The Wild Horses of Salt River, Arizona

Joanna Manaves is a Chicago entrepreneur who serves as director of planning and materials management with Peacock Foods. An avid traveler, Joanna Manaves is most familiar with the Scottsdale, Arizona, area and has explored the scenic highlights of the region. One of her memorable experiences was viewing wild horses or mustangs.

Free-roaming horses have been an attribute of the Western landscape since the 16th century, when they were brought to the continent by Spanish explorers. The word mustang comes from the Spanish “mustengo,” which has the meaning “ownerless animal.”

Over the centuries, the horses that survived and thrived in an arid region such as Arizona were tough, durable, and canny. Unfortunately, much like the bison, they were seen as taking valuable grazing land from cattle. Those alive today are descendants of the few who evaded concerted efforts by ranchers from 1850 through the early 1970s to eliminate them.

In 1971, the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act enabled the establishment of specific protected wild horse territories. Today there are an estimated 500 wild horses remaining across the state of Arizona. In the vicinity of Scottsdale, the mustangs live within the Salt River Canyon in the Tonto National Forest. The canyon features dense riparian vegetation, which they feed on in family groups.