Readers of AC will appreciate that I feel very strongly — indeed, logic, common sense and empirical experience dictate — that pure motivations driving one to act do not generally trump the consequences of those actions, and, as a corollary, a decision to not act can have consequences every bit as profound as consequences to act. In short, deciding not to act can be cruel, immoral and deadly, regardless of how pure the motivation.
When AR people assert that killing animals is cruel and must be opposed, they often do so regardless of the consequences, which can be dire indeed. I've made that point before: the delicate and unique ecology — including rare birds and mammals — of Hawaii is being destroyed by introduced species (like pigs and rats), but culling those animals was opposed by AR Hawaii (link).
Additionally, AR people staunchly oppose hunting, especially deer hunting, even though deer hunting is a sound way to preserve the health and numbers of our deer herd and the habitat they inhabit (link, link).
If you're at all attuned to environmental matters, you may be vaguely aware that there is a problem with an explosion of the feral horse population in the west. Not unexpectedly, the issue is a contentious one, and the debate centers on what, if anything, should be done about it? Animal welfare people and environmentalists take a broad view and look to the well-being of western ecology and the health of the horse population, which means that some horses will need to be relocated, some killed, some captured for adoption, and some darted with birth control drugs.
The position of "horse advocates" appears to be unhelpful, and here's one Animal Welfarist's perspective:
Missoula, Mont. — THOSE whose knowledge of wild horses comes from coffee-table books and animal-rights propaganda tend to embrace the mythology of the wild horse and ignore the reality. The myth is pretty, like artwork: a proud stallion and his mares and their adorable foals gallop through a meadow, mountains in the background, manes and tails streaming. There's a reason people who see that take a photograph or paint a picture.
But here's some artwork from the summer of 2003: A cloud hangs over the Nevada landscape, caused by 500 half-starved horses pounding the high desert to powder, looking for food, stamping any remaining waterholes into dust. The foals are long dead, left behind as they weakened. Cowboys under contract with the Bureau of Land Management set out to gather the horses and move them, but a phone call redirects them to a worse situation in another area.
The overpopulation of wild horses is a serious problem in the West, with herds growing exponentially until they eat themselves out of luck. The land can't support an infinite number of wild horses - which, by the way, are inbred feral descendants of imported domestic horses, hardly more native to the prairie than the cattle their ancestors were trained to herd.
Still, possibly because of our love for the domestic horse, its wild cousins have become cultural icons, symbols of freedom. It's practically un-American to talk about killing them, so we've assumed a sort of willful blindness to both the reality of the problem and its solutions. Animal-advocacy groups rise in indignation over every proposal to reduce the number of wild horses, including sterilization programs, instead demanding a Western version of the miracle of loaves and fishes. [Emphasis added — ed.]
Indeed — icons, symbolism, willful blindness to reality. Translation: fantasy trumps realty, and that fantasy assumes almost a religious quality when it requires a miracle to solve a problem.
Some 30 years ago, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act provided the land management bureau with two options for horses removed from public lands because of overcrowding: adoption or "humane and cost-efficient" destruction. Ignoring the second option, the bureau has been warehousing 16,000 horses, unlikely to be adopted but ostensibly waiting for new homes, in overcrowded, unsanitary and expensive feedlots. An additional 37,000 horses and burros overgraze land meant to sustain 27,000.
The consequences of ignoring option 2 (the humane and cost-efficient destruction of horses) doesn't sound either humane or cost-efficient to me . . .
To get the land management bureau to come to grips with the problem, Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, added a provision to a spending bill last year that allows certain horses to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, which may be a slaughterhouse. Senator Burns's amendment, signed last month by President Bush, may actually end up rescuing the wild horses he is accused of murdering. At its worst, this measure will sacrifice the unadoptable few to the benefit of all. At its best, it will prod us, as a nation, to take that first difficult step toward a sustainable program to manage wild horses.
