Seminar: A Matter of Mustangs: Doing Environmental History with Horses

Since the inception of the 1971 protection law, public lands managers have struggled to maintain acceptable levels of wild horse populations on public lands. Those who raise livestock on public rangelands and wild horse advocates continually litigate over when and how to enact gathers, fertility control, adoption, and long-term holding. The program is expensive and understaffed. Understanding how this situation came to be is the work of environmental history, a field that investigates the human relationship with the physical world, from nature and animals to structures and technology. The context of the 1971 law, the contingencies of its early implementation, and the complexities of climate change inform a deeper understanding of this contested public lands program and highlights productive avenues for more collaborative management.