Horses; Herds and Systems

Before I address the “herd”:

My classmate and fellow blogger, Whitney Vickers, asks why I think anthropomorphism is bad. I want to assure you I don’t. In fact, I think it is at the core of human’s utility with animals. The ability to connect so deeply with an animal, at so many levels, is both beautiful and essential to humans. It is the health in animal therapy for the ill, elderly, and mentally touched. It is fully depicted in the film "Grizzly Man," where anthropomorphism had tragic consequences for the film"s namesake, and his girlfriend. It is also depicted in the movie, “Cast Away,” in the relationship Tom Hanks’ character has with Wilson, the volley ball, an inanimate object.

Whitney, you share in your blog the relationship you have with your cats. I celebrate for you, and for the cats, because they have a human who cares enough to take responsibility for their well being.  In so doing you improve the quality of your life over all. That is a gift divinely inspired. I also marvel at the cat and its selectively inspired adaptability. For at the core, the domestic house cat is most closely modeled by the African Lion.

 Out of our homes and left to their own devices, in whatever landscape urban or rural, cats take on behaviors that assure survival. Queen cats run the pride, the males are marginalized and battle for pride breeding rights. Queens will adopt and suckle a fallen sister’s kittens, a phenomenon rarely seen in mammals, outside of humans, while the victorious "Tom" will systematically kill all the kittens of his fallen foe’s seed.  Their adaptability has them at the top of the predator list without dispute, the range of their diet, over 800 species. This adaptability also has them in our homes, curled up or playing, seemingly ever in pursuit of the perfect cat nap or unsuspecting prey.

Now concerning horses; I feel that life is represented and expressed by systems. If you look at the picture above of the boys, you’ll see a system of two horses, and separate, but interrelated systems of the truck and the feed. The truck represents many unseen systems of production and marketing, the feed, the same in systems of farming. The horses represent a sub-system in a supra-system of horses. Currently we have no definite count of the number of horses in the U.S., but it is estimated between 6 and 11 million animals. That’s a big system, a huge herd, worthy of the attention of us all, horse fancier or not. It is our responsibility. In the next blog I'll talk about system inputs and outputs, and herd health.        

More on Horses

But first, thank you for your comments friends, they bolster and inspire me. My friends are my tutors; all I need is to listen.

   
        When considering the equine slaughter issue, to do so rationally, one must be aware of some natural human tendencies. One tendency, in emotionally charged issues, is to lose objectivity. There are few animal rights issues as highly charged, emotionally, as equine slaughter. Another human tendency, occurring all too frequent with animals, is to anthropomorphize animals, to give human- like characteristics to their behavior, emotion and expression. This is an injustice to the animal. Horses are not humans, but they do warrant fair and humane treatment. Horses are a unique species with behavior, emotion and expression unique to their survival, as dictated through evolution. And finally, our tendency toward aversion of death clouds objectivity. Slaughter is death and must be faced squarely, with guarded passion, in order to consider this issue fairly, rationally and objectively.

   
        In 2006 the 109th Congress passed legislation that removed appropriations for USDA inspections of horse meat. This effectively ended horse slaughter in the United States, and by 2007 the last horse slaughter facility in the states shut its doors. California had passed equine slaughter legislation in 1998, ending the practice in that state. An obscure law is on the books in the state of Texas that passed in 1949, but was generally disregarded and unenforced.

     
       Coincidental to the cessation of equine slaughter was the economic downturn. Two things happened; an increase of horse export to slaughter facilities in Canada and Mexico, 400 and 800 percent respectively, and many horse owners on the economic margin were forced to liquidate their animals. Additionally, cases of horses abandoned, or set free on government land increased, in some states over 50 percent. Horses were reported let loose on grassy highway medians in some states.

     
       An unwanted horse crisis arose and remains in the U.S. today. Three quarters of the budget for managing the wild and free roaming Mustang horses, in care of the Bureau of Land Management, is spent on long term holding of Mustangs awaiting adoption. Equine adoption and rescue associations are overwhelmed. Adding to the problem are over 250 thousand foals registered annually by just the top three breed associations, and there are dozens of horse breed associations in the United States.

    
        So, there are a few things to consider. I ask you approach this issue with a high awareness of your emotional intelligence and schema that may bias your perception. A young girl in my English 112 class became so emotional at my analysis of the issue she became insultingly hateful and wouldn’t engage in discourse on the subject. It troubled me some initially, but she turned out to be a bit of an idiot and dropped the class.

   

Next posting I will present my view on America’s horses as being one huge herd.