Pinglaggette t1_jdhar7i wrote
Reply to comment by CaliBigWill in TIL the US federal government captures and sells excess wild horses to the public by MoistCoyote
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
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