I don’t know enough about wild horse management policies to know whether this critique is accurate. I would note, however, that environmentalist outcry over the Bush Administration’s alleged failure to protect wild horses on the western range is a bit ironic as these horses are not indigenous to North America. There were other horse species on the continent way back when, but they all died off several hundred years ago. All the horses here now — wild and domesticated — are descended from stock brought over by European settlers. It is a bit much to pretend that herds of wild horses are somehow part of the West’s natural legacy. That there are any wild horses on the Western range at all is merely happenstance.

Usually, enviros complain about “alien” and “exotic” species and their environmental impacts. Indeed, that’s one of the arguments some Greens make against grazing cattle. But now that wild horses compete for rangeland with ranchers and other land users, it seems some environmentalists are ready to take up this alien species’ call.