Horses evolved in North America. They are a North American species. They were a North American species for millions of years until they went extinct 12,000 years ago. Then horses were brought back to North America by Europeans, but they are still the same lineage of horse that evolved millions of years ago.

Scientists have discovered that horses moved across the Bering land bridge that connected North America and Asia during glacial periods when the sea level across the world was much lower than it is today, exposing a land bridge connecting these two continents. Horses moved back and forth from North America into Siberia. When horses went extinct 12,000 years ago, they were locally extinct but horses were not globally extinct. When Europeans brought horses back to North America several hundred years ago, that was simply reintroducing a native species to the North American continent.

There is no wild horse and burro population problem on federal lands. The issue is the greed of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and other livestock interests that want no competitors for the grass that grows on our public lands. There are now more than 4.3 million cattle and sheep on our western lands – 30 of these for every wild horse across all public lands in the American West. These ranchers have long wanted to exterminate the wild equines, who eons ago occupied a central role in the North American ecosystem, or these ranchers want to reduce them to remnant populations that are the equivalent of functional extinction.

Richard M. Karcich

Centennial