Horses and cattle chew and digest grass differently. Horses have upper & lower teeth and bite grass off, cattle have one row of teeth and tear grass out from roots. Horses have one stomach and therefore are great benefit for range because they disperse seeds as they roam. Cattle have 4 stomachs that process seeds so do not disperse to reseed range. So horses are a natural benefit to the environment. Cattle stay in one place until moved, horses roam and do not eat everything. They follow nature’s way of leaving some growth behind. If fences are put up they can not roam to different areas. If cattle are at the watering holes, the wild horses and burros can’t get the water they need.
In the spring, the cattle are put out on a range area and they eat all the grass down and are then moved on to another range, so it sets the horses up for failure because the cattle pulled the grasses out by the roots and with the summer droughts, the horses are left with poor range land.
It is not the horses fault for bad management of the land
and it is not fair to blame the horses for bad range and water conditions.
When ratios of 1,000,000 cattle and sheep to one horse, the horse loses.
This is why fences should not block the horses natural nomadic lifestyle,
they roam to where conditions allow them to exist. The law says they have the right to live on public land and the BLM is supposed to manage their existence, not to eliminate them and round them up to go to holding pens for the rest of their lives or God forbid, the slaughterhouse. They should be allowed to roam free with genetically viable herds, not by zeroing out the herds. There are less that 180 wild horse herds left in the West. There used to be a million horses for centuries and they were good for the land. Man and the cattle came in and changed the balance of nature. Science will confirm all this.
The BLM had a national study done last year and documents the benefits of wild horses and burros and what is needed to protect their existence before it is too late.
Otherwise the wild horse will only be seen in the movies. They are living treasures that need protection.