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A feral horse is a free-roaming horse of domesticated ancestry. As such, a feral horse is not a wild animal in the sense of an animal without domesticated ancestors. However, some populations of feral horses are managed as wildlife, and these horses often are popularly called "wild" horses. Feral horses are descended from domestic horses that strayed, escaped, or were deliberately released into the wild and remained to survive and reproduce there. Away from humans, over time, these animals' patterns of behavior revert to behavior more closely resembling that of wild horses. Some horses that live in a feral condition but may be occasionally handled or managed by humans, particularly if privately owned, are referred to as "semi-feral". Feral horses live in groups called a ''band'', ''herd'', ''harem'', or ''mob''. Feral horse herds, like those of wild horses, are usually made up of small bands led by a dominant mare, containing additional mares, their foals, and immature horses of both sexes. There is usually one herd stallion, though occasionally a few less-dominant males may remain with the group. Horse "herds" in the wild are best described as groups of several small bands who share a common territory. Bands are usually on the small side, as few as three to five animals, but sometimes over a dozen. The makeup of bands shifts over time as young animals are driven out of the band they were born into and join other bands, or as young stallions challenge older males for dominance. However, in a given closed ecosystem such as the isolated refuges in which most feral horses live today, to maintain genetic diversity the minimum size for a sustainable free-roaming horse or burro population is 150–200 animals.〔(【引用サイトリンク】work=wildhorsepreservation.com )〕 ==Feral horse populations== Horses which live in an untamed state but have ancestors who have been domesticated are not true "wild" horses; they are feral horses. The best known examples of feral horses are the "wild" horses of the American west. When Europeans reintroduced the horse to the Americas, beginning with the arrival of the Conquistadors in the 15th century, some horses escaped and formed feral herds known today as Mustangs. Australia has the largest population of feral horses in the world, with an excess of 400,000 feral horses. The Australian name equivalent to the 'Mustang' is the Brumby, feral descendants of horses brought to Australia by English settlers. In Portugal, there are two populations of free-ranging feral horses known as Sorraia in the southern plains, and Garrano in the northern mountain chains. There are also isolated populations of feral horses in a number of other places, including Sable Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia and Maryland, Cumberland Island, Georgia, and Vieques island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Some of these horses are said to be the descendants of horses who managed to swim to land when they were shipwrecked. Others may have been deliberately brought to various islands by settlers and either left to reproduce freely, or abandoned when assorted human settlements failed. More than 400 feral horses live in the foothills of Cincar mountain, between Livno and Kupres, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in an area of approximately . These animals, which descend from horses set free by their owners in the 1950s, enjoy a protected status since 2010. A modern feral horse population (''Janghali ghura'') is found in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere reserve of Assam, in north-east India, a herd of approximately 79 feral horses descended from animals that escaped army camps during World War II.〔(Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere reserve )〕 In North America, feral horses are descendants of horses that were domesticated in Europe; although many ancient, prehistoric subspecies now extinct did evolve in North America. While there are similarities shown in certain genes of both modern and fossil North American horses, they are not believed to be members of the same species. In the western United States, certain bands of horses and burros are protected under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Feral horse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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