About a year ago, Mary Terry, a full-time professional and mother of four, casually surfed into an on-line auction of wild horses and burros run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). No sooner had she clicked onto photographs of a forlorn, but irresistible, burro than she joined the action. After fulfilling BLM's screening requirements, Terry bid on that burro...then on another...and, then on another. Within weeks, Terry and her husband brought all three burros to their New Hampshire home, and within a few months, four BLM horses followed. Terry now gushes over her seven "adoptees," calling them her "best friends."

How did a visit to an Internet site transform Terry into an angel of mercy for homeless horses and burros? "Seeing those faces," explains Terry, "I felt sorry for the ones no one else had bid on. I adopted Humphrey, a 22 year-old horse. Who else in their right mind would have wanted him?"

Why Adopt?

Adopters take home BLM's wild horses and burros for riding, jumping, pulling carriages, or working. Karen Malloy, BLM's coordinator of Internet adoptions of wild horses and burros, describes these animals as "diamonds in the rough". "Once gentled, they can do anything domestic animals can do," she adds. Even the elderly Humphrey was not too old to change into a calm pet. And, with an average auction price of about $200.00, BLM horses and burros are usually much cheaper than commercially available animals.