El Caballo: Wild Horses of North America

Associate film producer Drury Gunn Carr and writer-director Doug Hawes-Davis of the astonishingly prolific, Montana-based nonprofit production house High Plains Films helm the 2001 documentary Caballo: Wild Horses of North America. The picture investigates equus cabalus, a little-known species of wild horses transported to North America by Spaniards in the 16th century. Davis and Carr document a little-known crisis: although the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act supposedly protected these great beasts, thousands are pulled from open land in Middle America every year to cut down on competition between equine and domesticated farm animals. Graced with breathtaking cinematographic footage of the wild horses, the film pulls viewers inside of a complex zoological issue that faces thousands of middle American farmers and ranchers.