@@notthatguy4703 yes but they left the continent due to geography and habitat. And then reintroduced 10,000 years later by humans. It would be the same as releasing tigers and elephants to north america because their "specie" used to be here before the ice age.
@@notthatguy4703 they're beautiful, so let's invent a rationale. Not! Left alone, they will erase barrier islands. They need predators, unfortunately. Wolves and perhaps mountain lions.
@@steveyd101 Yeah that would be pretty cool. Returning the megafauna is talked about among ecologists, not as an actual idea expect for maybe pleistocene Park, but in theory. The idea is that returning large animals could be beneficial in creating habitat structure and diversity, seed distribution, fire suppression, and healthier grasslands.
@@notthatguy4703 we already have native animals that do that and we don't even manage (or take care of) them that well. Our government won't even support the expansion of animals like elk or buffalo into areas that they used to roam. I could support a wild horse, or other animals, if modern humans were one of the reasons why they are not here anymore. But, that is not the case.
We have the same problem in the Phoenix Park in Dublin with wild deer that live there. They aren't invasive, they live in a city park, their population is very strictly controlled. But people walk up to them, (they could gouge your guts out with those antlers), feed them (poisoning them) letting their dogs run after them (stressing them out making them more likely to die from stress. Stressed animals don't mate or eat).
3:47 The damage out west is from cattle ranchers, not wild horses! And the wild horse population would be naturally controlled if the wolves and cougars weren’t hunted so heavily!
It's not all cattle ranchers. I've worked out in Utah and Arizona, and while the cattle are certainly damaging on public lands, so too are the feral horses and burros. They're populations are far too high. I agree that they would be much more manageable if wolves and cougars were allowed to flourish, however that may not solve all the problems. Feral female horses and burros, due to their domestication, can begin foaling as young as one year old and continue foaling every single year until they die, sometimes as old as 15 years. That's a lot of feral equines on the landscape. Additionally, wolves and cougars won't necessarily focus on feral horses or burros, because they often form food cultures (meaning that feral horses may be common in their territory, but they prefer hunting elk instead). I'm from Oregon, where we have cattle ranchers, feral horses, feral burros, and some feral sheep and pigs in the eastern third of the state. We also have some imperiled wildlife species, such as pronghorns, bighorn sheep, various butterflies, and so on. I've seen some of the damage that feral horses can do to water systems in these high desert environments. In some cases, they'll chase pronghorns and bighorns away from precious water holes, which increases their mortalities. I've grown up with horses all my life, and I hope to one day be able to train a mustang. I'm also a behavioral ecologist, who has seen the damage they've done with my own eyes. I love horses, but I also love the landscape and the wildlife who live there. I want everyone to have a place and a home, even those who shouldn't be here. I hope to be a part of the sort of research that helps wolves and cougars recolonize my homeland, investigate how they interact with feral horses, and maintain rancher respect for wildlife.
@@rachelwebber3605 Their is actually scientifically proven research that these horses are in fact native and they are also good for the environment as they help keep wildfires at bay by grazing the grasses and plants to a safe length that it can still grow but there isn’t anything that can kindle and start a wildfire also the reason for the roundups is in favor of the livestock industry that wants the grazing land for their cattle but cattle are the ones destroying our public lands as they trample the ground and native plants while moving they also rip the grass roots and all and also they are one of the leading emissions of greenhouse gases. Wild mustangs and burros(donkeys) on the other hand graze only the tops of the grass and since they aren’t able to fully digest the grass seeds so they are able to disperse the seeds back into the soil from their manure Also wild horses instead of trampling the native plants they take well woven paths when moving to water also while these wild horses are limited to only 27 million acres of public land cattle get to graze more than 155 million acres of the total 245 million acres of public lands and while there is more than 727,000 heads of cattle there are only around 16,300- 27,000 wild horses and burros(donkeys) and also the Bureau of land management often spreads false information that Wild horses and burros(donkeys) graze the land dry and are starving but they aren’t starving but in fact it’s the cattle that are grazing the land dry. There are better more humane and financially efficient ways to manage these wild mustangs and burros instead of these brutal helicopter roundups for example PZP fertility control which manages them humanely but also keeps them wild and free. Also the horses rounded up while some may get adopted to loving homes majority of these horses are often abused,neglected,starved, sent to cruel TIP trainers, put in Mexican rodeos, sold as sale authority, go through the adoption incentive program, end up in kill pens and sadly in a lot of cases are sent to slaughter for human consumption across the border in Mexico and Canada where they are put through the most brutal,cruel and most painful death imaginable Here are the links to the scientific evidence that wild mustangs are native to North America: americanwildhorsecampaign.org/media/learn-more-americas-wild-horses-native-reintroduced-species www.idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/horse-protection/wild-horses-are-native-to-north-america/
Horses actually evolved and adapted in the americas, alongside many other ungulates during an early migration period. Including but not limited to; mammoths, mastodon, bison, deer, elk, antelope, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, camelids (which includes camels, Llamas and alpacas) and many more. They are native to this land, we just so happened to have reintroduced them. Just like we reintroduced wolves to yellowstone.
