How wild horse populations are managed in the US and Australia and what welfare-centred approaches to population control look like.
Wild horse management sits at the intersection of multiple competing interests — conservation, rangeland management, cultural values, and animal welfare — with no simple solution. The welfare of individual wild horses during roundup operations is clearly compromised: the acute stress of helicopter-driven roundup, injuries during capture, and the disruption of established family groups all represent significant welfare events. Fertility control using immunocontraception offers a welfare-superior alternative that has been demonstrated effective in managed populations, avoiding the acute harms of roundup. Its scalability for very large populations remains a challenge, but expanding its use represents meaningful progress toward welfare-positive population management.