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The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range is a refuge for a historically significant herd of free-roaming Mustangs, feral horses colloquially called "wild horses",〔Technically, a wild horse is one which has never been domesticated and which is not descended from domesticated horses. There is only one truly wild subspecies extant in the world today, the Przewalski's horse of Mongolia. A feral horse is a free-roaming, untamed horse which is descended from domesticated ancestors. All horses that were once native to North America died out between 13,000 and 9,000 years ago, and current free-roaming horses in North America are descendants of European, Middle Eastern, and North African horses brought to the North America mainland beginning with the arrival of Hernan Cortez in the early 1500s. See: Hill and Klimesh, p. 46. There is an ongoing dispute whether the Mustang is a reintroduced native species or an introduced invasive species. Thus, the choice of terms can be politically loaded. Some argue that the term "feral horse" denies the horse's prehistoric existence in North America and human beings' role in exterminating it from the continent, while others say that the term "wild horse" denies that the modern horse was introduced by Europeans. See the discussion in: ("Are Wild Horses Native to the U.S.? A Federal Court Seeks the Answer," ''Los Angeles Times,'' June 5, 2011 ), accessed 2011-06-06. There is ongoing debate about terminology and the significance of genetic differences between feral and wild horses.〕 located in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and Wyoming in the United States. The range has an area of 〔Massingham, p. 7.〕 and was established in 1968 along the Montana–Wyoming border as the first protected refuge dedicated exclusively for Mustangs.〔(Lynghaug, p. 104. )〕 It was the second feral horse refuge in the United States.〔Flores, p. 121. The Nevada Wild Horse Range was established in 1962. However, the land which forms the range was already part of the weapons testing range of Nellis Air Force Base, and thus was not the first refuge established solely for the protection of wild horses, as the range also served the armed forces.〕 About a quarter of the refuge lies within the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.〔("Wild Horses." Billings Field Office. Bureau of Land Management. United States Department of the Interior. May 2, 2011. ) Accessed 2011-05-18.〕 A group of federal agencies, led by the Bureau of Land Management, administers the range.〔("Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range." Billings Field Office . Bureau of Land Management. U.S. Department of the Interior. May 2, 2011. ) Accessed 2011-05-27.〕 Because of the unique genetic makeup of the Pryor Mountains Mustang herd, equine geneticist Dr. E. Gus Cothran concluded in 1992 that "the Pryor herd may be the most significant wild-horse herd remaining in the United States."〔Quoted in (Ryden, p. 320. )〕 Dr. D. Phillip Sponenberg, equine veterinarian at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, agreed, noting, "(animals ) don't exist anywhere else."〔(Cohen, Betsy. "Survivors of Time: Lost Horses of the Pryor Mountains." ''The Missoulian.'' August 15, 1999. ) Accessed 2011-06-07.〕 ==Establishing the range== In 1900, there were two to five million feral horses in the United States.〔Evans, p. 134.〕 However, their numbers were in steep decline as domestic cattle and sheep competed with them for resources.〔Lynghaug, p. 104.〕 After the mid-1930s, their numbers fell even more drastically due to intervention by the U.S. government. The United States Forest Service and the U.S. Grazing Service (the predecessor to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)) began to remove feral horses from federal land. The two agencies were concerned that there were too many horses on the land, which led to overgrazing and significant soil erosion. Ranchers wanted the feral horses removed because they were grazing on land ranchers wanted to use for their own livestock. Hunters were worried that as horses degraded range land, hunting species would also suffer. It was not clear that there were too many horses, or that the land was incurring damage due to the presence of the horses. Nonetheless, both agencies responded to political pressure to act, and they began to remove hundreds of thousands of feral horses from federal property. From 1934 to 1963, the Grazing Service (and from 1946 onward, the BLM) paid private contractors to kill Mustangs and permitted their carcasses to be used for pet food.〔("The Fight to Save Wild Horses." ''Time.'' July 12, 1971. ) Accessed 2011-05-23.〕 Ranchers were often permitted to round up any horses they wanted, and the Forest Service shot any remaining animals.〔 Feral horse advocates were unhappy with the Forest Service and BLM's horse culling procedures. They argued that herding horses from the air or by motorized vehicle (such as motorcycles) terrorized the animals and caused numerous and cruel injuries. Led by Velma Bronn Johnston—better known as "Wild Horse Annie," a secretary at an insurance firm in Reno, Nevada—animal welfare and horse advocates lobbied for passage of a federal law to prevent this kind of hunting.