It is not the same case as that of the wolves, since to begin with they were extirpated only from the area and by human actions. Horses disappeared much longer ago and for natural reasons, and a very important fact, THEY WERE NOT THE SAME SPECIES, there were several species, smaller, the size of a donkey, that disappeared. The domestic horse evolved from a species from the Asian tundra, it is not the same at all. I understand that they are cute, but we have to be objective
Barrier Islands should really all be protected land that never had significant human development, anyway. St Mary's National Sea Shore in Georgia is a great example of this. Galveston, on the other hand, is a terrible example of this. But that Island is far, FAR more developed than any of the southeastern Islands I've seen. It *was* supposed to be Houston before the Galveston hurricane.
In 1985 my mother, sister and I went to Assateague. My sister went to play in the ocean, I went to find some wild ponies. And I found them. I saw them and they saw me. I moved slowly toward them until one, probably the stallion, turned to face me and gave me a warning snort. Now, I've been riding horses since 1963, and while I only rode nice, tame horses, I heard that snort before and knew what it was. I crouched down, and no longer approached them. The one that warned me off, stayed on the side of the herd I was on, and continued to watch me, but since I was keeping my distance and I was out in the open, he didn't feel the need to warn me again. I stayed there and watched them for about 20 minutes before I got up and moved away. Now, since I do know horses, I continued to look back at the herd since I didn't want the stallion to feel emboldened to come after me. Not that I backed away, but I kept looking back. Those ponies don't seem to be quite as accustomed humans as these bank horses. Granted it was 35 years ago, but the ponies are also not getting quite as much human interaction since Assateague is a protected island.
Great show. Glad Eons suggested it. Always like Joe's "Smart" channel, too. Bit disappointed they are so East Coast-centric, particularly in an episode like this. They talk about a handful of horses on islands never intended to be lived on by either humans or horses, and virtually ignore the tens of thousands out west, living the lives their ancestors lived before extinction on this continent. THAT is the story of wild horses in America.
The horse family, Equidae, has existed for 50 million years, nearly the entirety of the Cenozoic, and for the vast majority of that time, equids had been endemic to the North American continent, having only expanded outside North America 3 million years ago, and the last of North America's wild equids only died out roughly 10,000 years ago, a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary time-scales. Additionally, amongst the last wild equids to live in North America was the species Equus ferus, which today includes the modern domestic horse, Equus ferus caballus. So, while modern North America's "wild" horses are not exactly the same as those that lived at the end of the Pleistocene, they are indeed native. While it is true that North America's feral horses have caused land & ecosystem degradation across much of the continent, however, that is NOT because they are "invasive", it is because of over-population of their habitats due to the utter devastation of North America's top predators, to the point that most feral horse populations exist in places where most, if not all of North America's top predators have been extirpated (local extinction), with the only exception being Cougars. The problem of using Cougars to control feral horse populations is that in most places where feral horses & Cougars overlap, Cougars are heavily hunted, to the point that their populations become dominated by what amounts to teenagers, young & inexperienced, these young Cougars are incapable of preying upon feral horses beyond neonates. And even in the few places where Cougars aren't hunted, their effectiveness as horse-predators varies from place to place, because, as ambush predators, Cougars require either broken topography or dense vegetation (or both) in order to effectively prey upon feral horses, and even then, they can only prey upon horses that are up to roughly one year old. Now, why are cougars so heavily hunted, you may be wondering, the reason for why is because in most places in North America where feral horses live are public land, specifically BLM (Bureau of Land Management) owned land, the same public lands where ranchers like to bring their cattle & other privately-owned, non-feral domestic livestock to forage (which, by the way, VASTLY outnumber feral horses), thus, to protect the cows & other livestock, the cougars are heavily hunted to the point that their populations become dominated by what amounts to teenagers. Fortunately, this isn't true