<P> By the 1950s, the mustang population dropped to an estimated 25,000 horses . Abuses linked to certain capture methods, including hunting from airplanes and poisoning water holes, led to the first federal free - roaming horse protection law in 1959 . This statute, titled "Use of aircraft or motor vehicles to hunt certain wild horses or burros; pollution of watering holes" popularly known as the "Wild Horse Annie Act", prohibited the use of motor vehicles for capturing free - roaming horses and burros . Protection was increased further by the Wild and Free - Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHABA). </P> <P> The Wild and Free - Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 provided for protection of certain previously established herds of horses and burros . It mandated the BLM to oversee the protection and management of free - roaming herds on lands it administered, and gave U.S. Forest Service similar authority on National Forest lands . A few free - ranging horses are also managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service . and the National Park Service . but for the most part they are not subject to management under the Act . A census completed in conjunction with passage of the Act found that there were approximately 17,300 horses (25,300 combined population of horses and burros) on the BLM - administered lands and 2,039 on National Forests . </P> <P> The BLM has established Herd Management Areas to determine where and how many animals will be sustained as free - roaming populations . Some populations of free - roaming horses and burros remain protected under the Act, but others have disappeared from places where there were once established populations . A few hundred free - roaming horses survive in Alberta and British Columbia . The BLM considers roughly 26,000 individuals a manageable number, but the feral mustang population in February 2010 was 33,700 horses and 4,700 burros . More than half of all mustangs in North America are found in Nevada (which features the horses on its State Quarter), with other significant populations in California, Oregon, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming . Another 34,000 horses are in holding facilities . </P> <P> Controversy surrounds the role horses have in the ecosystem as well as their rank in the prioritized use of public lands, particularly in relation to livestock . There are multiple viewpoints . Some supporters of Mustangs on public lands asserts that, while not native, mustangs are a "culturally significant" part of the American West, and acknowledge some form of population control is needed . Another viewpoint is that mustangs reinhabited an ecological niche vacated when horses went extinct in North America 10,000 years ago, with a variant characterization that horses are a reintroduced native species that should be legally classified as "wild" rather than "feral" and managed as wildlife . There also was a hypothesis that the Plains Indians had horses prior to the arrival of the Spanish, though a 2010 study of the Pryor herd largely debunked the proposal . </P>

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