Adoption is a partial solution, but it's not the whole answer. Adoptions don't keep up with herd growth, for one thing. And not all horses are created equal, for another. People adopt beautiful, young horses. The old, plain and ugly are doomed from the outset. In addition, virtually anyone with $125 can adopt a wild horse, but not everyone has the knowledge and perseverance to tame it, or even, as it turns out, to catch it after it's been let out to graze in its new home.
Horse trainers like Merle Edsall see the worst of the adoption cases when they're called to recapture adult horses whose heads have grown around halters put on them as colts. Too many, he says, spend their days in small pens because their owners, unwilling to put them down, are at a loss for what to do with them. His solution is the Sonora Wild Horse Repatriation Project, which seeks to establish a sanctuary in Mexico to sustain 10,000 horses in a natural environment. But projects like this are howled down by animal-rights groups that complain about sterilization and other issues while ignoring the good such a project would bring.
Contraception does seem to be a viable way to control feral horse populations, which would certainly seem preferable to doing nothing, though by itself it wouldn't solve the problem, but only postpone the day of reckoning.
Some people are opposed to the Sonora Wild Horse Repatriation Project, pointing out that once in a foreign country, the horses are no longer subject to US law. This raises the concern that the horses might be slaughtered and the meat sold for food mainly in Asia and Europe (apparently, Mexico is one of the worlds leading exporters of horse meat for human consumption).
Opposing the slaughter of horses for food is, of course, an aesthetic objection, not an ethical one — the two (aesthetics and ethics) are as different as different can be. It is the symbol of the horse — a cultural creation of human beings, particularly humans who by chance happen to live in the US — that has led many of us to have a different attitude towards horses than we have towards beef cows. We have the right to make laws on the basis of aesthetics rather than ethics, but we ought to know that we're doing it . . .
People who truly love horses need to do their own research. We need places that will accept returned adoptees and horses that no one wants to adopt. The Sonora project, and several other sanctuary plans like it, would provide a place for wild horses to live out their lives in freedom.
Game are controlled through hunting and predation; cattle graze under strict regulations. Only the wild horse is allowed to multiply unchecked, and with catastrophic results. Sanctuaries would keep healthy horses out of costly, unsanitary feedlots, while sending older, unadoptable horses to slaughter would give their herds a better chance at survival. A side effect would be the rejuvenation of our depleted public lands to the benefit of all species. Americans have a chance now to become part of a sustainable solution before we stand guilty of loving our wild horses to death.
So — what's an Aminal Rights activist to do?
Well, should s/he oppose contraception, as do the "horse advocates" mentioned above? That would be consistent with AR doctrine that humans shouldn't intervene in the lives of animals.
Or, s/he could endorse contraception, just as the majority of AR groups do when they advocate spaying and neutering dogs and cats, a practice that violates AR ideology because it both imposes human will on animals and deprives them of their right to reproduction.
Irrespective of contraception — which is expensive, difficult to do and is a necessary but insufficient part of a solution — what else should be done? We can do nothing, and leave the animals and their habitat to their own devices. Inaction would be in keeping with the AR ideological dictum holding that humans have no right to impose their will on animals, or to interfere with nature's perfection. But if the decision not to act is taken, the consequences for the horses and their habitat would be dire indeed. Regardless of how pure the motives of the AR people might be, their decision not to act would eventually cause immense pain and suffering not only to the horses, but also to the other animals whose habitat would be destroyed by horse overpopulation.
And if the AR people decide that capturing and relocating the horses is best, they are advocating two things that are antithetical to their ideology. First, they would impose the will of humans on the will of horses who, I would be willing to bet, would resist being captured. This isn't a very good option, since the central tenet of the AR "ideology" is that humans have no right to impose their will on unwilling animals . . .
Second, the process of capturing and relocating the horses will subject them to stress, pain and suffering. Worse, some small percentage of them will be injured or killed. How could an AR activist possibly endorse a policy that would distress or hurt every animal caught, and cause death or injury to some?
So — what is the AR solution to the horse problem?
Brian
