Sunday, March 27, 2011

Kill the Horses!

Saturday, March 26th there was a story about the wild horses that live in the Foothills in Alberta. Like everywhere there are two groups of people: the one who protect them and the others, who want them to be 'extinguished'. Thats what the 'extinguisher' said. His arguments 'they have never been here, they don't belong to this country and so on'. He seems to be one of those who shoot and than think or even avoid thinking at all.
The American continent is the birth place of horses. They lived here since 60 million years - slowly evolving from rabbit like creatures to there modern shape - until they were extinguished about 8000 years ago because of climate change and being hunted by humans. Luckily before that there was a migration of early horses over the land bridge to Asia, to Europe and Africa. In the 15th century horses were reintroduced by Spaniards and later on brought to northern regions by the Comanche people.
 When did this 'Extinguisher' arrive in Alberta? I am sure that was quiet late.
How did his ancestors arrive in Alberta? Probably with the help of horses, or did they walk from New York or Halifax to Alberta?
Lucky guy:  horses don't shoot! But some people need some 'thing' to shoot at!
         There was an other argument against these horses: they eat the grass down to the root and kill the grass lands. This happens only when horses are kept in a small area where they cannot move on to other feeding grounds. Watch a horse feeding on grass: it takes the upper third of a lump of grass with his lips, rips it off and moves on. Thats the way, nature keeps them all alive. Horses, zebras and all the animals that relay on grass. Otherwise none of them would survive thousands and millions of years. If there is not enough food, then they go deeper to the grass root.
So what's this all about? Every year we extinguish so many animals and plants that some day our descendants have to show their kids in a book how a bird or a horse looked like. I know, some people would like to see a deer, where one of these horses is feeding on the grass now because they can shoot the deer and killing the horses is not allowed in Alberta. And I hope the latter will not change!

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