The West has been home to wild horses since the days of the conquistadores.  For instance, the 1680 Pueblo rebellion that expelled the Spaniards from New Mexico for twelve years scattered large herds into the hands of the tribes of the Southern Plains.  Today, there are Spanish bloodlines present in wild stock found as far north as Montana. Rounding up mustangs destined for the leather tannery or the dog food factory used to be the formula for keeping the public lands' herd numbers at manageable levels.  But gone are the days of The Misfits, John Huston's 1961 film about wild horse wranglers in Nevada.  In 1971, the federal "Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act" outlawed rounding up horses for slaughter.  Afterward, an annual quota of mustangs was collected by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) personnel from herds in ten Western states and offered locally for public adoption.  But the 1971 legislation...(Read Full Article)