When the Spanish came to North America, it was the horse that carried them forward. It was the burro that brought the prospector. Horses hauled the freight, the families, the soldiers and the civilizers westward, and broadened Native societies with larger hunting territories. As the horses and burros escaped from their humans, they adapted quickly and well to the grasslands and mountains of the west. After all, they had started out here, ages ago in geological time.

While a revered and wildly loved symbol of the past, both the wild horse and the burro have gone through hard times in the Americas. They have a terribly powerful predator: Man, who wants the land to raise cattle and sheep, or to profit from selling the horses to slaughterhouses for dog food or shipment overseas. Humans are their only major predator on this continent.

The horse was here eons ago, in a much smaller format than today; archeologists have found the fossilized remains of Eohippus with his companions of the time, huge mastodons and saber-tooth tigers. He went away, apparently, then returned with the first Spanish explorers in the late 15th century.

He apparently went away; while there is little scientific evidence to support otherwise, there are some who think the horse we have come to know as a Mustang was here before the Spanish invasion of the Americas. A number of North American Native American tribes tell of horses far back in their ancestry.

This may seem like a moot point, a trivia of interest only to a few scientists; but actually, the status of the wild horse rides painfully upon this matter of heritage. If he were a native, indigenous to North America, then he would be true wildlife, a specie worthy of protection. But, to natural scientists and the US Government, he is and has been treated like an interloper. He has no native right to be here.

Without this native right, until recently he was considered a pest. He allegedly ate grass that would be better fed to cattle or sheep, as they have financial value. Nor does the horse have the sympathy of environmental groups; as a non-native interloper in this land, he is changing the natural environment in ways that, according to some, might be detrimental to the species that have always been here.

That changed, to some degree, in 1971 with the passage of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Act. This act gave wild horses and burros some protection; they could not be freely hunted and sold for slaughter. Their care is the responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The BLM has one of the toughest jobs in existence. They are charged with taking care of millions of acres of public land, and must balance the needs of environmentalists, ranchers, miners, and recreational users of the land, while protecting it from abuse. With this agenda, they can make no one entirely happy.

A good example of this is the wild horse.

Many ranchers who lease BLM land for cattle or sheep want the horses gone. They claim the horses eat graze that belong to their cattle. Many environmentalists want horses gone, as they claim they aren't native to the environment. But, due to the activists who created the wild horse and burro act, they are protected and do have the right to exist on public land - within reason. Their numbers are managed by the BLM, who rounds up wild horses when they feel the range is being overgrazed, and offers the horses and burros for sale to the public.

It is a program that generally works for the good of the horses. Normally, the horses are sold to experienced horse people who are enthralled with the Mustang, and want to care for a living legend.

The wild horse is a wonderful symbol of freedom, and the heritage of our American west. No longer is he needed for daily transportation of people or goods; it is comforting to think of the horse sitting out his retirement in the wild open spaces.

But is he happier there? It's a question I won't presume to be able to answer. Wild horse adopters report that Mustangs usually make great domestic horses, once they adjust to their new homes.

But their spirits lives forever where the long grass grows - and as I go through my day-to-day life, traveling the freeways and city streets of our concrete jungle homes, the memory of seeing those magnificent wild herds frees my own spirit. It is a comfort to know that wild places and wild horses still exist.

Len Wilcox is the author of Desert Dancing.