CaliBigWill t1_jdfizi0 wrote
Reply to comment by NorthSideSoxFan in TIL the US federal government captures and sells excess wild horses to the public by MoistCoyote
They weren't. They were free roaming wild animals. Rounded up. Penned and potentilnally abused. Then bought en masse and sold for meat.
Whole herds that were free. Not livestock. There is a difference.
BarnabyWoods t1_jdfn4jh wrote
Actually, they're feral domesticated animals, which now occupy this weird gray area where they're called "wild", but they're not managed like other large wild animals such as deer and elk. Despite the fact that "wild" horse herds increase in population by 20% per year, there's no hunting season on them, and it's illegal for anyone but BLM to round them up. In most of their range, there are no natural predators to keep their numbers in check.
So they chew up habitat that other native wildlife depend on. So in essence they're national pets, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars per year to maintain.
CaliBigWill t1_jdfq2ht wrote
So actually or not - Not Livestock.
The only way these horses cost Taxpayers any money is when the BLM gets involved. They're the ones spending the money to do these roundups, maintain holding facilities, and the large costs of the adoption program (which takes up nearly a third of the annual BLM wild horse budget of $11.6 million),
Wild horses used to range in the millions. They're down to about 50,000. Is that not thinned enough?
BLM arguments in favor of these gathers are kind of weak ranging from maintaining health to protecting them from overgrazing.
So they waste millions, not spend.
BarnabyWoods t1_jdfw3o2 wrote
>Wild horses used to range in the millions.
You just made that up. Before the Wild Horses and Burros Act was passed in 1971, wild horse numbers were kept in check by ranchers and state wildlife officials.
As for BLM's roundups, they're required to do that by federal law. They're required to define herd management areas and set appropriate numbers for each area, and then round them up when those numbers are exceeded. This is not discretionary. You don't like the law? Complain to Congress, not BLM.
CaliBigWill t1_jdfxyy3 wrote
I'm not the one who made the numbers nor the only one posting it..
As for the rest of your paragraph. Thank you for your contribution.
snow_michael t1_jdjdnrx wrote
The US has never had wild horses, and feral numbers at their peak were around a million at most
CaliBigWill t1_jdjhvh1 wrote
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/27/native-horses-indigenous-history
Sir Francis Drake observed and noted in his ships log that there were a plethora of wild horses living among the indigenous peoples in Northern California and Southwestern Oregon
NorthSideSoxFan t1_jdfp4ml wrote
... they're an invasive species from Eurasia that have no place in the local ecosystem, brought to this continent to be livestock.
Horses are livestock.
furiousfran t1_jdisk8i wrote
Feral cats don't either and they're probably worse for ecosystems but everyone shits themselves when you point out the only way to truly solve the problem is extermination, so instead we get these bullshit Trap neuter release programs that do fuckall for the birds and small animals that have to live with them.
Let's eat them instead, they taste like rabbit.
CaliBigWill t1_jdfqfes wrote
After about 600years running In the wild I'd like to disagree.
Are wild hogs livestock?
Edited for math- not 800
NorthSideSoxFan t1_jdfqvcr wrote
800? Are you sure about your math on that one?
In so far as they don't belong and should be fair game to eat? Yes.
CaliBigWill t1_jdfu23s wrote
Math is off a bit 5-600 years. Brain isn't working.
CaliBigWill t1_jdfti6i wrote
Brought by Columbus in the 1490's. Close to 800. There were other explorers here before him. That's a different argument. Cortes was here in the 1500's. 700 some odd years ago.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be eaten Meat is meat.. I'm saying these type of round ups are wrong and the treatment of the horses after they're gathered is wrong. And honestly to me its disgraceful that we have to send them to another country to be slaughtered. Our own government doesn't condone eating them but if there's a profit by damn let's do it!
NorthSideSoxFan t1_jdg0h49 wrote
I'd much rather the federal government end the backdoor-moratorium on horse slaughter in this country.
I also think that most uproar over sending "wild" horses to slaughter is because they're seen as cute and have been miscoded as pets. When someone tries to do their part and eat Asian Carp out of the Mississippi watershed, for example, no one whines on the internet about how those fish are treated.
