Welcome to ‘frackland’: does a river have the right not to be polluted?

Posted on by
by Shannon Biggs 27 January 2014

Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas or ‘fracking’ is one of the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet. Halting its destructive impact requires regulation and community control, but also something much deeper: the transformation of relationships between society and nature.

aerialFracking-300x214

Baldwin Hills in the middle of Los Angeles, the largest urban oilfield in the United States. Credit:  Transition Culver City. All rights reserved

Human laws have not forgotten nature, but neither have they protected it. Nowhere is this failure more apparent than with ‘hydraulic fracturing’ for natural gas and oil, an extreme energy extraction method commonly known as ‘fracking.’ Along with tar sands mining and mountaintop removal, fracking is one of dirtiest forms of energy on the planet, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Halting the destruction wrought by fracking requires new regulations and community controls over drilling, but it also involves something much deeper: the transformation of relationships between society and nature. Currently, human laws treat nature as mere property. In future, we must recognize that the ecosystems which sustain human life also have the right to exist, flourish and regenerate their natural cycles.

Some 400 million years ago, ancient aquatic environments dried up, cementing fine sedimentary deposits over the millennia into hard shale, which now lie two miles or more below the surface of the earth. Today, through technology developed by Halliburton and other corporations, along with plenty of industry-friendly political will and legal heft, these ancient shale formations represent the new subterranean playgrounds of the oil and gas industry worldwide.

Hydraulic fracturing is an advanced drilling technique that injects millions of gallons of water, sand, and toxic chemicals miles underground at pressures high enough to crack hard shale, thus releasing natural gas and oil that has been ‘trapped’ in its fissures. In the USA this technique produces 300,000 barrels of natural gas each day, and has pushed US oil output to a 25-year high. As Stephen Schork, puts it, president of the Schork Group energy consulting firm, “you can’t swing a cat without hitting a barrel of oil in North America. It’s amazing how quickly things can change.” As this map shows, pretty much everyone in the USA lives downstream from ‘frackland’ and the pollution it creates. Here are some ‘fracts’ that everyone should know:

If fracking is so destructive, why are oil and gas companies allowed to override community concerns and site new wells directly in their midst?  This question gets to the heart of the matter about the legal rights of nature and of people.

In the USA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and similar laws at the state level effectively legalize environmental harm by regulating how much pollution can occur. Rather than preventing environmental destruction, these laws codify it, assuming that the best that can be done is to slow the rate of devastation. How else could we legalize the damming of rivers, the removal of whole mountaintops for coal mining, or fishing the oceans to extinction?

We codify our values in the law, and Western societies have treated nature in law and culture as a “thing” to be dominated – amoral, without emotion or intelligence, and lacking any real connection to human beings. In this way we justify and rationalize our exploitation of the natural world. Nature is seen as a possession or as property, rather than as a system that governs our own wellbeing. These ecosystems have no legal standing in most courts of law.

What do have legal standing are the energy corporations, which are in fact legal fictions on paper that can shield their CEO’s and their shareholders from liability for their decisions. By contrast, the communities in which the wells are located are denied the authority to say “no” to fracking, even as their health, safety and welfare are at risk each time a well is fracked.  In many states fracking is unregulated, and in some areas it isn’t even monitored. Most communities aren’t notified that fracking is happening close by.  Cloaked in constitutional protections, exemptions and well-greased political cover, the oil and gas industry stands on solid legal ground as it rolls into town.

Some communities, however, are beginning to change the rules of the game. Nineteen communities in six states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Colorado, New Mexico and Maryland) have successfully banned fracking by writing new laws that place the rights of residents and their local ecosystems above the interests of corporations. They join the ranks of 160 communities across the USA who have already banned other harmful practices, along with Ecuador, Bolivia and (to some extent) New Zealand which have recognized the rights of ecosystems at the national level.

Take, for example, the town of Mansfield in Ohio. In 2012 this community of 50,000 people was slated to receive toxic frackwater waste from Pennsylvania. Under state law there was little that they could do to stop it, since dumping unwanted fracking chemicals into “injection wells” in Ohio is legal.

Nevertheless, concerned residents proposed an amendment to the town’s charter that affirms the rights of the local population to decide if injection wells are allowed within its boundaries.  Suddenly, a matter of local concern became a major political issue for oil and gas companies and their Political Action Committees or PACS, which raise money on their behalf. Corporate contributors poured in over $300,000 to pay for TV advertisements and glossy brochures sent through the mail, which were designed to frighten residents into voting against the amendment on the grounds that it would be a “jobs killer”.

