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PHOTOGRAPHS BY MELISSA FARLOW
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By Rachael Bale, ANIMALS Executive Editor
This is one of those newsletters where I buck up and prepare for the onslaught of angry emails. Hold onto your hats, because today, we’re talking about wild horses.
Or are they feral horses? It depends on who you ask. And whichever term you use, someone’s going to tell you you’re wrong. We admittedly side-stepped the problem in our latest story, by Nat Geo’s Natasha Daly, calling them “free-ranging horses.”
Did you know there are 86,000 roaming the West (pictured above, in Utah)? They’re descended from horses the Europeans first brought over starting in the 16th century, and there’s no denying they’re gorgeous. Majestic, even. There’s a reason they became a symbol of the American West.
The problem—or not (again, it depends on who you ask)—is their fast-growing numbers. They share a fragile landscape with native wildlife, a landscape that’s increasingly threatened by warming temperatures and lengthening droughts. They’re also sharing it with livestock.
This many animals on the land means good grazing and water can get scarce, and that could lead to slow, painful deaths.
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