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The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they are actually feral horses. The original mustangs were Colonial Spanish horses, but many other breeds and types of horses contributed to the modern mustang, now resulting in varying phenotypes. Some free-roaming horses are relatively unchanged from the original Spanish stock, most strongly represented in the most isolated populations.
Adak Island or Father Island is an island near the western extent of the Andreanof Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Alaska's southernmost city, Adak, is located on the island. The island has a land area of 274.59 square miles (711.18 km2), measuring 33.9 miles (54.5 km) long and 22 miles (35 km) wide, making it the 25th largest island in the United States.
Antelope Island, with an area of 42 square miles (109 km2), is the largest of ten islands located within the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The island lies in the southeastern portion of the lake, near Salt Lake City and Davis County, and becomes a peninsula when the lake is at extremely low levels. It is protected as Antelope Island State Park.
The ecological restoration of islands, or island restoration, is the application of the principles of ecological restoration to islands and island groups. Islands, due to their isolation, are home to many of the world's endemic species, as well as important breeding grounds for seabirds and some marine mammals. Their ecosystems are also very vulnerable to human disturbance and particularly to introduced species, due to their small size. Island groups, such as New Zealand and Hawaii, have undergone substantial extinctions and losses of habitat. Since the 1950s several organisations and government agencies around the world have worked to restore islands to their original states; New Zealand has used them to hold natural populations of species that would otherwise be unable to survive in the wild. The principal components of island restoration are the removal of introduced species and the reintroduction of native species.
Buldir Island is a small island in the western Aleutian Islands of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is 4.3 miles (6.9 km) long and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide with an area of 7.4482 square miles (19.291 km2). Buldir is farther from the nearest land than any other Aleutian Island. Its nearest neighbors are Kiska in the Rat Island group, 68 miles (109 km) to the east, and Shemya in the Near Island group, 64 miles (103 km) to the west. Buldir Island is uninhabited. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. It has been designated a Research Natural Area.
Hawadax Island is an island in the Rat Islands archipelago of the western Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska. The island was formerly known as Rat Island until May 2012 when it was renamed Hawadax Island, which is an Aleut name meaning "entry" and "welcome". The island has a land area of 10.3126 sq mi (26.7095 km²) and no permanent population. It is within the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. It is 9.3 miles (15 km) in length and 3.1 miles (5 km) in width.
The Nokota horse is a feral and semi-feral horse breed located in the badlands of southwestern North Dakota in the United States. The breed developed in the 19th century from foundation bloodstock consisting of ranch-bred horses produced from the horses of local Native Americans mixed with Spanish horses, Thoroughbreds, harness horses and related breeds. The Nokota was almost wiped out during the early 20th century when ranchers, in cooperation with state and federal agencies, worked together to reduce competition for livestock grazing. However, when Theodore Roosevelt National Park was created in the 1940s, a few bands were inadvertently trapped inside, and thus were preserved.
Chirikof Island is located in the Gulf of Alaska approximately 80 miles (130 km) southwest of Kodiak Island.
The Plains bison is one of two subspecies/ecotypes of the American bison, the other being the wood bison. A natural population of Plains bison survives in Yellowstone National Park and multiple smaller reintroduced herds of bison in many places in the United States as well as southern portions of the Canadian Prairies.
A feral horse is a free-roaming horse of domesticated stock. As such, a feral horse is not a wild animal in the sense of an animal without domesticated ancestors. However, some populations of feral horses are managed as wildlife, and these horses often are popularly called "wild" horses. Feral horses are descended from domestic horses that strayed, escaped, or were deliberately released into the wild and remained to survive and reproduce there. Away from humans, over time, these animals' patterns of behavior revert to behavior more closely resembling that of wild horses. Some horses that live in a feral state but may be occasionally handled or managed by humans, particularly if privately owned, are referred to as "semi-feral".
The Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge is a 573,504-acre (232,089 ha) national wildlife refuge on the northern border of the U.S. state of Nevada. A very small part extends northward into Oregon. It is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) as the Nevada component of the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which is headquartered in Lakeview, Oregon. The Sheldon Refuge was noted for its population of wild horses, now all removed.
