Have you ever seen a wild horse? Did you know there are some people whose job it is to observe and learn about horses in the wild? Many places in the world still have wild or feral horses. Wild horse research field studies are needed to monitor their numbers, activities, movements and behaviours.
Science Talk – feral: animals that live in a wild or untamed state.
Imagine you get a summer job conducting a field study of the wild horse population in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. The range is roughly 16,000 ha and was established in 1968 along the Montana–Wyoming border as the first protected refuge dedicated to mustangs.
Science Talk – ha: abbreviation of the word hectare, with 1 hectare = 2.5 acres = 10,000 sq. meters.
1. Is hectare a measure of perimeter or area?
2. How many acres is the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range?
3. How many sq. meters is the range? Write your answer in word form.
Before heading out into the field you receive background information about the Pryor Mountain horses. Over the years the population size has ranged to as high as 200 horses, but averages closer to 150. The horses arrange themselves into 29 to 38 bands of 2–11 horses each. Single males form temporary bands with each other or range independently.
One of your tasks will be to identify the horses in each herd by colour and sex. How many chestnuts are in the herds? How many roans? How many foals, etc.?
Click here for pictures and descriptions of the colours of Pryor Mountain wild horses. There are lots of duns, roans and grullos! Do you know what these horse colours are?
Returning from your field trip, people are eager to hear what you observed. Did Galaxy still have his band of mares? How were the foals doing? Were they all accounted for? Has the population increased or decreased? To prepare for the presentation you display your data using pictographs.
Click to enlarge
4. How many Grullo horses did you count?
5. How many Black or Bay horses were there?
6. What was the least common colour(s)?
7. How many more dun coloured horses did you see than roan coloured horses?
8. How many horses did you count all together?
Science Talk – demographics: the quantifiable characteristics of a given population. In this case the population is the Pryor Mountain wild horses, and the characteristics are age, sex and colour.
What is the difference between a filly and a mare? What is a yearling? Here’s a list of common terms used to describe horses by age and sex:
Foal: A horse of either sex less than one year old. A nursing foal is sometimes called a suckling and a foal that has been weaned is called a weanling.
Yearling: A horse of either sex that is between one and two years old.
Colt: A male horse under the age of four.
Filly: A female horse under the age of four.
Mare: A female horse four years old and older.
Stallion: A male horse four years old and older that can still produce foals.
9. How many horses were born in the year of your horse count?
10. How many male horses older than 4 years did you count?
11. Not counting the foals, what is the ratio of male to female horses?
It’s at this time of year when the foals on Pryor Mountain begin to be born. In fact, the first foal was reported just two days ago, on April 2.
Are you interested in learning more about studying wild horses? Wild Equus is an organization that does this work in many countries. They even offer educational programs that provide training to students of animal behaviour, and those with a special interest in horses and other equids. These workshops provide hands-on experience in observational skills and research techniques with equids as the subjects of study.
Science Talk – equids: a mammal of the horse family. Along with horses themselves these include asses, zebras, and extinct related animals.
The field study programs are run yearly in the same locations on about the same dates, and last between 1 week to 1 month. If you’re interested, when you’re older you can sign up for one!
Are you clear on what a grullo and dun horse looks like? Imagine you’re collecting data on these wild horses. See if you can identify the colours of the horses in this video of wild horses in the Pryor Mountains.
Answers:
1. Is hectare a measure of perimeter or area?
Answer: Area
2. How many acres is the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range?
Answer: 16,000 (number of ha) × 2.5 (number of acres in 1 ha) = 40,000 acres. The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range is approximately 40,000 acres.
3. How many sq. meters is the range? Write your answer in word form.
Answer: 16,000 (number of ha) × 10,000 (number of sq m in 1 ha) = 160,000,000. The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range is approximately one hundred sixty million square meters.
4. How many Grullo horses did you count?
Answer: 35
5. How many Black or Bay horses were there?
Answer: 38
6. What was the least common colour(s)?
Answer: Chestnut/Sorrel
7. How many more dun coloured horses did you see than roan coloured horses?
Answer: 35 (Dun horses) − 23 (Roan horses) = 12. You saw 12 more dun coloured horses.
OR: There are 6 more horses shown in the ‘Dun’ row. Each horse represents 2 horses. 2 × 6 = 12. You saw 12 more dun coloured horses.
8. How many horses did you count all together?
Answer: 35 + 38 + 30 + 23 + 14 + 12 = 152. You counted 152 horses.
9. How many horses were born in the year of your horse count?
Answer: 12 (number of horses in ‘Foal’ row) × 2 = 24. Twenty four foals were born.
OR: Skip count the horse icons in the ‘Foal’ row by 2.
10. How many male horses older than 4 years did you count?
Answer: 14 ((number of horses in ‘Stallion’ row) × 2 = 28. There were 28 stallions.
OR: Skip count the horse icons in the ‘Stallion’ row by 2.
OR: You’ve already counted the number of foals. There are two more horse icons in the stallion row than in the foal row, each representing 2 horses. Add 4 (2 for each horse icon) to 24 (the number of foals) to get 28.
11. Not counting the foals, what is the ratio of male to female horses?
Answer:
Step 1: number of mares + number of fillies = total number of females
33 + 31 = 64 females
Step 2: number of stallions + number of colts = total number of males
28 + 36 = 64 males
There are an equal number of male horses and female horses. The ratio of males to females is 1:1
Common Core:
4.OA.A – Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems.
4.MD.B – Represent and interpret data.
5.MD.B – Represent and interpret data.
6.G.A – Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area.
6.RP.A.1 – Write a ratio to describe objects in a picture.
Photos:
Wild band: Public Domain
My Public Lands Roadtrip: Pryor Mountains, Bureau of Land Management: CC BY 2.0
A mare attends to her foal on the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Refuge, Bureau of Land Management: Public Domain
