"Home on the range" no longer applies for about 15 wild horses and two burros that await adoption in Mequon.

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management now has the captured animals in a holding facility there. They will be available for adoption there until Aug. 5, when they will be moved to another part of the country and efforts renewed "because it's a nice batch of animals," said Steve Meyer, a wild horse and burro specialist with the Bureau. "They're all relatively gentle, nice-looking animals."

The adoption program is a year-round effort. To help maintain an ecological balance on western public rangelands and to preserve mustangs as "living legends," the Bureau of Land Management gathers some horses and burros each year to control the population. It offers them to potential adopters who can provide good homes.

The agency states that wild horses are intelligent, athletic and sure-footed. Many compete in various equine events; they excel in cutting, endurance, western pleasure and even dressage.

Nationwide, about 30,000 of the animals are in holding facilities, said another Bureau wild horse and burro specialist, Gabriele Thompson.

Finding them homes isn't getting any easier. Thompson said there's been a steady decline in interest in adoptions the past several years. The adoption fee is a modest $125. But as the economy gets worse and prices for feed, fuel and other goods rise, "people think twice about taking on another animal to feed and take care of," Thompson said.

Captured mustangs can range in age from weanlings to about 5 years, but these are all yearlings and 2-year-olds, Thompson said.

These mustangs, she said, are "very quiet. There are none that are still real scared of people. They have been around us for awhile." They were captured at different times, most probably a year or more ago.

Asked how long it takes to halter-train a wild horse, Thompson replied, "That's the question everybody asks and there's no good answer." Every animal is different, and it depends how much time the person spends with the animal.

"It can take from half an hour to over a year," she said.

Burros are often adopted as pets, she said.

"Or people turn them out with other livestock as protection animals. They will keep dogs and coyotes out of the pasture."

Burros also can be trained to pull a cart, and children - sometimes even adults - can ride them.

There is an application process before getting one of the animals.

"The biggest thing we're concerned with is the facilities," Thompson said. "They are still wild animals. People need to keep in them in a safe, tall corral attached to shelter - not a big area, because then they'll never learn that it's OK to be close to people."

For more information or to make an appointment to see the animals, call (800) 293-1781.