Halfway House for Horses
by Melanie L. Stephens
Their high-pitched whinnies roll across the plains like tumbleweed-scattering wind.
At dusk one of them rears and paws the air, casting a silhouette that is the very
image of freedom. These are mustangs, the legendary wild horses of the American
West. Two decades ago, mustangs were headed for extinction. Now, at Mustang
Meadows Ranch, a 32,000-acre spread near St. Francis, South Dakota, 15,000 of
them have found sanctuary and a managed independence that may help assure
their survival.
Descended from horses that escaped from Spanish herds, millions of mustangs
roamed the prairie at the start of the 19th century. But as the wildness went out of
the West and more and more rangeland was plowed for crops or fenced off for
cattle, the number of mustangs dwindled. By 1970 only 17,000 were left, despite the
passage of federal laws that banned the use of airplanes and motor vehicles to
round them up for slaughter. In 1971 Congress responded to a massive letterwriting
campaign by enacting the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act,
which assigned the federal Bureau of Land Management [BLM] the responsibility
for protecting these “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”
Under BLM, the mustangs have recovered: 43,000 horses now run free on the
range. But their numbers have greatly surpassed the ability of the land to support
them. To ease the overpopulation, BLM in 1976 inaugurated a national Adopt-aHorse program, under which 90,000 wild horses have been sold to private owners.
But the mustangs taken off the range annually include many that are too old,
crippled, ugly, or mean to make good pets. Until two years ago, thousands of
inadaptable mustangs were crowded into dusty feeding pens in Nebraska, Nevada
and Texas at a cost to taxpayers of $13 million a year.
Enter Dayton Hyde, an Oregon rancher with a reputation for unorthodox
management and a deep interest in conservation. “In my travels I kept going by
feedlots, seeing these poor creatures cooped up,” says Hyde, 64. “I thought, ‘That’s
no way to treat a wild horse.’ My dream was to get these horses out of the feedlots
and running free again.”
In 1988 Hyde founded the nonprofit Institute for Range and the American Mustang
[IRAM] in order to create sanctuaries—retirement homes of sorts—where
unadoptable wild horses could once again roam freely. He convinced BLM that
with foundation and public funds he could establish a self-sustaining sanctuary
within three years. IRAM’s first project was a 12,600-acre sanctuary in the Black
Hills of South Dakota . . . . The project makes Hyde smile. “The horses are finally
getting over their depression,” he says. “They got so bored in the feedlots that they
didn’t know how to run anymore.”
Hyde’s ambition went beyond his successes at the Black Hills sanctuary. He next
sought to establish a larger range that could accommodate thousands of horses.
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Reading Test 1
10 Florida Progress Monitoring Assessment, Grade 10
But since IRAM lacked both money and land, Hyde needed the help of a private
investor. He turned out to be Alan Day, an owner of cattle ranches in Arizona and
Nebraska. Day, says Hyde, “knew how to manage grass and was not afraid of the
immensity of my dream.”
The first mustangs arrived in August 1988. After being cooped up in corrals
anywhere from one month to several years, they needed to readjust psychologically
to the comparative freedom of the ranch’s open pastures. By gradually approaching
the wary mustangs in corrals, Day and his wranglers taught them to become
comfortable around people. “They have had so much negative training before they
got here, they think they are going to suffer if they see a man on horseback,” says
Day. “We want to show them that we are not the enemy.”
Now answer Numbers 13 through 18. Base your answers on the article “Halfway
House for Horses.”
13 After federal laws were passed to prohibit the use of motorized vehicles for
rounding up mustangs for slaughter, the mustang population
F. began to flourish.
G. began to rise slowly.
H. continued to decrease.
I. decreased to 10,000 horses.
14 What is the main idea of this article?
F. Mustangs have been saved from extinction, but many surviving mustangs
are old and ugly.
G. Wild horses can learn to trust human beings and, as a result, can live a
peaceful existence.
H. Alan Day’s money and land saved the mustang by teaching them new
survival techniques.
I. After mustangs were saved from extinction, many were taken to sanctuaries
where they could run free.
15 What did Hyde mean when he said that Day was not afraid of the “immensity” of
his dream?
A. Day would do anything to restore the mustang population.
B. Day was not intimidated by the amount of work to be done.
C. Day had achieved many other ambitious goals in his lifetime.
D. Day was hopeful that the mustang population would be restored.
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Reading Test 1
Florida Progress Monitoring Assessment, Grade 10 11
16 What was the author’s purpose for writing this article?
F. to provide information on the history of mustangs
G. to entertain the reader with information about the Wild West
H. to explain how sanctuaries helped the wild mustangs to flourish
I. to persuade the reader to contribute to sanctuaries for wild mustangs
17 Read this sentence from the article.
In 1988 Hyde founded the nonprofit Institute for Range and the American
Mustang [IRAM] in order to create sanctuaries—retirement homes of
sorts—where unadoptable wild horses could once again roam freely.
What literary device does the author use in this sentence?
A. She uses imagery to describe the way the horses roam in sanctuaries.
B. She uses personification to give the nonprofit institute human qualities.
C. She uses a metaphor to compare mustang sanctuaries to retirement homes
for people.
D. She uses symbolism with wild horses representing elderly people who don’t
live in retirement homes.
18 You have decided to write a persuasive essay about why it is important to
protect the mustangs. What information from the article would you use to
support your argument?