Tag Archives: horse

Written by John Cox, M.A. C/M

“We find the explanation troubling, or the governments terminology of Wild Horses being inferior.  Their terminology, awkward at best, remains not just superficial, but lacks qualification, and ignores evidence from the Natural Selection Process of the evolution of The Horse (i.e. Equidae Equinae (Equines), and the domesticated category of Equus Caballus / Equus Ferus Caballus . . .

Discussed here is the definition the Bureau of Lands Management / Department of the Interior, uphold, as explanation toward America’s Wild Horses:  “Wild Horses such as the Mustang of North America are feral, rather than truly wild, as they are descended from domesticated horses.”

We directly challenge the categorical reference, as being non-supported, lacks evidence, as well as defined from opinion, with no scientific accuracy within research completed.  The foremost explanation is quite simplistic, as their categorical reference is the Wild Horses going “Extinct” 10,000 to 30,000 years ago, i.e. around the Pleistocene Era.  Ironically, the same evidence they use to promote this paradigm, is the same evidence used to promote the paradigm of the Wild Horses surviving the Pleistocene, and never ceased evolving, via Natural Selection Evolution of their physical attributes of survival.

It is either one or the other, and the rightful explanation is not the governments explanation, of the Wild Horses mysteriously going extinct, and just as mysterious, magically showing up again, a few centuries later — Our universe also has something to say about their science, as well as their over-population counts, that are universally impossible, as well . . .

Carl Sagan, at least within this portion of this discussion, said it best when discussing the aspects of why we are finding, more and more, “bone piles” as well as wildlife roaming remote areas today, that we assumed went extinct, or did not know existed, at all — “. . . absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Rather than debate vast amounts of details, and cloned-references that are not back by evidence yet accepted by the Horse Community (i.e. a lie becomes a truth when repeated over decades of time, certainly serves us well in this case as a truth) we can assimilate, within summation-form, the aspects of why we challenge these government agencies.  It develops, simply, into “politics”, and as usual, we find “financial attachments” when we discuss manipulative politics . . . 

This is where we find the parameters of research, placed within the questionable, and certainly unethical realm, of persuasion, more like advertising, rather than science; in another words, the outcome is developed, and the research is designed to meet the outcome.  This could be true enough, when we have a disease, and the research designed to stop the disease.  Here we are more concerned with the history of the Horse, in particular Wild Horses, to actually preserve their “Indigenous Nature” of the Wild Horses in America.  Wild Horses are not part of the American Myth, as many would like to place them, categorically; whereas, they stand-alone in their stature, their survivability complex, and beneficial to several types of environmental habitats, that can develop into Environmental Health.  This exceeds, by far, what we term as the Domestic Horse, and their attributes. 

We separated (via genetic reference) known Wild Horse Bands, 18 Family Groups, from the Domestic Bands roaming the same wilderness area, 12 Family Groups, and observed a vast amount of difference between the two overall groups.

Through “long-term research” we find overwhelming evidence, or, what we term “capacity of survivability skills” passed on from generation to generation among the Wild Horses – which exceeds the level of knowledge we see within Domestic Horses that have been released, or survived within wilderness areas over a few generations, but “phased-out” and disappear over time.  The “physiology” as well as the “survivability range of skill-sets” shown us, over years of observation of 18 Bands of Wild Horses and 12 Bands of Domestic Horses, in the wilderness, becomes a recognizable fact. 

The reality of a long-term study, over 15 years, (i.e. consistently, and “not” just every Spring to Summer Event of research, as government and most organizations do – financial considerations, et al., then call it long-term research if they do it a couple or three years in a row within those seasons) gives us the opportunity to not just observe the Bands daily occurrence of survivability, but rather, combined with the daily interactions of the bands within not only their structure, but the environmental structures surrounding them.  This becomes conducive to the precise details of not just “why” they do the things they do, and their motivation to do so, but use of their actual “skill-sets” within the survivability circumstance, and how it evolved – without interruption.  What we have found, supports the elements of Natural Selection, when uninterrupted throughout centuries.

There is so much more to discuss.  But here I will end this discussion with one conclusion we all agree upon here . . . “There exists so much we are losing, by assuming the trivial.”  

Conclusively, within the current form of Wild Horse Management by government, as well as the dichotomy of what we pretend to be “long-term research” situations; as well as, special-interest generated “genetics” (by colleges that receive $-millions from the DOI/BLM in taxpayer money to develop their “special interest driven” conclusions of genetics) combined with over-population lie after lie, and the lack of so much information, and incomplete data sets, we have a big problem with so much misinformation about Wild Horses.  

We merely accept their arrangement, with the current Wild Horse Management Paradigms — noted to be from their “false-premise” = Wild Horses being a “non-indigenous” species, or being incognito Domestic Horses.  We observe, daily, within our scope of research, the Wild Horses are a species upon themselves, with their own attributes, and their own survival skill-sets.  They are not simply Domesticated Horses turned out onto the range, and then considered Feral, and should not be treated as Excess . . . We are watching this circumstance evolve. We are here, on site, Over years of observation, and research, and data collection. we know what we see and experience. With this experience we have knowledgeable facts and data, which conflicts with much of what we see first hand and within the DOI/BLM complex of Managing America’s Wild Horses, at taxpayer expense, that. Much better options exist, and not as expensive, nor abusive.“  — John Cox, M.A. C/M