‘The Wild Horse Is Us’

What explains America's strange relationship with the horse?
I think it's something very deep and primal. We love the wild but want to tame it. The lone survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn—that's how he was billed at the time, in 1876, on the country's bicentennial—was a horse named Comanche, described by the army as "our great silent witness" in his retirement citation. He had seen many terrible things and continued to do so, including the massacre at Wounded Knee, watching it from the pack train, even though he was no longer on active duty. And that's what these horses are. They are our witnesses. They've been on the front lines with us since day one; they know our deepest darkest secrets, and there's a part of us that can't take it.

What needs to be done?
I have a solution: The BLM keeps complaining about the "expense" of managing wild horses. Its annual budget of $39 million dollars is not much these days, but if money is really an issue for the agency, then the government should ask Americans to donate to the cause of preservation, and put a box at the end of IRS forms, just like they do with various other funds and even the presidential election, asking taxpayers to check off a box and the amount of the donation. It would raise hundreds of millions of dollars. After all, the wild horse is us.

Editor's Note: To read a response to this story from Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal, click here.

© 2008