses there with other values. Due to these multi-agency and multi-use agendas, the Pryor Mountain mustangs are restricted to a much smaller, less productive range than they roamed when the law was passed. The BLM reports that this area cannot presently sustain the number of horses on the Range.
Proposed solutions include downsizing the herd or expanding the range (including the herd’s original grazing areas in the Custer National Forest). Only adequate range expansion can naturally ensure the long-term health and genetic diversity of the Pryor Mountain mustangs. Although they have adapted to all of Nature’s challenges in order to survive in this place, it is ultimately mankind that will decide their fate. Their future remains uncertain.
BACHELORS CIBEQUE, MEDICINE BOW, AND STARBUCK (from left to right) will live out their entire lives along the red rocks and sage of the Dry Head.