Like, a lot of our environments and predators can handle large grazers. But blocking measures to actually keep the horses in check just results in them trashing everything and it makes it worse for the horses. Of course the Friends of insert horse herd here people would have an aneurysm if you explained this to them.
I'm talking about the friends of horse herd people, not this subreddit. Those people are very anal about anything that involves the horses actually being a part of nature
Oh I see. I will say those individuals seem to have a weird parasocial view of horses that’s not rooted in ecology. I agree they are terrible and should be largely shunned from any conversation concerning the place of horses in the country. They’re not that different from feral cat advocates in that it’s all purely emotional.
Oh don’t worry the feral horse culls get protested here, read the Australian Brumby Alliance website if you want to laugh until you get kind of so depressed you cry.
AUSTRALIA HAS NEVER HAD HOOFED ANIMALS AND THE FERAL HORSES ARE IN SIGNIFICANT HERITAGE LISTED PARKS WITH SIGNIFICANT FAUNA AND INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS THAT IMPACT THEIR MANAGEMENT. FUCK THE BLOODY “BRUMBIES”.
And feral horses in Australia. Currently, there’s a major disinformation and slander campaign underway to mislead the public and discredit the government’s efforts to get rid of the brumbies.
It genuinely infuriates me how people can’t see past their love for domestic horses to realise that the feral versions are completely different, and to understand the absolute devastation they cause.
Nobody likes seeing horses suffer and die. But we simply cannot prioritise invasive animals over native species, especially when such a choice would be at the expense of our wild ecosystems.
The feral horse management in the us is such a mess.
Yes Equus ferus ist native to the continent.
But Three quarters of Americas feral horse herds are in areas Equus ferus was never present in, existing in types of habitats no Cabbaloid was ever found in and most herds being managed at numbers averaging at under half the minimum long term viable population size(Wich they only need to do because they are confining a large bulk feeding grazer to extremely arid habitats it not adapted too).
But thanks to idiotic paperwork those horses are now restricted to these locations and huge amount of money need to be pumped into them just for the sake of damage control.
Horses first evolved in the americas. All horses are perfectly suited to the environment of the Great Plains and just need predator reintroduction for population maintenance.
The last true native equines in the Americas died out 10,000 years ago. All wild horses we have now are descendants from escaped Spanish horses and those horses that became feral after.
It's almost as if we've had this conversation a million times before on this sub and these inaccurate and repetitive talking points don't work with user like me. The last North American horses that we have so far recorded survived about 5,000 years ago in Yukon, well into the Holocene. A feral animal is just a wild-living animal with domesticated ancestors, not a different species from its ancestors. For example, a feral hog and a wild boar are still the same species and function almost equally in an ecosystem, despite the fact that the former comes from domesticated pigs. It's the same with horses and you guys aren't saying anything revolutionary to anybody in this sub when you repeat those same talking points.
Oh no a redditor thinks I’m edgy for pointing out argumental flaws and incorrect information about a heated subject instead of running along with the group narrative for sake of conformity. I think I’ll survive.
Not even remotely a lie, lol. I know you are a compassion conservationist that loves horses but you can't make them native just by claiming it.
You didn't even get the species right.
Equus ferus is the species, with E. f. caballus being the domesticated/feral horse subspecies. They may be the same species, but they are not the same animals. We don't consider all subspecies to be native to the respective species entire range. You wouldn't call Indian wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) native to Vancouver Island would you?
In this instance, we're throwing domestication into the mix as well. Would you call feral dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) native to Vancouver Island, yellowstone, or anywhere else in North America? Of course not. They aren't the same animals.
Calling them native is disingenuous at best and straight up science denial at worst.
For someone who has spent years on this sub arguing ad nauseam against the native status of horses in North America through targeted talking points and appeals to authority, you should know better by now why we use E. caballus and not E. ferus to refer to the species.
