The Word on Burma

Ed Pretzsch Falls Church

Nevada has the largest number of wild horses and burros-- at 14,700, half of the country's free-roaming population. But even with those figures, a sighting is not guaranteed.

"They don't just stand by the side of the road," says Maxine Shane, public affairs officer of the Bureau Land Management's (BLM) Nevada office in Reno. "People will need binoculars because [the horses] travel to wherever it's green and there's water."

The National Wild Horse and Burro Center (775-475-2222) in Palomino Valley, Nev., is the country's largest center for preparing the animals for adoption. You can drive around the facility and view up to 2,000 horses and burros. In Lompoc, Calif., the 300-acre American Wild Horse Sanctuary (805-737-9246, http://www.returntofreedom.org ) groups its 200 wild horses by family and geographic region and offers sanctuary walks in the summer ($20-$50 suggested donation).

For horses without borders, Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas has about seven miles of BLM land on which mustangs wander free. At the Marietta Wild Burro Range (775-885-6000), about 85 burros, which tend to stand still longer than horses, mill around the historic mining town. And while the steed in Virginia City, Nev., are not technically wild horses (according to a 1971 law, "real" wild horses have to populate lands managed by the BLM or Forest Service), the estrays that live in the foothills and town share the same blood lines as wild horses.

The American Horse Defense Fund ( http://www.ahdf.org ; $825 per person double) organizes an annual horseback ride in the Inyo National Forest to see the last unmanaged wild horses in Nevada; it's July 1-4. The Nevada Commission on Tourism (800-NEVADA-8, http://www.travelnevada.com ) lists other tours and ranches. Cowboy Trail Rides (702-387-2457, http://www.cowboytrailrides.com ), for one, runs Red Rock Canyon rides near wild horse territory--though you are more likely to see burros than horses. For more info on wild horses: National Wild Horse and Burro Foundation, 800-551-9209, http://www.wildhorsefoundation.com , or BLM, 866-4-MUSTANGS, http://www.blm.gov .

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