06/17/2026
BELONG.
Across continents, free-roaming horse populations are being displaced or removed from the landscapes they have occupied for generations.
From American mustangs to Australian brumbies and Dartmoor ponies, the challenge is no longer local. It is global.
And it begins with a simple principle: Wild Horses Belong.
In Australia, the brumbies of Kosciuszko National Park have become the focus of one of the largest and most terrifying wild horse reduction programs in the world. A disputed 6,000-16,000 population is being reduced, by unthinkable lethal means, to approximately 3,000, representing the removal of more than 80 percent of the herd.
In England, where Dartmoor ponies have shaped the moor for centuries, populations have declined from an estimated 6,000–7,000 animals a generation ago to fewer than 1,000 today.
Without meaningful intervention, up to 90 percent of the remaining population could disappear, killing off one of Europe's last remaining free-roaming pony cultures.
In the United States, more than 65,000 wild horses and burros are confined in government holding facilities and federal spending on the Wild Horse and B***o Program exceeds $150 million annually, with the majority devoted to roundup and holding operations rather than keeping horses on the range.
These issues emerge from different ecological, political, and cultural contexts, yet reveal the same underlying reality: when demands for land intensify, wild horses are expected to give way.
The issue is not whether habitats should be managed. Every landscape requires management. The issue is whether management begins with an assumption that free-roaming horses have a legitimate place.
The trajectory in each country is the same. Fewer horses. Less habitat. Reduced tolerance. Increasing confinement, removal, or exclusion.
Policies must be re-designed around maintaining viable, free-roaming populations—not perpetuating cyclical crises and threatening mass slaughter when conflicts arise.
Learn more, do more
Australian Brumby Alliance
https://australianbrumbyalliance.org.au/
Friends of The Dartmoor Hill Pony
https://www.wildtowonderful.org/
