Feral Horse Populations
Horses which live in an untamed state but have ancestors who have been domesticated are not true "wild" horses; they are feral horses. The best known examples of feral horses are the "wild" horses of the American west. When Europeans reintroduced the horse to the Americas, beginning with the arrival of the Conquistadors in the 15th century, some horses escaped and formed feral herds known today as Mustangs.
Australia has the largest population of feral horses in the world, with an excess of 400,000 feral horses. The Australian name equivalent to the 'Mustang' is the Brumby, feral descendants of horses brought to Australia by English settlers.
In Portugal, there are two populations of free-ranging feral horses known as Sorraia in the southern plains, and Garrano in the northern mountain chains. There are also isolated populations of feral horses in a number of other places, including Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia and Maryland, and Vieques island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Some of these horses are said to be the descendants of horses who managed to swim to land when they were shipwrecked. Others may have been deliberately brought to various islands by settlers and either left to reproduce freely, or abandoned when assorted human settlements failed.
A modern feral horse population (Janghali ghura) is found in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere reserve of Assam, in northern India, a herd of approximately 79 feral horses descended from animals that escaped army camps during World War II.
In North America, feral horses are descendants of horses that were domesticated in Europe; although many ancient, prehistoric subspecies now extinct did evolve in North America. While there are similarities shown in certain genes of both modern and fossil North American horses, they are not believed to be members of the same species. In the western United States, certain bands of horses and burros are protected under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
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