The United States Fish and Wildlife Service in a recent ruling of July 1 gave a decision saying that the North American wild horses will not be listed under the category of endangered species.

Friends of Animals and The Cloud Foundation presented the petition for the status in June 2014. As per the petition, almost 40% of the American wild horses' habitat had been lost from the time President Nixon passed the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971.

As per the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act, states' wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West. The species played an important role in the diversity of life forms within the Nation.

The groups even requested that the Fish and Wildlife service (FWS) to recognize North American wild horses as a distinct population segment (DPS) of the species Equus caballus and provide the species protection on all US federal lands.

It has been said that to qualify as a DPS, a petition need to prove that a particular population is both a discrete and significant part of the larger species' population. And once if the criteria are fulfilled, the petition can then take the case of classifying a particular species as endangered.

According to FWS, the wild horses are not found to be behaviorally or physiologically different from other horses and so they could not be considered as discrete. It furthermore needs not to consider the other factors, it added.

Jennifer Barnes, a lawyer for Friends of Animals based in suburban Denver, said, "These horses are different, they are treated different under the law, they behave differently and there's some evidence they are genetically different".