Feral and free-roaming horse populations exist worldwide, raising complex welfare and management questions. Humane population management that respects horse welfare requires evidence-based approaches.
Free-roaming horses exist in a welfare paradox: natural living with its challenges versus managed living with its restrictions. During drought or hard winters, horses on overgrazed ranges experience hunger, dehydration, and physiological deterioration over extended periods. Helicopter roundups cause intense fear and flight response, physical injuries from falls and collisions, and the welfare trauma of family group disruption. Holding facilities following roundups house horses in conditions that may cause their own welfare problems. Immunocontraception delivered to free-roaming mares by dart represents a welfare advance — population management without roundup stress — but is more resource-intensive per animal than mass capture.