Ep #22: Revisiting: Wild Horses Live in Families

During the holiday season, we are all reminded of the familial bonds we have and how they are fluid and dynamic over time. Families don’t necessarily consist only of blood relatives, and perhaps unsurprisingly, this is true for wild horses as well. Wild horses aren’t just roaming free, they’re living in tight-knit families. This understanding of wild horse culture is especially crucial if we want to preserve them and their ways. 

Wild horse families aren’t static. You have the youngsters leaving home, the stallions gaining new mares and losing some, and then you have younger stallions challenging the older stallions for their families. Every time I go out, I see changes to different families. These family bonds need to be respected and managed humanely on the lands they call home. But roundups by the Bureau of Land Management are disrupting these tight-knit bands and causing physical, emotional, and mental distress by separating mares from foals, stallions from mares, young from old, and thereby threatening an iconic American species.

Listen to this replay of a previous episode, “Wild Horses Live in Families.” I underline why it’s so important to keep our wild horses in the United States on our public lands, wild and free with their families. I’m wishing you all Happy Holidays.

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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• What the role of lead mares in a family is and how it evolves.
• Why the continuity of the family unit remains important. 
• How tight family bonds of wild horses are often misunderstood.
• How wild horses form social structures and their sophisticated behaviors. 
• Why roundups that separate families are especially harmful. 
• The changes that could help preserve wild horses on our public lands.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

• Follow along on Facebook and Instagram!
• Living Images by Carol Walker
• Wild Hoofbeats Blog
• Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses by Carol Walker

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