Horses
USA - Delaware State Quarter


Obverse
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Reverse
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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Coin Description:
Grade: PCGS MS 68
Owner: brg5658
 
Set Category: Thematic & Topical Coins
Set Name: Horses
Slot Name: USA - Delaware State Quarter
Research: See NGC's Census Report for this Coin

Owner's Description

Purchased on eBay on 4/1/2011. This is the state quarter for Nevada, with the beautiful image of wild horses on the reverse. According to the director of the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana, ancestors of modern horses started evolving in North America about four million years ago. The most recent ancestor to exist on the continent, Equus lambei, went extinct about 12,000 years ago. DNA analysis shows that this extinct species is the genetic equivalent of the modern horse that was reintroduced into North America in the 1500s by Spanish explorers, and that modern horses, Equus caballus, could have evolved nowhere else but North America. As such, these findings point to wild horses deserving consideration as indigenous North American animals, not feral animals (as common belief for more than a century suggests). By 1900, there were as many as 2 million wild horses in North America. During the following decades, that number fell sharply as the horses were increasingly captured and domesticated for private and military use and slaughtered for consumption. During the 1950s, activists such as Velma Johnston, better known as Wild Horse Annie, pressured government to pass a bill prohibiting the use of aircraft or motorized vehicles to hunt wild horses, and in 1959 the Wild Horse Annie Act went into law. The decree only stoked the flames of public outcry, and The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was implemented. In its declaration of policy, Congress said, “Wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene.” Under the law, mustang populations around the country were protected from capture, branding, harassment, and death. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service were charged with implementing the act and managing herds on public land with an emphasis on maintaining a “natural ecological balance.” Counts conducted following the passage of the act set the number of animals that the BLM and Forest Service were responsible for maintaining. According to the Wild Horse and Burro Lead for the BLM, there are about 18,800 mustangs in 102 BLM Herd Management Areas (HMAs) across Nevada as of 2008.

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