---
kind: "section"
citation: "16 U.S.C. § 1332"
title: "16"
title_heading: "Conservation"
number: "1332"
heading: "Definitions"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/16/1332"
units:
  - "Chapter 30 — Wild Horses and Burros: Protection, Management, and Control"
---

# §1332. Definitions


As used in this chapter—

- (a) “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Interior when used in connection with [public lands](#e) administered by him through the Bureau of Land Management and the Secretary of Agriculture in connection with [public lands](#e) administered by him through the Forest Service;
- (b) “wild free-roaming horses and burros” means all unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on [public lands](#e) of the United States;
- (c) “range” means the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing [herd](#d) or [herds](#d) of [wild free-roaming horses and burros](#b), which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the [public lands](#e);
- (d) “herd” means one or more stallions and his mares; and[^1]
- (e) “public lands” means any lands administered by the [Secretary](#a) of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management or by the [Secretary](#a) of Agriculture through the Forest Service.[^2]
- (f) “excess animals” means wild free-roaming horses or burros (1) which have been removed from an [area](/usc/16/539m–1.md?p=1-A) by the [Secretary](#a) pursuant to applicable law or, (2) which must be removed from an [area](/usc/16/539m–1.md?p=1-A) in order to [preserve](/usc/16/698u–1.md?p=2) and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship in that [area](/usc/16/539m–1.md?p=1-A).

## Footnotes

[^1]: So in original. The word “and” probably should not appear.
[^2]: So in original. The period probably should be “; and”.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 92–195, § 2, Dec. 15, 1971, 85 Stat. 649; Pub. L. 95–514, § 14(b), Oct. 25, 1978, 92 Stat. 1810.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Amendments

1978—Subsec. (f). Pub. L. 95–514 added subsec. (f).