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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 30, 2010 - 02:54pm PT
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CC,
to answer your question;
if non-native it doesn't belong.
But Locker is onto the root of the problem. The horses didn't swim the Atlantic.
I wish people that were so PRO-wild horse (North is correct, they are feral not wild) could see the images of the catastrophic die offs in Australia. Heart rending!
But everyone is a self-appointed expert especially the least well educated.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 30, 2010 - 02:57pm PT
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TRs onto a good plan.
Sterilize them. Let them run free. Let them die of natural causes.
Problem solved.
But then a whole government program would have no raison etre, so they perpetuate the problem and keep their jobs.
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Jan 30, 2010 - 03:05pm PT
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So Ron, what do you propose? Predation? With hired guns, or a hunting season such as we have here in California on the deer and black bear?
I believe t*r has a good alternative with the birth control for the mares.
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Carolyn C
Trad climber
the long, long trailer
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Jan 30, 2010 - 03:25pm PT
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Yes, Ron, non-native. Just like you and me.
Wild horses are being rounded up, because the federally subsidized corporate cattle ranching industry wants to make sure those pesky wild horses don't compete with their federally subsidized cattle for the sparse natural feed of the Great Basin desert. They are not being rounded up because they are suffering due to large numbers (which they may be, but that is not why they are being rounded up).
Fortunately for the federally subsidized corporate cattle ranching industry, the BLM is paying for the roundup, using, naturally, taxpayer dollars, even on the privately-held land where the roundup began.
This roundup is not about caring about the condition of the wild horse population, it is about federal dollars, as others have pointed out.
The horses are being rounded up by helicopter (imagine being chased down by one, yourself, running your guts out trying to escape from it) and transported to large pens north of Fallon, where they are immediately switched to a diet of grain, a dramatic shift from the scrub and sage they had been eating. As a result horses have died, I'm guessing of colic, because, according to the BLM rep, "the mares couldn't adjust to the diet change." Oh, really? Imagine that. The BLM either doesn't care about how they are handling these creatures, or are completely ignorant.
My question is simply this - if this roundup must happen, and my tax dollars are being spent on it, because we intelligent humans just can't figure out anything better to do, can we not use a little humanity? Do we have to proceed, as usual, as if all that matters is the human being? Do we have to torture these horses in the process of getting them out of our way? I guess I can answer my own question...that is how it seems have always proceeded.
Of course, my silly, emotional response does come from the heart. But I keep wondering why humans continue to turn such a cold face and intellect to the other creatures we share this world with.
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Carolyn C
Trad climber
the long, long trailer
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Jan 30, 2010 - 03:42pm PT
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Ron Anderson..
You assumed a couple of things about me that aren't true...and you know what happens when you "assume," don't you?. Like you, I live in Nevada, just south of Carson City. And, yes, I do have concern for the health of the desert habitat and ecosystem, and all of the creatures. And, I can even accept the possibility that a roundup of wild horses is needed. What I did ask about was humanity in the treatment of other creatures as we get them out of our way; perhaps this isn't important.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 30, 2010 - 03:47pm PT
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CC,
I SAID we were the root of the problem.
I didn't say I was pro-grazing. I'm not.
Back before man got to North America the biotic yield of the terrain and species diversity far exceeded anything since, and yes, back then those little native hoses DID belong and fit into the ecology.
Many people probably don't like hearing this, but more species were extirpated and more environmental disruption was done by indians than the subsequent europeans.
Like I said, the problem is man.
TripL7,
predation refers to fauna, not hunting.
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Jan 30, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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PR- "predation refers to fauna, not hunting"
Oh! Thanks, I got it confused with another word 'perdition.'
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Carolyn C
Trad climber
the long, long trailer
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Jan 30, 2010 - 04:08pm PT
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Ron Anderson... I have lived in the "area," since 1981, part of that in Tahoe where I worked at ski areas when I was young, and since 1997 down here on the Nevada side (this also included 2-1/2 years in Santa Cruz, but I am glad to have returned to Nevada). I have spent many days and nights camping in remote wilderness areas in the beautiful Great Basin desert, and I have seen the destruction wrought by cattle, wild burros, yes, probably horses, and the worst destruction, that wrought by the human animal. Again, I am asking about our treatment of these horses.
But, really, this is devolving into a food-fight between us. We aren't going to convince each other of the rightness of our opinions, and I know that I am probably boring people. I've said my piece.
