Saving Wyoming's Wild Horses | where to see Mustangs

There are wild horses all over the West and most of them are on public land that is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. They actually extend all the way back to the 1600s when the Spaniards brought the horses over and some of them escaped and they've been roaming the Wild West ever since. And so they actually, since the 1970s, have been protected by a law. You can't kill off these horses in wild burrows that are roaming around. But the problem is, with the Bureau of Land Management and all that, is that the wild horses are overgrazing the land. So they're just, the numbers are kind of exploding and they are in a bit of a bind. There's too many of these horses out there grazing too much land. This is a wildly political situation actually between environmentalists and animal rights activists and farmers and ranchers and the states and the federal government. It's a crazy complicated thing. But what's happening is that the Bureau of Land Management is trying to reduce the number of horses that are on this land, roaming on this land and overgrazing, and trying to find homes for these horses. So this here is called the Wind River Wild Horse Range. And what they've done is they have accepted a bunch of horses, over 200 of these wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management, and have put them on their ranch basically. So that they at least have a home to graze where they're relatively free to roam. Now the cool thing is, you can come here and they'll take you on a tour. And so we came here and she loaded us up on their Polaris Ranger and drove us out to the ranch here where the horses are roaming around. This is a totally different experience than the one we went on in Cody, Wyoming. So there's a wild horse range there in Cody that is actually just Bureau of Land Management area. But you can still book a tour to go on that one and they'll just take you out and try to find these wild roaming horses in a large area. You can't get very close to those ones in Cody. That's called the McCulloch Peaks Horse Herd. And you can't get very close to those ones, but here you can. So they'll take you on their four-wheeler right out there. And although they are wild, they're at least, you know, used to being around people. Because these people, they do have to move them around a little bit so that they're not overgrazing on the land so that they have food to eat. So they're kind of used to it. So it's kind of cool. You go out there, they've even given some of them names. And let's see, Trouble came up and wanted me to pet him for a while. And then there was a couple who were just kind of putting their heads in our four-wheeler and our kids were really having a good time. One of them scratched his butt right next to Cheryl on the four-wheeler. That was pretty funny. That's the best. And so, and they kind of cause trouble. The reason why they have named the one horse Trouble is because he's stolen some seeds and broken some of the parts on the four-wheeler. So that's kind of funny. Now, these horses that you see behind me here, these are actually mostly younger horses who already have a home. So they've come here for kind of a temporary holding, and then they're going to be adopted out to some private people who are adopting. So anybody, you included, can adopt a horse or a wild burrow from the Bureau of Land Management. In fact, that's kind of one of the reasons why this situation here, this Wind River Horse Sanctuary exists, is because they're trying to kind of get the word out that, hey, you can adopt these horses and give them a home. And so it is possible. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management will pay you to adopt them a lot of times, because again, they're just trying to get rid of these. There's so many horses, so many more horses than the land can handle, that they're just trying to kind of find a home for these horses and donkeys and stuff. So these guys are ready to go to a home, but they'll take you out to see the other guys who, this is their final resting place, basically, they're just kind of roaming this land here. So this was really interesting to me because I thought, you know, it was going to be a lot like the Cody tour, where they were just going to be very far away. But what's really cool about this one is you get right up close to them and get to know them a little bit and have a little fun with them. Definitely something to do if you're in the lander area.