USA Field School: Wild in the Pryors

This international field school provided an opportunity for students to study the role of the wild horse on Native American and North American culture in the West. The four week field school program began with three days on the Guelph campus, followed by three intensive weeks based in Cody, WY, USA (the gateway to Yellowstone National Park) and the nearby Pryor Mountains. The Pryor Mountains provided a geologically, ecologically, meteorologically, and culturally unique setting for the students to study firsthand the environmental, social and culture impacts of the area. 

Field school activities included observation and data collection of the wild horse behaviour in the Pryor Mountains, and guest speakers from the Bureau of Land Management, the Cloud Foundation, the Pryors Coalition, the US National Park Service and the US Forest Service.

Students from all disciplines were encouraged to apply to the USA Field School.

Field School Details

Instructor: Dr. Katrina Merkies, Animal BioSciences, OAC

Offered: Summer 2017

Course

Course (UNIV, 3000-level, 1.0 credits)

The mustang is a cultural symbol of the ‘old west’ which features largely in North American and Native American culture. The course will focus on the role of the wild horse in early Native American life and folklore, early homesteading at the turn of the 20th century, and current tensions between motorized recreation and responsible land use. Relationships between Native Americans and settlers developed during the time period of the reintroduction of the horse to North America (early 1500’s), and different cultures led to differing perspectives of the horse from a heritage animal to agricultural pest. Current methods of population control to manage the numbers of wild horses may have changed the social dynamics of the herd. Students will observe wild horse behaviour first-hand and explore possible management solutions in the context of current perspectives both locally and in similar locations in Canada (eg. Brittany Triangle in BC).