for ALL of North America, as there are a few feral horse populations that live with the full suite of North America's top predators, such as in the Chilcotin region, British Columbia, Canada. In the Chilcotin, feral horses live right along side all of North America's top predators (with the exception of Jaguars), Cougars, Western Grey Wolves, Black Bears, and Grizzlies. Although, in the Chilcotin, it appears that the effectiveness of top predators to regulate feral horses varies from place to place, for a couple of examples, in places such as the Nemaiah Valley, where a small ranching community exists, the combined impacts of feral horses & cattle seem to have a degenerative impact on the land, despite the presence of top predators. However, in other, more remote places, where ranching doesn't occur, such as the Brittany Triangle, the combined impacts of grazers in the form of feral horses & browsers in the form of moose have made the Chilcotin a more biodiverse, mosaic landscape of forest with meadow patches, within the forest matrix, the feral horses have created a complex network of trails that many other animals presumably use to either move through the forest or to move from one patch of meadow to another, and finally, within the meadow-patches themselves, when under top-down regulation by top predators, feral horses seem to have a very heterogeneous impact, with the vegetation at various sites being impacted at varying degrees, quite possibly creating micro-habitats that other species may be using.
yea North America is in desperate need of more predators like wolves and cougars that can help keep the huge populations of deer and feral horses down without needing human intervention in the form of hunting. At least back when the North American horses went extinct there were far more predators around than we have today, like the American Cheetah, the Short-faced Bear and of course the Dire Wolf. Nowadays the only real predators that can keep the feral horse populations in check are wolves, mountain lions and maybe brown bears (though idk if they would go after a horse unless really desperate or if it was a foal), and all of those animals exist in very limited populations compared to their historic populations, besides brown bears who are doing pretty well.
@@Dell-ol6hb While bears probably wouldn't hunt full grown horses, likely primarily preying upon neonates and young foals, they could still help contribute in keeping feral horse populations in check by stealing and scavenging the remains of horses killed by other predators, such as wolves and cougars, and thereby forcing them to kill more horses to compensate.
Wonderful and educational comment but I just wanted to correct one thing- Cougar's actually are capable of killing fully grown adult horses. They have done it multiple times before during studies in nevada and canada. But usually only big male Cougar's (toms) can accomplish that, because they have much stronger jaws, and bodies than the females of their species. So Cougar's can also control adult horses as well.
Horses belong in north america. Calling them "invasive" is like calling a family that has been on vacation for 3 weeks "intruders" for trying to enter their home. How does that work? Lol
I'm late to the party but EONs sent me here. Would've been here sooner if I knew Joe was hosting this. As for the horses, I once camped out there and it was little scary hearing the horses approach your tent in the middle of night. Good experience overall!
Mustangs lived here for a long time without overly straining the environment, the issues now are because they're being aggressively displaced by cattle farming.
I love this channel, it takes me to places that I could never visit (Antarctica) along with ones that are only a couple hours away. Fantastic, informative video! cant wait for more!
Interesting idea for a channel. One thing I've learned about NYC (primarily from "The Other Islands of New York City: a History and a Guide" by Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller) is that right in the backyard of the biggest city in the US there are tons of island that have very little human contact. It would be fun to see a shot going over a densely developed part of the city, then a after a small patch of water, a little green speck. It would pitiably be hard to get the permits, but it might be worth it.
@@Alexander-is9jo I didn’t imply that it makes anything else less invasive, don’t assume more than what I’m saying. “Pot meet kettle” means we are both invasive.
i didnt see any trucks driving on the grassy areas, just sand and roads that dont kill grass, unlike horses. but i get it, humans bad nature good, is about as deep has most people can go ,
@@3BlueHaze Uhm, yeah. Right. And the exhaust and lost fluids that seep into the ground water of those vehicles don't harm the plants at all. Sure. And you are a prime example of deep thought, sir.