The majority of Mansfield’s residents rejected this hype, reasoning that any jobs related to injection wells would not be as plentiful as promised, and that dumping toxic waste into the town’s industrial park seemed more likely to chase away new business than to attract it. As the town’s Mayor put it at the time, “We don’t like outsiders telling us what to do.” The amendment was passed with 63 per cent of the votes cast. Crucially, it subordinates corporations to the concerns of the community by stripping them of their legal “personhood” and other constitutional privileges, and recognizing the rights of natural ecosystems to be free from frackwater dumping.

In 1973, Christopher Stone, a law professor at the University of Southern California, published a famous article called “Should Trees Have Standing?” In it, he explained why it is so hard to think about the rights-less as having rights. Citing the struggles of Abolitionists against slavery and of Suffragettes in favor of votes for women, Stone’s article showed how every emerging movement to recognize such rights has been deemed radical, and perhaps even treasonous.

In the same vein, it may seem strange to argue that rivers and forests also have rights. But how different would it be in the world if the Amazon River could sue oil companies for damages, or if those responsible for oil spills could be forced to make the Gulf of Mexico “whole” once again, or if communities could be empowered to act as stewards for their local environments and ecosystems?

The movement for the rights of nature has seen its ranks swell in recent times, as more and more communities realize that the law does not protect them from harm. The connections between our bodies and the web of life that sustains them are made more real with every industrial accident and incursion. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.”  When it comes to the rights of nature, nobody is laughing anymore.

~

Cross-posted for educational purposes. Click on the original Open Democracy article  to comment: http://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/shannon-biggs/welcome-to-frackland-does-river-have-right-not-to-be-polluted

BLM Resource Advisory Council Meeting to be Broadcast on Web

Posted on by
Cows in Nevada (Photo © Anne Novak)

Cows in Nevada (Photo © Anne Novak)

From a BLM press release:

Reno, Nev.— The joint meeting of the Nevada Bureau of Land Management’s three Resource Advisory Councils (RACs) will be broadcast over the web on February 6 and 7 at http://www.blm.gov/live/.

The meeting is being held at the High Desert Inn, 3015 Idaho Street, Elko, NV. A public comment period is scheduled for Feb. 6 from 4 to 4:30 p.m. Written comments can also be submitted to RAC Coordinator Chris Rose at crose@blm.gov or by mail at: RAC Comments, Attn: Chris Rose, 1340 Financial Blvd., Reno, NV 89502.

The agenda and additional information will be posted at http://on.doi.gov/1bkJm1g. Individuals who plan to attend and need further information about the meeting or need special assistance such as sign language interpretation or other reasonable accommodations may also contact Chris Rose.

The Sierra Front-Northwestern Great Basin RAC, the Northeastern Great Basin RAC, and the Mojave-Southern Great Basin RAC each have 15-members that represent a variety of public land interests. The Nevada RACs advise the Secretary of the Interior, through the BLM Nevada State Director, on a variety of planning and management issues associated with public land management in Nevada.

The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. In Fiscal Year 2013, the BLM generated $4.7 billion in receipts from public lands

—BLM—
RAC 2014 tri rac agenda

Washington Post reports: U.S. looking for ideas to help manage wild-horse overpopulation

Posted on by
Truck in the pens (© Anne Novak, All rights reserved)

Truck in the pens (© Anne Novak, All rights reserved)

By and , Published: January 26

 

When Velma Johnston almost single-handedly persuaded Congress to pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, her goal was to protect an icon of the American West that had been slaughtered, poisoned and abused and was quickly disappearing.More than four decades later, the woman known as “Wild Horse Annie” would undoubtedly be shocked by what her law has wrought: so many mustangs, stashed in so many places, that authorities admit they have no idea how to handle them all.

Under the law, the federal government is responsible for more than 40,000 mustangs on the range in 10 Western states, where they compete with cattle and wildlife for increasingly scarce water and forage. The public desire to adopt them is limited. Contraceptive efforts have largely failed. U.S. law — reaffirmed this month — effectively precludes slaughtering them, or selling them to anyone who would. Activists want the horses left on the land.