Big Bend Ranch State Park is a 311,000-acre (126,000 ha) state park located on the Rio Grande in Brewster and Presidio counties, Texas. It is the largest state park in Texas. The closest major town is Presidio, Texas. The state park's head office is located in Lajitas, Texas at the Barton Warnock Visitor Center. It includes Colorado Canyon.
The World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument was a U.S. National Monument honoring events, people, and sites of the Pacific Theater engagement of the United States during World War II. The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed into law March 12, 2019, abolished the National Monument, replacing it with Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Aleutian Islands World War II National Monument, and Tule Lake National Monument.
The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range is a refuge for a historically significant herd of free-roaming mustangs, the Pryor Mountain mustang, feral horses colloquially called "wild horses", located in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and Wyoming in the United States. The range has an area of 39,650 acres (160.5 km2) and was established in 1968 along the Montana–Wyoming border as the first protected refuge dedicated exclusively for mustangs. It was the second feral horse refuge in the United States. About a quarter of the refuge lies within the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. A group of federal agencies, led by the Bureau of Land Management, administers the range.
The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA), is an Act of Congress, signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 18, 1971. The act covered the management, protection and study of "unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on public lands in the United States."
The Pryor Mountain mustang is a substrain of mustang considered to be genetically unique and one of the few strains of horses verified by DNA analysis to be descended from the original Colonial Spanish horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. They live on the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range located in the Pryor Mountains of Montana and Wyoming in the United States, and are the only mustang herd remaining in Montana, and one of sixteen in Wyoming. They are protected by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA) and managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who has set the optimum herd number at 120 animals. Genetic studies have revealed that the herd exhibits a high degree of genetic diversity and a low degree of inbreeding, and BLM has acknowledged the genetic uniqueness of the herd. Pryor Mountain Mustangs are relatively small horses, exhibit a natural ambling gait, and domesticated Pryor Mountain mustangs are known for their strength, sure-footedness and stamina. The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range is one of the most accessible areas to view feral horse herds in the United States and tourism to the area has increased in recent years.
The Hawaiian wild cattle are a feral breed of domestic cattle introduced at the end of 18th century. Thousands of them are still freely roaming forested areas on the Island of Hawaiʻi. It was listed as "extinct" in The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, published by the FAO in 2007; it is not among the cattle breeds reported to DAD-IS by the National Animal Germplasm Program of the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
The Aleutian Islands World War II National Monument is a U.S. national monument in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. It is located on three islands in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. It was designated as part of World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument by an executive order of George W. Bush on December 5, 2008, with sites in Alaska, California, and Hawaii. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed into law March 12, 2019, separated the national monument into separate units in each state. It is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
The conservation of bison in North America is an ongoing, diverse effort to bring American bison back from the brink of extinction. Plains bison, a subspecies, are a keystone species in the North American Great Plains. Bison are a species of conservation concern in part because they suffered a severe population bottleneck at the end of the 19th century. The near extinction of the species during the 19th century unraveled fundamental ties between bison, grassland ecosystems, and indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods.# English speakers used the word buffalo for this animal when they arrived. Bison was used as the scientific term to distinguish them from the true buffalo. Buffalo is commonly used as it continues to hold cultural significance, particularly for Indigenous people.
The Simeonof Wilderness is a wilderness area in Aleutians East Borough, Alaska. The area was designated in 1976 by the United States Congress and is currently managed by the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The Simeonof Wilderness is located on homonymous Simeonof Island in the Shumagin Island group.
References
- ↑ "New Cattle Ranch in Aleutians Will Round Up the Wild Herds". The New York Times . 1929-01-20. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
- 1 2 "Ranching the Aleutians". Alaska Business Monthly. 1999-04-01. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
- ↑ "U.S. Will Resume Killing Cattle on 3 Aleutian Refuge Islands". Associated Press. 1985-09-15. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
- ↑ "Native Corporation: Fish and Wildlife Service Not Welcome". Anchorage Daily News . 1986-10-31. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
- ↑ "Alaska Isle a Corral for Feral Cattle Herd; U.S. Wants to Trade Cows for Birds". The Washington Post . 2005-10-23. Archived from the original on 2012-10-20. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