CaliBigWill t1_jdg1xh7 wrote
There is a big difference between Asian carp and wild horses. The destruction they actually do far outweighs overgrazing. That argument isnt very good anyway.
CptJaxxParrow t1_jdg04az wrote
Yes, Hogs are not native to north america, they are an invasive species brought from eurasia as livestock
CaliBigWill t1_jdg1gsa wrote
That's not the argument. Are wild hogs livestock? Not were they.
Lvl99Dogspotter t1_jdfr4u4 wrote
800 years?
CaliBigWill t1_jdftv84 wrote
Ok. Math, - . Columbus brought horses. 1490... 600 years, yes. Cortes brought horses. 1500's. So about 500year. . Brains not on full
snow_michael t1_jdjdw0p wrote
Columbus never set foot on what today is the US
Amadacius t1_jdfyfc1 wrote
Wild hogs are exterminated en masse because they are an invasive pet brought over from Eurasia. Probably the worst thing you could have compared a horse to.
snow_michael t1_jdjdzq9 wrote
Very accurate comparison - destructive feral species not being properly managed
Pinglaggette t1_jdhar7i wrote
Feral horse populations come from the American Civil War, not from the first instances of Eurasian horses arriving in North America. The Union couldn’t afford to house and feed the massive amounts of cavalry horses they had acquired for the war, so they just let them loose, figuring that they wouldn’t survive. Well, they did and they are literally destroying the environment and killing off the actual native populations out there.
CaliBigWill t1_jdhsys4 wrote
You're trying to tell.me there were no wild horses in the US from 1500-1865?
You're dismissing 300years of history?
Early explorers and settlers chronicled the presence of horses throughout North America. In 1521, herds were seen grazing the lands that would become Georgia and the Carolinas. Sixty years later, Sir Francis Drake found herds of horses living among Native people in coastal areas of California and Oregon. In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate described New Mexico as being “full of wild mares.
And those weren't European horses..
Pinglaggette t1_jdi1ks3 wrote
You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. Yes, there were horses in the US in earlier times, introduced by early Europeans (and yes, they were European horses. American horses went extinct 12,000 years or so ago). Native peoples started buying and breeding their own shorter stature ponies ideal for the region. But the massive overpopulation (and the reason that this is such an issue) came from the release of union cavalry. That would be why the current “wild” horses all resemble mustangs and not the sturdy, shorter stature ponies raised and used by the natives in these regions.
CaliBigWill t1_jdi6ng1 wrote
Scientists are questioning whether wild horses populations in the Americas went extinct and some Native Americans will tell you they didnt. Native Americans did not buy and breed.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/27/native-horses-indigenous-history
There was no mass release of horses at the end of the Civil War. Horses died by the millions in that war and at the end they needed to obtain more horses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Remount_Service
The US Cavalry still existed (and does exist) and still had to function (American Indian Wars)
The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish.
snow_michael t1_jdje6wr wrote
There have not since the end of the last ice age (c.11000 years ago) ever been wild horses in the US
CaliBigWill t1_jdji0q8 wrote
Sir Francis Drake observed and noted in his ships log that there were a plethora of wild horses living among the indigenous peoples in Northern California and Southwestern Oregon
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/27/native-horses-indigenous-history
Amadacius t1_jdfyjvl wrote
>They were free roaming wild animals. Rounded up. Penned and potentilnally abused. Then bought en masse and sold for meat.
That's the definition of livestock.
CaliBigWill t1_jdg19h4 wrote
Livestock” means livestock as defined in sec. 602 of the Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance Act of 1988 [7 U.S.C. 1471], as amended, insects, and all other living animals cultivated, grown, or raised for commercial purposes, including aquatic animals.
They were not grown or raised and US Law specifically bans them from being sold for commercial meat. Not Livestock
Amadacius t1_jdg4f2x wrote
The crux of your argument seems to be that it free-range meat is more cruel than factory farmed meat. That if an animal lived a good life before slaughter it is more tragic than if we birthed them in a cage, deprived and abused them consistently from start to finish.
We round them up because they are an invasive species that disrupts the local ecology. We slaughter them because nobody else wants them. But every ounce of meat produced this way seems infinitely more ethical than the more systemic methods.
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