Solving the decades-old problem is the task of the federal Bureau of Land Management. Already it manages 50,000 horses and burros it has rounded up and sent to pastures and corrals. But it is rapidly running out of places for more.

Now, by devoting about $1.5 million from the new budget agreement for fiscal 2014, the agency is ready to take another shot at one of the West’s most in­trac­table wildlife problems. It is inviting anyone with a legitimate idea of how to curb the horse and burro populations to step up and propose it. The agency will study the ones it finds most promising and try again to find a solution.

“We need all the help we can get,” said Ed Roberson, the BLM’s assistant director of resources and planning.

The agency periodically takes wild horses from 179 “herd management areas” it controls on 31.6 million acres, mostly when they threaten to overwhelm the available food and water or destroy the surroundings, officials said. It sends them to private pastures if space is available and holds the rest in corrals.

Not only do these efforts feature the unfortunate visual of panicked mustangs fleeing low-flying helicopters, but activists and others have claimed that horses have been injured and treated inhumanely during roundups.

“We don’t have an overpopulation problem,” said Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs, a horse advocacy group. “The only overpopulation problem is in the holding pens.”

The BLM says that the open range it manages can support 26,677 horses and burros, and estimates that 40,605 are roaming that land. A National Research Council study released in June concluded that the agency may have undercounted by 10 to 50 percent, and that horse populations were probably growing at 15 to 20 percent every year.

The mustangs, offspring of horses left behind by miners, ranchers, Native Americans and others, have no natural predators, except for an occasional mountain lion or bear. Left alone on the range, the agency predicts, their population would soar to 145,000 by 2020.

Meanwhile, the BLM is sheltering and feeding 33,608 horses in pastures at $1.30 per head each day, and 16,160 horses and burros in “short-term corrals” at four times the expense, officials said. (The temporary stays can last as long as 18 months.)

Joan Guilfoyle, chief of the BLM’s wild horse and burro division, predicted that the holding areas in states such as Kansas and Oklahoma will chew up 64 percent of the $77 million Congress gave the program for fiscal 2014.

“Our long-term goal is to reduce that,” she said. “We don’t consider that a success story. We haven’t had very many options.”

Bruce Wagman, a California-based attorney who represents numerous animal protection groups across the country, argued that the government’s approach violates the spirit of the 1971 law.

“They’ve been doing the wrong thing since day one,” he said. “Instead of protecting and preserving them, they are doing the opposite.”

The Nevada Association of Counties and the Nevada Farm Bureau Federation couldn’t disagree more. Last month, they sued the BLM, alleging that it is not enforcing the portion of the 1971 law that requires it to manage wild horses in a way that maintains ecological balance for all species, including the millions of cattle that graze on federal land.

“They’re not managing the herds,” said Lorinda Wichman, a Nye County, Nev., commissioner and president-elect of the state’s Association of Counties. “We have some herds in Nye County that are 600 percent over” what the area can support.

More than half the wild horses are in Nevada. The overcrowding, coupled with the drought plaguing the Southwest, has “severe impacts on the rangeland. It has severe impacts on the natural riparian areas. And in the long run, it has severe impacts on the horses themselves,” said Zach Allen, director of communications for the Nevada Farm Bureau.

Novak, of Protect Mustangs, dismissed the notion that wild horses have destroyed grazing lands that ranchers need to feed their cattle. She cited work by Princeton University researchers that shows that allowing wild animals to graze alongside cattle can actually result in healthier cows. Their conclusions were based on studies conducted in Kenya, where cattle paired with donkeys gained 60 percent more weight than those left to graze only with other cows. The researchers said that the donkeys ate the upper portion of grass that cows have difficulty digesting, leaving behind lush lower vegetation on which cattle thrive.

One obvious solution, sending the horses to slaughter, is out of the question. The BLM does not knowingly auction horses to anyone who would slaughter them. And the last of several domestic horse-slaughtering plants ceased operation in 2007 after Congress withheld funding for federal inspectors.

When that funding was restored in 2011, several companies sought permits from the Department of Agriculture to resume horse-slaughtering operations. The most high-profile was Valley Meat in New Mexico, whose efforts triggered renewed debate — and many months of legal fights — over whether the practice should be allowed.

When Congress cut the funding for inspectors, “it did far more to hurt the welfare of horses,” said A. Blair Dunn, an attorney who has represented Valley Meat. “People were just abandoning them. . . . They are starving to death or dying of thirst.”

