Feral horse and burro populations in the American West are managed under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, with ongoing welfare controversies around roundups, holding facilities, and population management methods.
Wild horse and burro management involves complex welfare trade-offs between the acute welfare harms of helicopter roundups and the chronic welfare harms of overabundance including starvation, dehydration, and range degradation. Roundups cause acute stress, injury, and separation of family bands that have demonstrated social bonds. Long-term holding facilities, while providing food and water, prevent natural ranging and social behavior. Immunocontraception offers the most welfare-positive population management approach by reducing reproduction without roundup stress, but logistical challenges of applying vaccines to large populations across vast ranges limit its scalability. The political economy of wild horse management involves ranching interests, animal advocacy organizations, and federal agencies with conflicting priorities, making evidence-based welfare improvement politically difficult despite clear scientific guidance.