Wild mustangs' days of freedom are numbered

In the grasslands and sagebrush of the American West a battle is raging over one of the symbols of the wild, free-running spirit supposedly precious to so many in the US.

In the grasslands and sagebrush of the American West a battle is raging over one of the symbols of the wild, free-running spirit supposedly precious to so many in the US.

For centuries ­ dating back to the Spanish conquistadors ­ wild mustangs have ranged over vast tracts of public land, largely unmanaged and fending for themselves in the prairies and mountain areas.

But amid great controversy, the federal government has decided there are too many of the animals for the land to sustain and that thousands of them must be rounded up. Opponents claim the government is acting under pressure from the powerful cattle lobby, which wants to use the land exclusively for ranching.

"I don't know of any people that could survive out on the land [like the mustangs] and I don't know of that many other animals," said Bobbi Royle, president of Wild Horse Spirit, a campaign group based close to the Virginia Range mountains, east of Reno, Nevada. "But I don't know if they are going to survive this attack against them."

Many of the wild mustangs that currently roam across 10 states in the American West trace their ancestry to the horses brought to the New World by the conquistadors in the 16th century. Others are traced to horses released by farmers and the US Cavalry over the past 150 years.

While some scientists claim that examination of equine remains strongly suggests the horse was indigenous to North America, all agree that it had died out during the Ice Age.

What is also without doubt is the relationship that developed between horses and man, as Europeans and their descendants set about taking over America. But not everyone is a fan of the mustangs. The Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency, wants to reduce their number by half. The bureau says there is not enough land to sustain them.

In April, the Bush administration approved a budget of about $30m (£23m) for this year's round-up.

"The number far exceeds the rangeland's capability to support them," said Bob Abbey, the bureau's director for Nevada. "We need to gather animals in sufficient quantity to get the numbers down to a level that's healthy for the animals and the land." But campaigners say the bureau is acting under pressure from the powerful cattle industry which "rents" grazing on public land for a few dollars per animal. Environmentalists who have sided with the mustang campaigners say the horses have much less ecological impact than the hundreds of thousands of cattle that forage on the ranges.

From a beast of burden, to a form of transport, the horse was an integral tool in the colonisation of the continent. "They are a major historical component of the American Wild West," said Trina Bellak, a spokeswoman for the American Horse Defence Fund, another campaigning and lobbying group that opposes the bureau's plans. "They helped allow America to be settled."

The cattle industry hits back by saying that it vitally needs the forage and that there is too much competition from the wild horses. Rachel Buzetti, executive director of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, said: "It's a problem and the long-term impact is not going to be good for anybody. They've been trying to do periodic round-ups but they are stretching the dollar as far as it can be stretched and they haven't been able to accomplish the task."

At the start of the 20th century there were probably about two million mustangs in the wild; now there are fewer than 50,000.