Wagman, the attorney who represents horse advocacy groups, responded that “horse slaughter is inherently inhumane. Even if it’s not a legal issue, it’s an ethical issue.”

The argument became moot recently when Congress passed a budget that again withholds money for inspectors in horse-
slaughter plants.

Adoption was once a serious option. In fiscal 1995, 9,655 horses and burros were adopted, according to the BLM, but that dropped to a low of 2,583 by fiscal 2012, for reasons that aren’t clear.

That leaves fertility control as the most promising alternative. One drug, porcine zona pellucida, is effective for a year and can be injected into horses on the range. But longer-acting versions have proven to be not nearly as reliable, Guilfoyle said.

Until a new idea comes along — the BLM hopes its $1.5 million offer will generate creative suggestions — the agency is left with a combination of fertility control and roundups.

“What is the solution? You know, I really wish I knew,” said Wichman, the county commissioner. “As a race, I believe we have loved our pets and our animals into a corner, because as soon as we started playing Mother Nature, we kind of messed with the balance of things.”

Please comment here.

Cross posted from the Washington Post for educational purposes: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-looking-for-ideas-to-help-manage-wild-horse-overpopulation/2014/01/26/8cae7c96-84f2-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html

Pat Raia exposes BLM’s plans to suppress wild horse population

Posted on by

 

Cross-posted from The Horse for educational purposes: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/33289/blm-seeks-ideas-on-wild-horse-management

BLM Seeks Ideas on Wild Horse Management

By Pat Raia
Jan 29, 2014

While the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking ideas for managing its wild horse and burro population, some critics maintain that the agency has failed to appropriately implement previously suggested herd management methods.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 charges the BLM with managing wild horses and burros residing west of the Mississippi River. The agency currently manages more than 40,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states; another 50,000 animals reside in BLM long- and short-term care facilities.

In 2010, the BLM asked the independent nonprofit National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review technical aspects of the wild horse and burro program and to make recommendations for future management techniques. The $1.5 million study began in 2011, and results were released in 2013.

In it’s report, NAS said the population of wild horses under BLM care on Western public rangelands increases by an unsustainable 15% to 20% annually. The report also said the BLM has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate wild horse and burro populations on each range, or to model the effects of management actions. Finally, the report said the BLM failed to effectively use contraception tools, specifically porcine zona pellucida (PZP) vaccines for mares and a chemical vasectomy vaccine in stallions, to achieve appropriate population control.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said the agency issued a request for information (RFI) in October 2013 intended to alert veterinarians, scientists, universities, pharmaceutical companies, and other researchers of the BLM’s need to develop innovative techniques and protocols for implementing population growth-suppression methods.

“Specifically, the BLM is interested in finding experts to develop or to refine current techniques and protocols for either the contraception or spaying/neutering of on-range male and female wild horses,” Gorey said.

The submission deadline for ideas in response to the RFI was Dec. 1, 2013, and the agency has received 14 responses, Gorey said. Meanwhile, the BLM intends to allocate $1.5 million from its fiscal year 2014 budget in connection with an upcoming request for applications for spay/neuter and contraception study proposals, which the BLM intends to issue by March 1, Gorey said.

Gorey said the agency remains committed to making substantial improvements to the wild horse and burro program: “The development and use of more effective methods to reduce population growth rates will lessen the need to remove animals from the range. This will be better for the animals and is needed to improve the health of public rangelands, conserve wildlife habitat, and save taxpayers money.”

But BLM’s critics aren’t sure the agency’s actions will yield a long-term solution to wild horse and burro herd growth issues. Some wild horse advocates believe BLM roundups not only violate the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, but harm animals as well. That’s why Anne Novak, executive director of the wild horse advocacy group Protect the Mustangs, believes the BLM should stop using roundups to manage herd populations.

“We need a moratorium on roundups so (the horses’) birthrate can go back to normal, and we need a policy to be based on science and not on quick fixes for an alleged overpopulation problem,” opined Novak. “Meanwhile we can perform scientific studies on how to utilize native wild horses for holistic land management.”

