General: Feral Horses (Equus caballus) are stately creatures, but they are non-native exotic species that do not belong as wild animals in North America. In the arid land of the western U.S., they compete with native species and cause considerable damage to the habitat in some places. Horses tend to overpopulate the land, eat more of the native vegetation than the land can tolerate, and thereby damage the native vegetation and the native wildlife that depends on it. In addition, especially in desert regions, feral horses damage waterholes and make the water less suitable for native species such as bighorn sheep.

Land managers such as the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM do what they can to control the size of feral horse populations, but the "save the horse" lobby is strong and fights efforts to maintain healthy landscapes and healthy wildlife populations.