1) “The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America” by Craig C. Downer: http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajls.20140201.12.pdf
Summary: The prevailing view is that the horse species (Equus caballos) is not native to North America and only appeared on the scene 500 years ago, but this article describes how horses are most likely native to North America, and were killed off by humans before being later reintroduced by the Spanish about 500 years ago. The article is written from an evolutionary point of view, but describes various fossils of equines that originated in North America. While the “millions of years” is debatable, the fossils are not. The evidence, including fossils, DNA, an actual frozen Equus caballos dating back 10,000 years, pre-Columbian cave paintings of horses, as well as Chinese writings from over 3,000 years ago describing horses resembling modern Appaloosas, indicates that the equine animal family originated in North America and spread outward, perhaps on ice bridges during the Ice Age (after the Flood, according to a Creationist perspective), or perhaps was brought to othe continents by humans after earmy people visited North Americ, possibly the Chinese. Equus caballos was present in North America approximately 10,000 years ago, which indicates that the horse species originated in North America. The article continues on to describe how horses benefit the North American ecosystem.
2) “The Declining Importance of Public Lands Ranching in the West” by Mark N. Salvo: http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1217&context=plrlr
Summary: The article describes the debate over how important public lands ranching is to the U.S. economy. The pro-ranching industry says that raising grazing fees will cost America jobs and cause Americans to go hungry, but is this really the case? The article claims that it isn’t. The article describes how the majority of our beef products do not come from public lands ranching, even though ranchers hold such an enormous number of cattle on those lands (approximately 4,000,000.) Such a massive population of non-native animals is undoubtedly extremely damaging to the environment. On top of that, Americans are moving away from eating beef, which is causing cattle ranching to die a natural death. Grazing fees and wild horses are not causing it, the nation’s diet as a whole is. Americans are discovering that beef is not a sustainable diet. The article describes how every year there are fewer and fewer ranchers, and fewer beef producers in general nationwide. Cattle ranch-related jobs, ranching included, make up only around 5% of jobs in the Western United States. The article even goes so far as to say that completely eliminating the ranching industry in the West would not cause any significant employment impact or loss of food.
3) “Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward” by the National Research Council: http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/wild-horses-report-brief-final.pdf
Summary: The article describes how the Bureau of Land Management’s current method of removals and stockpiling is ineffective and expensive (not to mention inhumane), and will ultimately send the BLM into a financial train wreck. The BLM is not using scientifically sound methods to keep wild horse populations under control, and thus the horses double their populations every 4 – 5 years, many are starving, and there are more horses in BLM captivity than the BLM can afford, thus causing questions of euthanasia and horse slaughter that wouldn’t have to be asked if proper science was used in the first place. The National Research Council (of the National Academy of Sciences) recommends that the BLM use on-the-range management – particularly fertility drugs such as PZP – to prevent the horses from overpopulating without requiring removals and stockpiling. On-the-range management would also not remove genetic material, thus keeping the wild herds small (so as not to cause environmental damage), sustainable, and genetically diverse. PZP is also far less expensive than helicopter roundups; it costs approximately $100 to render a mare infertile for a minimum of 2 years, whereas it costs over $1,000 to remove and process a single wild horse for adoption, and that’s assuming the horse will be adopted (there is always a chance it will not find a home and will live out its life in a BLM corral, sucking up tax dollars in feed and veterinary care). The article mentioned how the wild ponies on Assateague Island have been managed through PZP since 1988 and have been kept at a stable population of 150. PZP is tried and true. Roundups do not work.
(Lovely with her stallion, Fermat) 