Jay F. Kirkpatrick, PhD, a wildlife population control specialist and director of the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Mont., said he’s also proposed ways for the BLM to control its herd populations in the past. Kirkpatrick said he advised the BLM to, during each roundup, inoculate with the native PZP vaccine all mares returning to the range. Though the vaccine’s effects do not always last for more than a year, he said, he believes a single shot could have a dramatic effect on reproduction in year one and residual effects in following years.

“If they simply held those mares two weeks and gave them a booster shot before releasing them, the effects would be even more dramatic,” Kirkpatrick opined. “Regardless, the next time they rounded-up horses, the primer-treated mares would get a booster, new horses (would get) a primer, and the effects (would) get greater; after four to five roundups, the reduction in foals would have been significant.”

Kirkpatrick said that, for various reasons, the BLM has not implemented his proposal.

Ultimately, said Attorney Bruce Wagman, who represents wild horse advocates, whatever decision the BLM makes should have horses’ best interests in mind.

“I certainly think that the BLM should be looking to the greater horse welfare community and those who have studied the BLM’s administration of the wild horse program for years for input,” Wagman said. “We have been trying to get BLM to do that for years.”

 

A radio tribute to Garnet Pasquale

Posted on by

wild_horse_burro_radio_logo1

Times for this Wednesday night show are:

7:00 pm PST … 8:00 pm MST … 9:00 pm CST … 10:00 pm EST

Listen Live Here!

R.T. Fitch and Debbie Coffey are dedicating this show to honor wild horse & burro warrior Garnet Pasquale, and to talk about her favorite subject, the Spring Mountain Alliance.  If you knew Garnet and have a memory to share, please call in during the second hour of the show.  (Please don’t call in with questions or about other subjects tonight.  This is a tribute to Garnet.)

Call in # 917-388-4520

The shows will be archived, so you can listen anytime.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Garnet Pasquale was fiery, feisty and fierce about saving wild horses & burros from extinction. She spent countless hours working on their behalf, especially the wild horses near Las Vegas, NV, with the Spring Mountain Alliance.  Garnet was a loyal friend to the wild horses & burros, and a great friend to many advocates who were lucky enough to know her.  With much love, this show is dedicated to our dear friend, Garnet.

This radio show is co-hosted by Debbie Coffey, Director of Wild Horse Affairs at Wild Horse Freedom Federation and Marti Oakley, PPJ Gazette. This series of radio shows will feature upcoming guests including Elizabeth Lovegrove of Wild Horses Kimberly in Australia, who will talk about the recent aerial culling of 7,000 brumbies (Australia’s wild horses).

Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife

Posted on by
Wild Horses @ Peace (Photo ©Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Wild Horses @ Peace (Photo ©Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

by Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D. (Revised January 2010)

© 2003‐2010, Drs. Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio. All Rights Reserved.

Are wild horses truly “wild,” as an indigenous species in North America, or are they “feral weeds” – barnyard escapees, far removed genetically from their prehistoric ancestors? The question at hand is, therefore, whether or not modern horses, Equus caballus, should be considered native wildlife.

The question is legitimate, and the answer important. In North America, the wild horse is often labeled as a non‐native, or even an exotic species, by most federal or state agencies dealing with wildlife management, such as the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. The legal mandate for many of these agencies is to protect native wildlife and prevent non‐native species from causing harmful effects on the general ecology of the land. Thus, management is often directed at total eradication, or at least minimal numbers. If the idea that wild horses were, indeed, native wildlife, a great many current management approaches might be compromised. Thus, the rationale for examining this proposition, that the horse is a native or non-native species, is significant.

The genus Equus, which includes modern horses, zebras, and asses, is the only surviving genus in a once diverse family of horses that included 27 genera. The precise date of origin for the genus Equus is unknown, but evidence documents the dispersal of Equus from North America to Eurasia approximately 2‐3 million years ago and a possible origin at about 3.4‐3.9 million years ago. Following this original emigration, several extinctions occurred in North America, with additional migrations to Asia (presumably across the Bering Land Bridge), and return migrations back to North America, over time. The last North American extinction probably occurred between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago (Fazio 1995), although more recent extinctions for horses have been suggested. Dr. Ross MacPhee, Curator of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues, have dated the existence of woolly mammoths and horses in North America to as recent as 7,600 years ago. Had it not been for previous westward migration, over the 2 Bering Land Bridge, into northwestern Russia (Siberia) and Asia, the horse would have faced complete extinction. However, Equus survived and spread to all continents of the globe, except Australia and Antarctica.