There are no paved roads in the area where the horses are. The beach is the main road and the houses are only accessible via sand roads that lead off the beach. So not having vehicles there isn't an option.
The last true wild horses of north America are extremely different to the feral horses that roam now. Modern horses are much larger and have different lifestyles to the last wild horses of north America
Domestic horses are nothing like the extinct horses of north america, the closest living analogue is przewalski's horse which are much smaller and hardier
The horse evolved on the North American grasslands and crossed the land bridge to Asia about 20,000 years ago then went extinct in North America after the last Ice Age some 8 ,000 years ago due to climate change and overhunting by the indigenous people so technically the horse was just re-introduced to North America by Spanish conquistadors, these small sturdy horses once again spread quickly throughout the Americas.
Been staying in Corolla in the Out Banks this week when I remembered this video and was pretty sure it was about this very island. Haven't seen any wild horses this week, but I'm glad I looked it up again.
The horses are a Problem but not those GARGANTUAN cars destroying the beach? Or the many wood shed (houses?) plastered right into the dunes? America has odd priorities.
Jaguars, wolves, cougars, grizzly, and black bears (to a lesser extent) would be good and reliable native predators for not only feral horses but also feral boar; but they would only really work in the western states as those states have enough wild spaces for large populations of the US' native large carnivores to reliably manage not only the populations of these feral species but their native prey as well. We already know that cougars will take feral species as this "Southwestern Naturalist" article has analyzed www.jstor.org/stable/3672527?origin=crossref&seq=1 so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that North America's other apex predators would do the same if given the chance to expand into horse territory.
Fascinating. I have to admit that I would be fighting the temptation to approach the horses too. I am an incurably "horse crazy" kid at heart. But I find it amazing and really great that they've found a way to help control the population, AND still let the horses stay mostly wild. Birth control seems far better than culling, which I believe is what they've had to resort to with the Mustangs out west from time to time.
What makes them cool is that they are FREE roaming, wild horses. I don't get people who want to approach them, want to pet them etc...hence trying to domesticate them when the very thing that makes them cool is that they roam free. There are always people who make dumb decisions and want to ruin something good.
The horse originally evolved on the North American continent so no, it's not an invasive species. Also, as someone's already pointed out in another comment, the damage is caused by cattle ranchers and not by the horses.
My father-in-law was a Target Executive. Norm Mcmillan would have enjoyed this video. His vision was to improve our world, and our way of looking at the problems we deal with. He has been gone now from this earth for four years, still, Norm cared about our world and wanted the best for us. All of us.
Nevada has a love hate relationship with the wild horses there. The Nevadans mostly like the horses, there are people who get miffed when one jumps a fence and mates or the entire heard hit the haystack. The Bureau of Land Management rounds them up from all over the state for prison inmates to tame / break. The remaining horses that were rounded up, well that's where all the controversy begins....
In winter, I have to be careful of the ice on the road. The rest of the year, I have to be careful driving in to work because the darn critters are all over the place. Horses on the way to Fallon, horses on the way to Fernley, horses on the way to Dayton, horses in people's yards in Silver Springs, horses in the street in Virginia City, horses in the industrial parking lots by USA parkway, horses crossing Hwy 50. And people from out of state whine about "oh, those poor endangered animals ".
There are actually several papers supporting the origin of E. ferus in the Americas, and having been present until earlier in the Holocene (possibly as soon as 5kya)
My favorite memory of my first trip to the Outer Banks (1990’s) was a beautiful stretch of unoccupied (tourist) beach covered in huge clam shells and a small band of wild horses. On the way back down the dirt road, we came across two stallions standing slightly away from the road nuzzling each other. My worst memory of my second trip to the Outer Banks (about 10 years later) was the unoccupied beach was no longer unoccupied and condominiums had sprung up all down the stretch of the dirt road leading to the beach. Unfortunately there wasn’t a single sign of any wild horses and it just about broke my heart. The horses aren’t the problem. They have learned to adapt to the conditions of living on the barrier islands. It is humans and technology and “progress” that is the problem.
Check out the Namib Desert Horses, probably the only feral horses in Africa. They date from WW I when Germany lost then South West Africa to the British.