〔 Their efforts were successful. On September 8, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Hunting Wild Horses and Burros on Public Lands Act (Public Law 86- 234, also known as the "Wild Horse Annie Act"), which banned the hunting of feral horses on federal land from aircraft or motorized vehicles.〔"Eisenhower Signs Bill Protecting Wild Horses." ''New York Times.'' September 9, 1959.〕 However, in 1961 President John F. Kennedy ordered the United States Department of the Interior to implement measures to stop soil erosion on federal land.〔Cruise and Griffiths, p. 188.〕 On the Pryor Mountains range, where there were about 140 to 200 horses, BLM ordered in 1964 that the horses be removed.〔〔Crutchfield, p. 98.〕 Fearful that the horses were not going to be stabled but that the roundup was a prelude to slaughter of the entire herd, in 1966 Johnston began a letter-writing and public relations campaign against the BLM.〔"U.S. Studies Fate of Wild Horse Herd Roaming Montana." ''New York Times.'' April 7, 1968.〕〔Cruise and Griffiths, p. 188-192.〕 Johnston's goal was the establishment of a permanent refuge for the Pryor Mountains herd,〔Cruise and Griffiths, p. 192.〕 but this was a daunting task. Hunting and ranching lobby groups had strongly opposed establishment of a feral horse refuge in Nevada, and only accepted creation of the Nevada Wild Horse Range in 1962 because it was within the Nellis Air Force Range area of (renamed Nevada Test and Training Range in 2001).〔Ryden, p. 269.〕 In 1965, Johnston founded the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (ISPMB), a nonprofit group dedicated to educating the public about the plight of feral horses and burros, which and lobbied Congress and the executive branch for their protection on public land.〔Silverstein, Silverstein, and Nunn, p. 37.〕 Johnston and her group had several local allies as well. They included Bessie Tillett (a widowed rancher's wife in her 80s) and her sons, Royce and Lloyd Tillett. The Tilletts tried to protect the feral horses beginning in 1964, claiming them as their own and threatening BLM officials who tried to remove the herd from land the Tilletts leased from BLM.〔〔Neil, p. 69.〕 (The Tilletts also kept feral horses from the herd on their private land, and began adopting them out.)〔Lynghaug, p. 104-105.〕 BLM officials suspended the Tilletts' lease in 1966 (the reason was inadequate fencing), forcing the family to give up their claim to many horses.〔 Others who wanted to protect the herd included ranchers and the people of nearby Lovell, Wyoming, who saw the horses not only as part of Western heritage but also a major tourist attraction.〔 The ISPMB and its allies proved highly effective in raising public awareness of the issue and building political support for their efforts, and in 1966 BLM suspended its plans for the roundup.〔 In 1968, BLM proposed three new plans for dealing with the Pryor Mountains Mustang herd: Removing but not killing all but 30 to 35 animals and allowing the rest to remain on the range; killing all but 10 to 15 animals and allow the herd to recover to 30 animals; or allowing the state of Montana to remove all the animals and sell them.〔 In response, Pryor Mountains horse advocates began pushing for a protected sanctuary for these animals. The group contacted ABC News producer Hope Ryden and made her aware of BLM's plans. Ryden visited the range and filmed a news segment which aired on July 11, 1968, on ''ABC News'' with Frank Reynolds.〔Ryden, p. 251.〕〔Unti, p. 214; Cruise and Griffiths, p. 211.〕 ABC News and BLM were "deluged" with mail protesting the removal of the horses after the segment aired.〔 On August 27, 1968, the Humane Society of the United States successfully sued to stop trapping of the horses.〔Ryden, p. 255-256.〕 The political landscape shifted dramatically toward protection rather than removal of the horses. On September 9, 1968, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall formally established a Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range of .〔 Montana's senior Senator, Mike Mansfield, was so elated that he published Udall's order scrapping the BLM plan in the ''Congressional Record.''〔Crutchfield, p. 99.〕 The size of the range was determined by law, which specified that the range could cover only those areas where feral horses existed in 1971 (but not necessarily historically). A boundary fence had been constructed between BLM and Forest Service land in the 1940s, which significantly affected feral horse distribution in the Pryor Mountains and restricted the horses to rangeland south, east, and west of the Custer National Forest.〔(Billings Field Office, p. 92. ) Accessed 2011-06-07.〕 By 1968, when the refuge was created, fences completely surrounded what became the refuge, limiting the horses' spread.〔 Both BLM and the Forest Service interpreted the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 as requiring protection of feral horses only on those lands where the horses existed as of 1971, not lands which they had historically used.〔(Billings Field Office, p. 96. ) Accessed 2011-06-07.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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