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Carolyn C
Trad climber
the long, long trailer
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Jan 30, 2010 - 04:11pm PT
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Piton...yes, I understand what you are saying. I respect you and your opinions, and agree that man is the problem. I just reacted strongly to your saying "they don't belong." Perhaps not; but if that is the argument, then I think, neither do we.
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nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
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Jan 30, 2010 - 04:58pm PT
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locker wants them to go to the glue factory. There's enough of them horses out there to drop the price of glue to pennies of what it is now. He'd make a mint.
sorry... that was in poor taste.
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Anastasia
Mountain climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Jan 30, 2010 - 06:30pm PT
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Many that die are usually just too old for that kind of hard running and would have died in the wild this coming winter. A few really are shameful accidents but... It is essential they get rounded up and thinned out. Without it they will overpopulate, put too much strain on their environment. They will eat everything in site until the land will not be able to recover enough to sustain them. This will cause much larger death tolls. Plus it will get the overall herd so weak that a disease will literally wipe them off the face of the earth.
Wild horses exist because man has been rounding them up. Without man to act as a natural predator, they would become extinct by their own propagation.
Nothing in this world is black and white.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
You wanted to!
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Jan 30, 2010 - 08:27pm PT
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Dude, he does that shizz constantly.
Personally, I think horse is quite tasty.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
You wanted to!
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Jan 30, 2010 - 09:23pm PT
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So let the wolves live, too, then.
Put up or shut up. What's it gonna be, hmmm?
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2010 - 09:30pm PT
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Wow this thread is gettin' Heavy....Horse taste fine but unless prepared correctly is Tough.For some unknown( but respected opinion) Ron A Want's to Nuke the Horse's and the Taliban....The wild horses have been here longer then the white dawg...(US,ME,you).
The Plains indians made a relatively successful society based on the Horse.(Until the White Dawg came along with a repeater rifle). There has to be a amiable solution to this problem and unfortunately I think BLM is on the wrong track. As far as sterilization goes TR hit the Main Vein (I'm Sterilized, are you?)yes we are part of the problem and our own short sightedness is our own doom.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
You wanted to!
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Jan 30, 2010 - 09:39pm PT
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Unlike yourself.
Eat grass.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 30, 2010 - 09:43pm PT
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Well CC I guess it is better to say that they fit poorly into the ecosystem rather than say they don't belong.
But TR and Mark Miller,
sustainable ? Only because it sustained THEM. The great plains were created by indians burning the forests.
Massive damage, but it created ideal buffalo habitat.
But the horse culture of the great plains lasted barely more than a century.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
You wanted to!
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Jan 30, 2010 - 09:54pm PT
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What's the use?
You know ALL. Take charge then, bitch!
Put up or shut up.
I quit.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 30, 2010 - 09:57pm PT
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Careful Locker.
Wolf trannies drive Rox crazy.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jan 30, 2010 - 11:10pm PT
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hey there all, say, i just came back to see if there were some links for info, pro or con, just to share with my buddies...
say, everyone has made very good points, and, i should have mentioned more clear, that i do feel it is sad, but the main note of sadness is that all this came to this point, in the first place...
it makes one wonder, if mankind had been looked ahead more, how things would have fared... all the critters are important and it is the balance, of course that keeps all this in check...
it is sad, would be nice if there was better ways that many folks could work as one, to smooth it all out...
well, thanks for sharing, everyone...
oh, carolyn, no you did not bore everyone, you shared some very good things, and so did everyone, it all is just from different views... but looking at things, for solving, does required seeing all the views, but the hard part is zeroing on which approaches are best, or if perhaps some appoaches should be used for a awhile, until other approaches can be intertwined...
it is sad, is about all that some of us can say--it seems to be a really hard, and volital situation, right now... not only for the horses, but the critters that ron and rocjox mentioned, too...
:(
*this is not exactly the same issue, but even where i used to work, which was terrible for cats, and i only did the cleaning and feeding...
at least 20 cats a week and at time more! would come into that shelter... and nearly all of them just killed... it is still a never ending cycle, and it is very sad... yet, all year round, more and more come... just very sad...
mankind is hard to deal with, too, for insight as to what is best...
seems, too, that folks in the world, don't even want to take care of their own kids, let alone, critters... :(
:(
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