In 1493, on Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas, Spanish horses, representing E. caballus, were brought back to North America, first in the Virgin Islands, and, in 1519, they were reintroduced on the continent, in modern‐day Mexico, from where they radiated throughout the American Great Plains, after escape from their owners or by pilfering (Fazio 1995).

Critics of the idea that the North American wild horse is a native animal, using only selected paleontological data, assert that the species, E. caballus (or the caballoid horse), which was introduced in 1519, was a different species from that which disappeared between 13,000‐11,000 years before. Herein lies the crux of the debate. However, neither paleontological opinion nor modern molecular genetics support the contention that the modern horse in North America is non‐native.

Equus, a monophyletic taxon, is first represented in the North American fossil record about four million years ago by E. simplicidens, and this species is directly ancestral to later Blancan species about three million years ago (Azaroli and Voorhies 1990). Azzaroli (1992) believed, again on the basis of fossil records, that E. simplicidensgave rise to the late Pliocene E. Idahoensis, and that species, in turn, gave rise to the first caballoid horses two million years ago in North America. Some migrated to Asia about one million years ago, while others, such as E. niobrarensis, remained in North America.

In North America, the divergence of E. caballus into various ecomorphotypes (breeds) included E. caballus mexicanus, or the American Periglacial Horse (also known as E. caballus laurentius Hay, or midlandensis Quinn) (Hibbard 1955). Today, we would recognize these latter two horses as breeds, but in the realm of wildlife, the term used is subspecies. By ecomorphotype, we refer to differing phenotypic or physical characteristics within the same species, caused by genetic isolation in discrete habitats. In North America, isolated lower molar teeth and a mandible from sites of the Irvingtonian age appear to be E. caballus, morphologically. Through most of the Pleistocene Epoch in North America, the commonest species of Equus were not caballines but other lineages (species) resembling zebras, hemiones, and possibly asses (McGrew 1944; Quinn, 1957). 3 Initially rare in North America, caballoid horses were associated with stenoid horses (perhaps ancestral forerunners but certainly distinct species), but between one million and 500,000 years ago, the caballoid horses replaced the stenoid horses because of climatic preferences and changes in ecological niches (Forstén 1988). By the late Pleistocene, the North American taxa that can definitely be assigned to E. caballus are E. caballus alaskae (Azzaroli 1995) and E. caballus mexicanus (Winans 1989 – using the name laurentius). Both subspecies were thought to have been derived from E. niobrarensis (Azzaroli 1995).

Thus, based on a great deal of paleontological data, the origin of E. caballus is thought to be about two million years ago, and it originated in North America. However, the determination of species divergence based on phenotype is at least modestly subjective and often fails to account for the differing ecomorphotypes within a species, described above. Purely taxonomic methodologies looked at physical form for classifying animals and plants, relying on visual observations of physical characteristics. While earlier taxonomists tried to deal with the subjectivity of choosing characters they felt would adequately describe, and thus group, genera and species, these observations were lacking in precision. Nevertheless, the more subjective paleontological data strongly suggests the origin of E. caballus somewhere between one and two million years ago.

Reclassifications are now taking place, based on the power and objectivity of molecular biology. If one considers primate evolution, for example, the molecular biologists have provided us with a completely different evolutionary pathway for humans, and they have described entirely different relationships with other primates. None of this would have been possible prior to the methodologies now available through mitochondrial‐DNA analysis.

A series of genetic analyses, carried out at the San Diego Zoo’s Center for Reproduction in Endangered Species, and based on chromosome differences (Benirschke et al. 1965) and mitochondrial genes (George and Ryder 1986) both indicate significant genetic divergence among several forms of wild E. caballus as early as 200,000‐300,000 years ago. These studies do not speak to the origins of E. caballus per se, but they do point to a great deal of genetic divergence among members of E. caballus by 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Thus, the origin had to be earlier, but, at the very least, well before the disappearance of the horse in North America between 13,000‐11,000 years ago. 4 The relatively new (30‐year‐old) field of molecular biology, using mitochondrial‐DNA analysis, has recently revealed that the modern or caballine horse, E. caballus, is genetically equivalent to E. lambei, a horse, according to fossil records, that represented the most recent Equus species in North America prior to extinction. Not only is E. caballus genetically equivalent to E. lambei, but no evidence exists for the origin of E. caballus anywhere except North America (Forstén 1992).

