Originally published at: 67 horses have died from an "unknown and highly contagious disease at a Colorado facility | Boing Boing
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And now some other apparent virus is going after all the pretty horses.
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Leave wild animals in the wild, then miraculously they don’t die of “miss management” by humans.
I guarantee that the facility they died in was under staffed and under funded, disgustingly filthy, over crowded, I need not go on, leave them be in the wild.
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I wonder if the fact that there’s a shortage (for some unknown reason) of Ivermectin has anything to do with this.
I’m only asking questions.
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So, this is how it all ends… not like I thought it was a couple of years ago.
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These are not “wild animals”, they are feral. They are descendants of domesticated animals that have established populations in environments where they do not belong. Think of the problem with cats; this is the same.
Feral horses and burros are invasive species in North America that have massive harmful impacts on ecosystems. Populations need to be managed and culled. Sentimentality results in animals being kept in holding facilities rather than euthanized, opening the door for problems like these.
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shouldn’t have let them have those pork sliders from Shooters Bar&Grill 
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So you’ve been to the round-ups and watched the culling of the wild horse herds?
Likely that’s a hard no, you can sit back and let others do the hard thinking on this topic.
Wild horses have been here in the West longer than you or I. Arm chair pontifical thoughts aside, until you are personally willing to put some sweat into this game, maybe pipe down.
I know you mean well, but you really don’t know squat about this topic.
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I don’t really understand your point, unless it’s the horse version of the “you don’t have kids, you can’t understand” fallacy, but here’s some background.
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If you have to have children in order to be kind to them, offer comfort, etc. It’s you that needs to look in the mirror.
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Well, that sounds like sentimentality. The animals can’t be released. You can hold them in horrific conditions for the rest of their lives or you can humanely put them down. The latter seems like the better option to me. Ymmv.
Thank you for confirming what anyone could surmise from your posts. Please do us all a favor and stay away from animals in need, as for children the laws regarding that are far easier to avoid.
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If you leave them in the wild, they don’t die of mismanagement, they die of starvation, vehicle collisions, disease, etc.
There were wild horses in NA, but they were driven to extinction by indigenous Americans. The ecosystem is fucked up in North America because most of its mega fauna and almost all of its large predators were killed. Wildlife managers are trying to do the best they can with the situation they inherited. I’d love to be able to bring back the dire wolves and cheetahs, and lions, but we can’t yet, so humane euthanasia may be necessary.
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paging @Bobo
With all the dang global warming and habitat degradation, are we looking at a “new normal” here in our 2022 bingo card set from hell? or is it just all this bad karma we’ve racked up? or…
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You are brave, thank you for putting yourself first in line for extinction you’re doing the right thing, well goodbye.
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Pithiness aside, you’re suggesting that my human life is less meaningful to you than a wild horse.
You don’t seem to be able to have a conversation about this without attacking the other posters.
Wildlife management is a really interesting topic and it would be nice to be able to have a conversation about it here. There are certainly thoughtful arguments that could be made supporting your viewpoints, but you’re making ad hominem attacks instead and saying other posters can’t have opinions on the topic.
Instead, can you talk about why you feel so strongly about the subject and acknowledge that thoughtful well-meaning people can have a different opinion?
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Yes I can talk about why I feel so strongly about the subject. I have volunteered for 3 decades to care for wild horses all over the Western US.
You are welcomed to apply your valuable insights, but not to me.
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From said article:
There is an argument that in places where truly wild horses once existed, feral horses perform the same ecosystem functions. This is a complicated argument in lots of ways, as when rewilding an area how far back can we go? Is the modern horse a suitable candidate in America, given the evolved there, went extinct, and then were reintroduced by Europeans?This is maybe a complicated argument but an important one. The modern world is one where biodiversity is unusually low. North America lost a lot of its megafauna at the end of the last ice age, presumably with human help. The most notable exception were bison, which were systematically cleared out by American settlers.
These animals didn’t live in isolation, they were part of ecosystems with other species that depended on them. Some plants largely relied on them for seed distribution and while the original megafauna that played those roles are gone, many have done better where horses and cattle have stepped into similar ones. It’s less well-studied but it is suspected that other things, like for instance the whole world of dung-feeding invertebrates, may be similar.
To the point where some have advocated for Pleistocene rewilding, introducing African megafauna to try to fill the missing ecological niches. That’s a very extreme position of course and not too many people would agree with it. But I do think it is an example of how things are not so simple as native = good, introduced = bad when it comes to conservation and holding onto what diversity we can. Horses both are and aren’t supposed to be part of the environment here, and can both help and harm accordingly.
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