Wild horses and burros on western US public lands are managed through a controversial system of roundups and holding that involves significant welfare concerns.
Wild horse management welfare is caught between ecological carrying capacity and cultural reverence for free-roaming horses. Helicopter roundups cause acute welfare harm: running horses for miles, separating family bands, and confining range animals to holding facilities. Long-term holding of thousands of horses in corrals is a welfare compromise that persists indefinitely at public expense. Fertility control programs that reduce wild populations humanely represent the welfare-positive alternative but require sustained investment.