According to the work of researchers from Uppsala University of the Department of Evolutionary Biology (Forstén 1992), the date of origin, based on mutation rates for mitochondrial‐DNA, for E. caballus, is set at approximately 1.7 million years ago in North America. This, of course, is very close, geologically speaking, to the 1‐2 million‐year figure presented by the interpretation of the fossil record.

Carles Vilà, also of the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University, has corroborated Forstén’s work. Vilà et al. (2001) have shown that the origin of domestic horse lineages was extremely widespread, over time and geography, and supports the existence of the caballoid horse in North American before its disappearance, corroborating the work of Benirschke et al. (1965), George and Ryder (1995), and Hibbard (1955).

A study conducted at the Ancient Biomolecules Centre of Oxford University (Weinstock et al. 2005) also corroborates the conclusions of Forstén (1992). Despite a great deal of variability in the size of the Pleistocene equids from differing locations (mostly ecomorphotypes), the DNA evidence strongly suggests that all of the large and small caballine samples belonged to the same species. The author states, “The presence of a morphologically variable caballine species widely distributed both north and south of the North American ice sheets raises the tantalizing possibility that, in spite of many taxa named on morphological grounds, most or even all North American caballines were members of the same species.”

In another study, Kruger et al. (2005), using microsatellite data, confirms the work of Forstén (1992) but gives a wider range for the emergence of the caballoid horse, of 0.86 to 2.3 million years ago. At the latest, however, that still places the caballoid horse in North America 860,000 years ago. 5 The work of Hofreiter et al. (2001), examining the genetics of the so-called E. lambei from the permafrost of Alaska, found that the variation was within that of modern horses, which translates into E. lambeiactually being E. caballus, genetically. The molecular biology evidence is incontrovertible and indisputable, but it is also supported by the interpretation of the fossil record, as well.

Finally, very recent work (Orlando et al. 2009) that examined the evolutionary history of a variety of non‐caballine equids across four continents, found evidence for taxonomic “oversplitting” from species to generic levels. This overspitting was based primarily on late‐Pleistocene fossil remains without the benefit of molecular data. A co‐author of this study, Dr. Alan Cooper, of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, stated, “Overall, the new genetic results suggest that we have underestimated how much a single species can vary over time and space, and mistakenly assumed more diversity among extinct species of megafauna.”

The fact that horses were domesticated before they were reintroduced matters little from a biological viewpoint. They are the same species that originated here, and whether or not they were domesticated is quite irrelevant. Domestication altered little biology, and we can see that in the phenomenon called “going wild,” where wild horses revert to ancient behavioral patterns. Feist and McCullough (1976) dubbed this “social conservation” in his paper on behavior patterns and communication in the Pryor Mountain wild horses. The reemergence of primitive behaviors, resembling those of the plains zebra, indicated to him the shallowness of domestication in horses.

The issue of feralization and the use of the word “feral” is a human construct that has little biological meaning except in transitory behavior, usually forced on the animal in some manner. Consider this parallel. E. Przewalskii (Mongolian wild horse) disappeared from Mongolia a hundred years ago. It has survived since then in zoos. That is not domestication in the classic sense, but it is captivity, with keepers providing food and veterinarians providing health care. Then they were released during the 1990s and now repopulate their native range in Mongolia. Are they a reintroduced native species or not? And what is the difference between them and E. caballus in North America, except for the time frame and degree of captivity?

The key element in describing an animal as a native species is (1) where it originated; and (2) whether or not it co‐evolved with its habitat. Clearly, E. 6 caballus did both, here in North American. There might be arguments about “breeds,” but there are no scientific grounds for arguments about “species.”

The non‐native, feral, and exotic designations given by agencies are not merely reflections of their failure to understand modern science but also a reflection of their desire to preserve old ways of thinking to keep alive the conflict between a species (wild horses), with no economic value anymore (by law), and the economic value of commercial livestock.

Native status for wild horses would place these animals, under law, within a new category for management considerations. As a form of wildlife, embedded with wildness, ancient behavioral patterns, and the morphology and biology of a sensitive prey species, they may finally be released from the “livestock‐gone‐loose” appellation.

Please cite as: Kirkpatrick, J.F., and P.M. Fazio. Revised January 2010. Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife. The Science and Conservation Center, ZooMontana, Billings. 8 pages.

