Written by Sharvan Kumar
States on the East Coast including North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia have the highest horse counts. Still, there are usually less than 100 horses each state and they live close to coastal islands or along the seashore.
Over the past century, this represents rather a drastic drop. There were thought to be 5,000 to 6,000 horses scattered over the eastern states in 1926. Most of the loss results from development, roads, and habitat fragmentation.
One state in particular in the West hosts more than half of the wild horses found in the whole United States. Though they are wild, these horses are mostly found in Herd Management Areas (HMAs) under government designation.
Pryor Mountain horses are the description given for the wild horses of Montana.
Wild mustangs found in New Mexico are limited to the Caja Plateau, between Santa Fe and the Rio Grande River.
Around the Lower Salt River are Arizona's wild horses. They have about twelve kilometers to explore close to the river.
Though they occasionally venture elsewhere, there are four main HMAs devoted to horses. They are usually rounded back up when they start to spread too far to neighboring places too.
Although Oregon has BLM Herd Management Areas, almost 75 percent more horses wander on Oregon's own designated HMAs.
The Rock Springs District has more than one-third of the wild horses in Wyoming. With population rises of anywhere between 20 and 40 percent yearly, wild horses are doing fairly well in Wyoming.
With more than six times the population of the state with the second highest count, Nevada is the top state in the US for horse populations.
From East West Hunt