They're not invasive, they're native to NA but were extinct here for 10,000 years. The Spanish unknowingly reintroduced them to the continent and it was a fairly successful reintroduction of a previously extinct species to its former ranger. At least until the US government stepped in with its stupid ideas of eradicating the mustangs and other reintroduced wild horse populations.
I blame Spirit:Stallion of the Cimmaron for hoodwinking a bunch of kids. Now all grown up whining about Spirit Untamed, even though that show does the right thing when showing that horses are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE WILD.
It is ironic that horses are called an invasive species in North America, when they evolved there and were present until 10 000 years (even the still existing species Equus caballus), which is nothing in evolutionary time. Many plants and animals probably still retain adaptions to live with horses. We just need predators (wolves, cougars, bears or jaguars) to be present in areas were wild horses live and the ecosystem gets more balanced. I see that on an island that is no possible, but in the prairie this would be feasible.
I believe that horses do have a place in the environments of the Americas. Perhaps not necessarily the barrier islands, but the wide expanses of the plains, yes. First, the timeframe that they were absent was a blip of time relative to how long they have been there. Second, the environment is already oriented towards their presence and they serve to fill an important ecological niche. For the time being these horses will appear as a nuisance until suitable predator populations, primarily wolves, are restored to help keep their populations in check. Generally, I believe we need to take a new view of environmentalism that prioritizes a sustainable system instead of fretting over whether or not something is necessarily native, especially if it comes at the cost of filling an important niche. For example, with climate change, the range of alligators is increasing north along the East coast. These animals moving north in response to a changing climate does not make them invasive (also they could serve to be a useful check on the barrier island horse populations).
Maybe there's too many houses, not horses? How many of those houses built on sand are federally insured because no insurance company is stupid enough to do it? Who's doing more damage, horses or houses?
I wouldn't call them invasive, they first evolved in North America, crossed the land bridge into Asia, and were reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish. The first of them was called Eohippus, or Dawn Horse, a little dude about the size of a medium sized dog with four toes.
For people who say that horses evolved here so they are not invasive, know that the species that inhabited the continent were different from the ancestor of the modern domestic horse, with different sizes and adaptations. It is exactly the same difference that there would be with a mammoth and an elephant.
I'm here thanks to Eons, and really looking forward to seeing more Overview episodes. This one was wonderful. Confession: I was a horse-mad girl most of my life, and have settled down to being merely horse-adorer. That being said,, I must protest the idea that the *horses* are the invasive species to worry about. Are you kidding me? As you say, horses have been on the outer islands for 500 years. Trouble didn't start until European humans arrived en masse. I'd rather see humans kept out and off the islands than the horses!
It's not an invasive species if they died out only a few thousand years ago (most likely due to overhunting). The reason horses are doing so well in the wild in America is because they are evolved to survive there.
A wild horse will not attack or harm a gentle caring human. You obviously have no first hand experience with these incredible creatures that flee from danger and are not predators.
Wow! This is a great channel. I would love to see a video like this over the wild mustangs, or if you’re brave enough.... a video over America’s truly most beloved invasive animals, domestic cats and dogs!
320 million+ humans, 2 million+ cows/sheep and back in the day USA had millions of buffalo but 95000 horses in the whole country is to much? Oh come on
Eventually the horses & pigs will evolve to be smaller or different in some manner that will let natures equilibrium balance out. So it might be better to just leave them alone even if that means some will die out. 🤔
I'm so glad I discovered this channel! So interesting!
I know right !
I love how people rate an animals importance by how cute they are or how close they are to a pet.
Horses are important. They have been in america for millions of years, they only left 7000 ya and came back 500 ya
@@notthatguy4703 yes but they left the continent due to geography and habitat. And then reintroduced 10,000 years later by humans. It would be the same as releasing tigers and elephants to north america because their "specie" used to be here before the ice age.
@@notthatguy4703 they're beautiful, so let's invent a rationale. Not! Left alone, they will erase barrier islands. They need predators, unfortunately. Wolves and perhaps mountain lions.
@@steveyd101 Yeah that would be pretty cool. Returning the megafauna is talked about among ecologists, not as an actual idea expect for maybe pleistocene Park, but in theory.
