be left wild, Sander says. That’s why volunteers from her group are working with the BLM to continue darting the Sand Wash herd with PZP. With the new contraceptive, she says, that dream just might be possible. “PZP has been shown to be the only thing that works,” Sander says.
The Sand Wash landscape is a harder one than the sanctuary’s—all those acres without year-round water, the land that ranchers don’t want. But it’s enough for the horses. And that’s what draws the tourists who come to glimpse the “Old West.” And that’s what feeds the fierce attachment of Sand Wash advocates like Sander: an ache for something that still belongs to these animals alone; the wonder of a band disappearing down a slope or running along a ridge, of horses choosing their own way, independent of people, surviving or not on their own; the sight of a stallion looking back across that great divide between wild horse and human, secure in the fullness of freedom—with alert and calculating eyes, but no fear.