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CaliBigWill t1_jdfqfes wrote

Reply to comment by NorthSideSoxFan in TIL the US federal government captures and sells excess wild horses to the public by MoistCoyote

After about 600years running In the wild I'd like to disagree.

Are wild hogs livestock?

Edited for math- not 800

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NorthSideSoxFan t1_jdfqvcr wrote

800? Are you sure about your math on that one?

In so far as they don't belong and should be fair game to eat? Yes.

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CaliBigWill t1_jdfu23s wrote

Math is off a bit 5-600 years. Brain isn't working.

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CaliBigWill t1_jdfti6i wrote

Brought by Columbus in the 1490's. Close to 800. There were other explorers here before him. That's a different argument. Cortes was here in the 1500's. 700 some odd years ago.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be eaten Meat is meat.. I'm saying these type of round ups are wrong and the treatment of the horses after they're gathered is wrong. And honestly to me its disgraceful that we have to send them to another country to be slaughtered. Our own government doesn't condone eating them but if there's a profit by damn let's do it!

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NorthSideSoxFan t1_jdg0h49 wrote

I'd much rather the federal government end the backdoor-moratorium on horse slaughter in this country.

I also think that most uproar over sending "wild" horses to slaughter is because they're seen as cute and have been miscoded as pets. When someone tries to do their part and eat Asian Carp out of the Mississippi watershed, for example, no one whines on the internet about how those fish are treated.

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CaliBigWill t1_jdg1xh7 wrote

There is a big difference between Asian carp and wild horses. The destruction they actually do far outweighs overgrazing. That argument isnt very good anyway.

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CptJaxxParrow t1_jdg04az wrote

Yes, Hogs are not native to north america, they are an invasive species brought from eurasia as livestock

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CaliBigWill t1_jdg1gsa wrote

That's not the argument. Are wild hogs livestock? Not were they.

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Lvl99Dogspotter t1_jdfr4u4 wrote

800 years?

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CaliBigWill t1_jdftv84 wrote

Ok. Math, - . Columbus brought horses. 1490... 600 years, yes. Cortes brought horses. 1500's. So about 500year. . Brains not on full

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Amadacius t1_jdfyfc1 wrote

Wild hogs are exterminated en masse because they are an invasive pet brought over from Eurasia. Probably the worst thing you could have compared a horse to.

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snow_michael t1_jdjdzq9 wrote

Very accurate comparison - destructive feral species not being properly managed

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Pinglaggette t1_jdhar7i wrote

Feral horse populations come from the American Civil War, not from the first instances of Eurasian horses arriving in North America. The Union couldn’t afford to house and feed the massive amounts of cavalry horses they had acquired for the war, so they just let them loose, figuring that they wouldn’t survive. Well, they did and they are literally destroying the environment and killing off the actual native populations out there.

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CaliBigWill t1_jdhsys4 wrote

You're trying to tell.me there were no wild horses in the US from 1500-1865?

You're dismissing 300years of history?

Early explorers and settlers chronicled the presence of horses throughout North America. In 1521, herds were seen grazing the lands that would become Georgia and the Carolinas. Sixty years later, Sir Francis Drake found herds of horses living among Native people in coastal areas of California and Oregon. In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate described New Mexico as being “full of wild mares.

And those weren't European horses..

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Pinglaggette t1_jdi1ks3 wrote

You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. Yes, there were horses in the US in earlier times, introduced by early Europeans (and yes, they were European horses. American horses went extinct 12,000 years or so ago). Native peoples started buying and breeding their own shorter stature ponies ideal for the region. But the massive overpopulation (and the reason that this is such an issue) came from the release of union cavalry. That would be why the current “wild” horses all resemble mustangs and not the sturdy, shorter stature ponies raised and used by the natives in these regions.

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CaliBigWill t1_jdi6ng1 wrote

Scientists are questioning whether wild horses populations in the Americas went extinct and some Native Americans will tell you they didnt. Native Americans did not buy and breed.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/27/native-horses-indigenous-history

There was no mass release of horses at the end of the Civil War. Horses died by the millions in that war and at the end they needed to obtain more horses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Remount_Service

The US Cavalry still existed (and does exist) and still had to function (American Indian Wars)

The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish.

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snow_michael t1_jdje6wr wrote

There have not since the end of the last ice age (c.11000 years ago) ever been wild horses in the US

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