 

LITERATURE CITED

 

Azzaroli, A. 1990. The genus Equus in Europe. pp. 339‐356 in: European Neogene mammal chronology (E.H. Lindsay, V. Fahlbuech, and P. Mein, eds.). Plenum Press, New York.

 

Azzaroli, A. 1992. Ascent and decline of monodactyl equids: A case for prehistoric overkill. Annales Zoologica Fennici 28:151‐163.

 

Azzaroli, A. 1995. A synopsis of the Quaternary species of Equus in North America. Bollttino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana. 34:205‐221.

 

Azzaroli, A., and M.R. Voorhies. 1990. The genus Equus in North America: The Blancan species. Paleontologica Italiana 80:175‐198.

 

Benirschke K., N. Malouf, R.J. Low, and H. Heck. 1965. Chromosome compliment: Difference between Equus caballus and Equus przewalskii Polliakoff. Science 148:382‐383.

 

Fazio, P.M. 1995. ʺThe Fight to Save a Memory: Creation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (1968) and Evolving Federal Wild Horse Protection through 7 1971,ʺ doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, p. 21.

 

Feist, J.D., and D.R. McCullough, Behavior Patterns and Communication in Feral Horses, Z. Tierpsychol. 41:337‐371.

 

Forstén, A. 1988. Middle Pleistocene replacement of stenoid horses by caballoid horses ecological implications. Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 65:23‐33.

 

Forstén, A. 1992. Mitochondrial‐DNA timetable and the evolution of Equus: Comparison of molecular and paleontological evidence. Ann. Zool. Fennici 28: 301‐309.

 

George, Jr., M., and O.A. Ryder. 1986. Mitochondrial DNA evolution in the genusEquus. Mol. Biol. Evol. 3:535‐546.

 

Hibbard C.W. 1955. Pleistocene vertebrates from the upper Becarra (Becarra Superior) Formation, Valley of Tequixquiac, Mexico, with notes on other Pleistocene forms. Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, 12:47‐96.

 

Hofreiter, M., Serre, D. Poinar, H.N. Kuch, M., Pääbo, S. 2001. Ancient DNA. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2(5), 353‐359.

 

Kruger et al. 2005. Phylogenetic analysis and species allocation of individual equids using microsatellite data. J. Anim. Breed. Genet. 122 (Suppl. 1):78‐86.

 

McGrew, P.O. 1944. An early Pleistocene (Blancan) fauna from Nebraska. Field Museum of Natural History, Geology Series, 9:33‐66.

 

Orlando, L. et al. 2009. Revising the recent evolutionary history of equids using ancient DNA. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. www.pnas.org/cai/doi/10.1073/pnas.0903672106

 

Quinn, J.H. 1957. Pleistocene Equidae of Texas. University of Texas, Bureau of Economic Geology, Report of Investigations 33:1‐51.

 

Vilà, C., J.A. Leonard, A. Götherström, S. Marklund, K. Sandberg, K. Lidén, R. K. Wayne, H. Ellegren. 2001. Widespread origins of domestic horse lineages. Science 291: 474‐477. 8 Weinstock, J.E., A. Sher Willerslev, W. Tong, S.Y.W. Ho, D. Rubnestein, J. Storer, J. Burns, L. Martin, C. Bravi, A. Prieto, D. Froese, E. Scott, L. Xulong, A. Cooper. 2005. Evolution, systematics, and the phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective. PLoS Biology 3:1‐7.

 

Winans M.C. 1989. A quantitative study of North American fossil species of the genusEquus. pp. 262‐297, in: The Evolution of Perissodactyles (D.R. Prothero and R.M. Schoch, eds.). Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

 

Ω

 

Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Director, The Science and Conservation Center, ZooMontana, Billings, holds a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

 

~

 

Patricia M. Fazio, Research Fellow, The Science and Conservation Center, ZooMontana, Billings, holds a B.S. in agriculture (animal husbandry/biology) from Cornell University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in environmental history from the University of Wyoming and Texas A&M University, College Station, respectively. Her dissertation was a creation history of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, Montana/Wyoming.

 

Please note: This document is the sole intellectual property of Drs. Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio. As such, altering of content, in any manner, is strictly prohibited. However, this article may be copied and distributed freely in hardcopy, electronic, or Website form, for educational purposes only.