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Wild Mustangs Essay, Research Paper

Wild mustangs have captured the thoughts and imagination of almost everyone at some point in time. From pictures of wild horses silhouetted against the sunset, to visions of the Wild West and the Cowboys and Indians that rode the wild mustangs and ponies. But how much of these stories are true and what part is pure imagination?

My grandfather was a farmer for many years in southern Nevada, and although he was never a “mustanger” he used to tell me some very exciting stories when we would go back to the farm for a visit. I remember as a child looking out across the horizon, and thinking, if I looked hard enough, maybe, just maybe, I would catch a glimpse of the wild horses that ran through those parts. And as a child with a great imagination, I was sure that I saw them -just beyond the horizon! My grandfather has long since sold the farm, moved to town, and passed away. But the stories that he told me and the pictures that I made in my head remain as clear as day and they are what brought me to my topic. I wanted to know where the wild mustangs came from, and what has happened to them.

One of the first reported sightings of a wild horse in Nevada was by John Bidwell in the narrative he wrote as a member of the first emigrant train to California in 1841. The train had been following the Humboldt River and at a stop he writes, “we saw a solitary horse, an indication that trappers had some time been in the vicinity. We tried to catch him but failed; he had been there long enough to become very wild.”(Amaral 15) Another early siting was made by Dan De Quille, who was on a prospecting trip as a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise that was published in Virginia City. He reported that his party saw seven wild horses feeding in the valley of the Stillwater Range, east of Fallon. De Quille surmised that the horsed were “American horses strayed from the droves brought across the plains by emigrants.” (Amaral 15)

Are the wild mustangs that have been fantasized about for so many generations really just “stray” or feral horses? Well, as I was a little disappointed to discover, yes they are, but they have a very interesting history.

The modern horse that is found in America was introduced by way of Europe, not only by the Spanish but also by the settlers along the Atlantic seaboard. Horses were among the first animals brought by these people to America. The Spanish brought horses to America as early as 1514, when the Spanish first arrived in Mexico. Over time the horses spread northward into the American West. Other horses also migrated west from the eastern seaboard. These are the same horses that were acquired by the Indians through both trade and theft. This history makes the horses know in the west not a wild mustang but feral horse, a horse that formerly had been domesticated, or its descendant. These horses may have developed some markings and senses that characterized its ancestors living in the wild, but it was still the modern equus. (Wyman) The introduction of the horse to America by the Europeans was not the first time horses had roamed the Americas.

The true wild horse is a remote ancestor of the domesticated and feral horse of our era, and was indigenous to the American continent. In those years so long ago, when semitropical woodlands and lush vegetation provided a hospitable environment, and after the dinosaurs had been gone, the first horse was about the size of a fox. Its forefoot had four toes and the back had three. Scientists have found thousands of crushed skulls and skeleton fragments of this tiny animal, called Eohippus. (Haines 5) Another distinct type of the early horse was a three-toed creature the size of a sheep. These animals developed and adapted over time. The last believed stage in this development of the horse shows the size of the skeleton to range from the smallest Shetland pony to a large draft horse. There is a skeleton mounted in the Yale Museum that stands fifteen hands high and is said to have “somewhat the proportions of a western broncho, but with a very large head and with teeth greater than the modern dray horse…”(Wyman 20). This one-toed animal roamed not only the North and South American continents but also Europe and Asia. Evolutionary data shows the gradual change in bones, teeth, and the skeleton of the horse, as well as the development of special parts of the body affecting its ability to run and eat. It is unknown why the horse disappeared in North and South America but not in Asia. There are several theories, but none seem to hold as it is evident from the amazing way in which the few imported horses multiplied and spread, that the environment was right. We therefor look to other reasons of extinction such as insect-transmitted disease. It is likely that we would be without horses at all had there not been a migration of the prehistoric horse to Africa and Asia, where the line continued to develop into the modern equus and also the zebra and the ass.

There seems to be no agreement as to the ancestral home of the horse. Claims have been made that the Tarpan or the Equus Przhevalski, found on the Gobi Desert in recent years, is the true progenitor of the modern horse. This animal was found by the Russian army officer, Przhevalski, and brought to the United States and England to be studied. These horses can still be found and caught in the steppe country of Asia, but there is no evidence that they can be domesticated.

Modern horses are presumed to have their origin in several wild species, and not just the Tarpan alone. Regardless of their definite origin, and line of decent, they thrived and spread from Asia to Europe. In Europe the development of the horse is that of its incorporation into civilization. This incorporation eventually led to the return of the horse to North America.

As stated before, the

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