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Originally Posted by sjemac
The debate over whether they are feral or wild is very important to how they will be treated. It is not mere semantics. Just because you want to have your own definitions of feral and wild does not mean that the scientific community shares those. This isn't grasping at straws but the basic scientific definition of what feral means.
I haven't stated that they were a problem BTW, just that there are way more now than their used to be. I would like to see firm peer-reviewed eividence indicating that they are or aren't causing a negative impact before I call for protection or eradication or a cull.
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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:
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Research in the Great Basin has reported that areas inhabited by feral horses have fewer plant species and less grass, shrub, and overall plant cover than areas without horses, and more invasive plant species and weeds such as cheatgrass, an invasive species that degrades wildlife habitat.
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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?