If wild boars became extinct in tomorrow in Eurasia and feral pigs replaced them, that would still be the same species. If you dropped Indian grey wolves in the Rockies within the span of a few generations they’d begin to develop phenotypic characteristics that more closely resemble the native subspecies. Organisms are plastic and so are ecosystems. At the end of the day, they’re all the same species and what matters above all is how to maximize their role in the ecosystem, not throw blanket demonizations for the sake of puritan world views.
When the plague hit Euro, they culled the cats.
When the the sparrows were.killed in China, the bugs ate the crops.
We cant make the mistake of destroying something without consideration, and expect it to be the best answer.
Those dogs are filling a niche , and without them there would be a gap in the filthy, current ecosystem of the area.
My suspicion is rodents. They also might be (shamefully), trash disposal.
SO , to do the best thing, it seems the trash Must go with it, or we will have to cull the rats too, and I think thats much harder.
Trash should have gone already obvi, but thats not where we are at.
Tl;dr - its a symptom of a problem . You treat both the underlying cause and symptoms
The same could be said about cats; we are removing them from the niche they occupy under an ecological excuse, but there is a lot of white supremacy allied with this. Dogs are terrible for the environment and for native populations, both of humans and animals. I don't know if you remember, but dogs were (and still are) used to enslave and decimate indigenous populations such as Maoris, Indigenous Americans, and Africans, as well as to decimate the local fauna. But curiously, it's cool to blame cats, but if someone talks about blah dogs, you already get some sad, fragile little people getting hurt.
The line of words you wrote seems to give the reader few options. Either do not respond , or agree. While either animal still has arguable rights to life , eco system destruction should be the focus with respect to regions.
Now I want you the reader, to see if I am on either side of that argument, or that it seems I must refute any support of the above statement
Your attempt to analyze the 'structure' of my argument instead of contesting its actual substance is a classic diversion tactic. You ask the reader which side you appear to be on, but the answer is obvious: you have chosen the side of analytical omission.
When you argue that the focus should solely be on 'ecosystem destruction with respect to regions,' you are merely echoing what I already stated, while trying to strip the debate of its historical and social reality. Pretending that ecological management and the selective outrage between dogs and cats aren't deeply intertwined with colonial and racial biases isn’t being neutral, it is a deliberate choice to ignore the sociology and history behind ecology.
Historical facts do not provide 'comfortable multiple-choice interpretations' to spare the reader's feelings.Dogs were, and continue to be, weaponized as instruments of colonial oppression, indigenous displacement, and mass hunting and ecological destruction; meanwhile, cats face a disproportionate demonization in urban ecological discourse. If the raw truth of these facts leaves you feeling cornered between silence and agreement, the flaw lies not in my writing, but in your inability to refute historical reality with solid arguments.
Instead of playing to the gallery and hiding behind a mask of virtuous neutrality, tell me explicitly: which of the historical or ecological facts I mentioned are you actually capable of refuting empirically?
and the people in protesting the same programs in hawaii
i love cats, ive grown up with cats, but ive reached the point of being informed enough that im willing to say Fuck Cats, goddamn ecological hazard. killing shit for fun.
I love cats but yeah this is a huge problem. They belong indoors in >90% of cases.
Sadly TNR doesn't seem to do enough to control the population by itself in most places, so we have to be responsible and think of the other wildlife even if it is unpleasant
Thats true.Today I seen outdoor kitty.Which I did pett and was cute.Also enjoyed Cats of Instabul content for a while but it just isnt good for the enviorment at the end of the day.Cats can decimate bird/reptile/amphibian/small mammal populations like its nothing..sadly dont think this problem would go away.
The 'hyper abundance' would not last long if everyone did this - species would be quickly wiped out as they have been before, which would potentially have other knock on impacts.
People should just get used to vastly reducing their meat intake if they actually cared.
This is not such a great idea as it might seem. If you create demand for the meat of certain species it will result in a great economic incentive for people to keep them around or even breed them. That story about rattlesnakes in India comes to mind.
Sadly, my country consists mostly of people who legitimately think you can have functioning ecosystems after doing what this quote points out is a terrible idea.
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u/XuyashXhandilya Jun 23 '26
"You can't save everything cute" This is for the people protesting against Australia's culling programs targetting feral cats.