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Originally Posted by sheepguide
Buff you post nothing new here! It's been said time and time again!!! No one has argued if they are feral or not!!! Your wasting your time!
You yourself used the damage they do as an excuse! I called you and TJ out on it over a year ago and said if there is so much damage then show people! You couldnt then and im sure wont now. The only way anything is going to get done is if people prove how harsh they are on the environment and wildlife. Just harping we will get it by teaching people that they are feral!! Well I hate to tell you all but a large number already know this and still want them there. Prove the negativity!! That's all that will sway the pro horse people that something should drastically be done!
Of coarse some areas are hit hard and do need vast numbers reduced but still not one person in this day and age of camera phones, video cameras and still photography no one has been capturing these vast negative results of horses!
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Lol.... Several posters have questioned whether or not they are feral. Not sure how you missed that.
It would be hypocritical for me to post a picture and claim it to be proof of feral horse damaging the environment, or vise versa. I'll have to wait for the current research to be compiled before claiming "Proof".
Because they are Feral and without Proof that any of these horses are direct decendants of pre-european contact herds, I consider this good enough reason to have them extirpated. I'll be content if the Feral horses are kept to an absolute minimum population without any expansion of range.
BTW You are quite adamant is having your questions answered but you have avoided answering any questions that I posed. Why is that?
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Originally Posted by Wild&Free
Arguing semantics is important, it's what some legal and logical battles boil down to. What does this word mean in this instance. English is a horrible language for this as one word can have many different meanings, as has been illustrated in this discussion. BTW, I like that we agree and disagree with each other consistently on this, good learning discussion.
This issue resides in a huge grey area within our society. Being an animal that can and does change the environment it lives in to suit it's own needs above the needs of every other animal, with a desire to still remain a part of that environment as it was before we arrived. We must make a choice to either maintain the status quo of human involvement in changing and adapting our environment or leaving it as it is and changing and adapting ourselves to the environment.
Walking Buffalo. That report, while from the US, does refer to Canadian horses, and corralation between the similar environments found in the US and here in Alberta can be included in this discussion. What I found most interesting was:
Now, the punctuation of this makes one think that the horses are controlling the invasive plants, but on second look they are promoting the spread of invasive plant species. IMO, invasive plants can be just as harmful, if not more, to an ecosystem then animals. It's added competition for food sources, one the native animal might not be able to eat and one the invasive species thrives upon.
You know, still haven't got an answer of how long it takes a population of feral animals to be considered wild animals. Would it be after x number of generations, or would it be after the ecosystem they were introduced found equilibrium again?
Wild animals move between ecosystems all the time, and we don't try to control that. Where I was from in BC, moose were not around at the turn of the century when settlers first arrived. Apparently there was a large fire somewhere to the north that opened up a passage that allowed moose to enter the area where they thrived until hunting drastically reduced their numbers in the mid 80s and 90s. There were large conservation efforts put in place to rebuild this invasive moose population. Why is this scenario different then the horses?
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Do you really think that Moose never occupied this area in the past? That's like saying Elk never existed in Banff until the re-introductions....
Moose are Indigenous Wildlife, horses are feral Exotics.
