Reclassify Wild Horses as a Native Species
Wild horses have lived on the North American landscape far longer than many of the animals we legally recognize as “native.” Science confirms that the modern horse evolved here on this continent before becoming extinct during the Pleistocene and returning with the Spanish. Their DNA links directly to the prehistoric horses that once roamed the same basins, valleys, and mountain ranges they occupy today.
Yet despite their deep evolutionary roots, wild horses are still classified as “non-native” or “feral,” a label that drives policy decisions that harm them: mass roundups, removals, and the slow erasure of their presence on public lands.
Reclassifying wild horses as a returned native species would change everything. It would:
Acknowledge the scientific record of their origins
Strengthen ecological protections
Require land managers to treat them as part of America’s natural heritage, not as an invasive population
Support more humane, sustainable management that respects their evolutionary role in the ecosystem
This isn’t just a policy shift—it’s an overdue correction. Wild horses belong here. They always have