We humans have a unique way of dealing with problems–we like to shoot ’em.
And since we’re so obsessed with shooting things, let’s starts with, say, the wild horses running around out West? The 33,000 horses roam around in herds covering 10 states, but especially seem fond of the state of Nevada. Officially, there should only be about 27,000 of these little beauties in the world, which is 6000 too many horses (full article).
These wild horses, which have long been a symbol of freedom are also, well, a bit of a nuisance. As such, in order to deal with this “problem,” the powers that be in Nevada have decided that they will euthanize the animals so their herd numbers are kept at appropriate levels.
Euthanizing these animals sounds way too humane. I think we out to get a bunch of trigger happy gun owners out there to just start shooting at the things–it worked with the buffalo, didn’t it? Maybe we could start a horse hunting season to keep the population down. Or is it that hunters don’t want to shoot horses? I hear horse meat isn’t that tasty and their hides are probably OK. However, I think the issue goes deeper than that…we just don’t like the idea of shooting horses.
Maybe it’s all the Western movies or the Black Beauty books, but I believe that Americans are generally pretty impressed by horses. One of our most popular and coveted automobiles is called a Mustang! Like me, I bet there are more people out there than just nutty animal lovers (I’m one of those, too) that find this idea barbaric.
One group suggested giving the horses birth control (hahaha!) and sterilizing some of the males. They also pointed out that if more people adopted the animals when they were rounded up (I guess they do that with wild equines out west, too), we wouldn’t be in this mess. Of course, ranchers are the ones who are really irritated by the horses moving in on their grazing lands. I would love to ship the horses to Pennsylvania. Personally, I think a herd of wild horses roaming about the state of Pennsylvania would be great, but we’ve around got pesky deer and a bunch of horses (some with buggies attached) already.
When I’m driving around in my environmentally-friendly Chevy Tracker, I notice that the houses keep getting bigger and bigger. On every corner, a new bank is being built. Literally! Seriously, aren’t we going into a recession? How many institutions do we need to house money? Couldn’t we shut down a few hundred banks and donate the land to the horses? Maybe we could even employ the former bank employees to be keepers of the herd. Or we could build smaller houses, make sure there is more open land and forest for all living creatures (or just to keep the United States from being overrun by banks), and give the horses some sex education classes taught by Mr. Ed. Seriously, how much land do we need to inhabit before we get it?
It’s not the deer’s fault it ran out in front of your car. It’s not the rabbit’s fault it ate your flowers. It’s not the horse’s fault it’s grazing on “your” land. Animals are just being animals–running, eating, grazing, surviving. Instead of trying to find ways around these issues, we seek to exterminate the problem–pesticides, traps, killings, poisons. Not only are we getting rid of the pests, we’re killing the earth we live on, which causes more problems.
I’m not an expert when it comes to maintaining the horse population in Nevada. However, you can’t tell me that there isn’t a better solution than killing a bunch of perfectly healthy horses because there are too many of them? Since horses are trainable animals, maybe we could just train ’em to throw themselves in the ocean when their numbers become too great…you know, like the lemmings do.
She is Beloved 