Stardate 20020225.1233

(On Screen): The modern horse evolved in the New World, migrated to the Old World, and then died out in the New World at the end of the last ice age; it's possible that they were hunted into extinction by humans. Most of the species in genus Equus died out; only three exist in the old world: horses, zebras and donkeys, and horses as such nearly became extinct even in the rest of the world, also likely because of human predation. By about 6,000 years ago they were confined to a region north of the Black Sea.

Some humans living there seem to have domesticated them, and horses then started an amazing resurgence (under the butts of humans). Horses assisted in farming, in hunting, and in war. Millions of horses have died in men's battles; probably more horses than any other animal except humans themselves. The most mobile army in the history of the world, which conquered more area in a shorter time than any other before or since, had far more horses than men. The Mongols moved with about six horses per man; they would stop periodically and switch to another mount so as to not tire them out. They were capable of sustained advances of more than fifty miles per day, and they conquered all of Asia. Even as late as World War II, horses were used by the millions by the armies of the world. The Soviet Union had several cavalry divisions who caused the Germans an amazing amount of grief by being particularly mobile in the winter when trucks and tanks couldn't move.

Spaniards brought horses with them back to the New World, and they were instrumental in helping Spain to conquer the Aztecs and Incas. Some Spanish horses escaped in Mexico and began to breed on their own. They drifted north and were noticed by the Plains Indians, who domesticated them again and who by 150 years ago were superb horsemen. One modern strain of horse (the Appaloosa) was developed by the Nez Perce Indian tribe in the Northwest. Many horses remained wild.

What with the elimination of nearly all important large predators by humans, wild horses have been growing in numbers and now they threaten the habitat, not to mention competing for grazing with cattle. There are an estimated 46,000 of them in the Western US today.

They are not valuable animals. They all derive from a very small initial breeding stock and they are heavily inbred. They are also not native, and they are badly damaging the habitat of animals which are native, like antelope. This is biological pollution at its worst.

But they are horses. (Aaah; horses; ain't they beautiful?) So when the idea has been proposed to cull the herd, there's a lot of uproar about it. The BLM wants to thin the herd by about half, mostly by rounding up excess and trying to find homes for them. Problem is that this isn't easy, because the animals are not actually desirable ones. In the past a lot of them have ended up in slaughterhouses, which offends the tender sensibilities of some of the more soft-hearted (or soft headed).

What actually should happen is that they should all be killed. They don't belong here. But of course that is politically impossible. (Aaw, horses; ain't they lovely? Why you wanna shoot Black Beauty?)

But animal welfare advocates say that the agency's plan, announced in October 2000, favors rich and powerful ranching interests over the herds, and may push the horses to extinction. Among their many criticisms, they say that the agency arrives at what it calls its "appropriate management levels" after factoring in all other habitat users.

"Extinction" is a decidedly strange word to use here; horses are not an endangered species, and these particular ones are not the best the species has to offer anyway. We're talking about escaped domesticated animals, not a wild breed. And some of the "habitat users" being factored in here are native animals who compete for the same grazing.

This represents conservationism run amok. Trying to preserve North American buzzards (the "California Condor") is at least defensible; and it is certainly worthwhile to try to save many other kinds of species which are native. But wild horses in North America are animal kudzu; rats on long legs. If they looked like warthogs instead of like Arabians, there wouldn't be any debate.