The idea is that returning large animals could be beneficial in creating habitat structure and diversity, seed distribution, fire suppression, and healthier grasslands.
@@notthatguy4703 we already have native animals that do that and we don't even manage (or take care of) them that well. Our government won't even support the expansion of animals like elk or buffalo into areas that they used to roam. I could support a wild horse, or other animals, if modern humans were one of the reasons why they are not here anymore. But, that is not the case.
Target: You go for some shampoo and leave with a horse.
We have the same problem in the Phoenix Park in Dublin with wild deer that live there. They aren't invasive, they live in a city park, their population is very strictly controlled. But people walk up to them, (they could gouge your guts out with those antlers), feed them (poisoning them) letting their dogs run after them (stressing them out making them more likely to die from stress. Stressed animals don't mate or eat).
Your videos always leave me wanting to know more and I usually find myself -researching- searching about the topic you talk about.
Thanks
@@prescriptivereasoning yeah you're right. Going to fix that rn
Oh, it's Joe. I love this series. 😍
So glad Eons mentioned this! I didn't even know the Outer Banks had wild horses too! Thought at first this was gonna be about Assateague.
Me too.
I thought it was going to be about the lower Salt River, or maybe the Navajo Reservation, or perhaps the northern end of Nevada's White Mountains. ;)
Same here!
"They're damaging the landscape!"
**drives truck on beach**
3:47 The damage out west is from cattle ranchers, not wild horses! And the wild horse population would be naturally controlled if the wolves and cougars weren’t hunted so heavily!
Thank you.
THANK YOU
Exactly! Thank you!
It's not all cattle ranchers. I've worked out in Utah and Arizona, and while the cattle are certainly damaging on public lands, so too are the feral horses and burros. They're populations are far too high. I agree that they would be much more manageable if wolves and cougars were allowed to flourish, however that may not solve all the problems. Feral female horses and burros, due to their domestication, can begin foaling as young as one year old and continue foaling every single year until they die, sometimes as old as 15 years. That's a lot of feral equines on the landscape. Additionally, wolves and cougars won't necessarily focus on feral horses or burros, because they often form food cultures (meaning that feral horses may be common in their territory, but they prefer hunting elk instead).
I'm from Oregon, where we have cattle ranchers, feral horses, feral burros, and some feral sheep and pigs in the eastern third of the state. We also have some imperiled wildlife species, such as pronghorns, bighorn sheep, various butterflies, and so on. I've seen some of the damage that feral horses can do to water systems in these high desert environments. In some cases, they'll chase pronghorns and bighorns away from precious water holes, which increases their mortalities.
I've grown up with horses all my life, and I hope to one day be able to train a mustang. I'm also a behavioral ecologist, who has seen the damage they've done with my own eyes. I love horses, but I also love the landscape and the wildlife who live there. I want everyone to have a place and a home, even those who shouldn't be here. I hope to be a part of the sort of research that helps wolves and cougars recolonize my homeland, investigate how they interact with feral horses, and maintain rancher respect for wildlife.
@@rachelwebber3605 Their is actually scientifically proven research that these horses are in fact native and they are also good for the environment as they help keep wildfires at bay by grazing the grasses and plants to a safe length that it can still grow but there isn’t anything that can kindle and start a wildfire also the reason for the roundups is in favor of the livestock industry that wants the grazing land for their cattle but cattle are the ones destroying our public lands as they trample the ground and native plants while moving they also rip the grass roots and all and also they are one of the leading emissions of greenhouse gases. Wild mustangs and burros(donkeys) on the other hand graze only the tops of the grass and since they aren’t able to fully digest the grass seeds so they are able to disperse the seeds back into the soil from their manure Also wild horses instead of trampling the native plants they take well woven paths when moving to water also while these wild horses are limited to only 27 million acres of public land cattle get to graze more than 155 million acres of the total 245 million acres of public lands and while there is more than 727,000 heads of cattle there are only around 16,300- 27,000 wild horses and burros(donkeys) and also the Bureau of land management often spreads false information that Wild horses and burros(donkeys) graze the land dry and are starving but they aren’t starving but in fact it’s the cattle that are grazing the land dry. There are better more humane and financially efficient ways to manage these wild mustangs and burros instead of these brutal helicopter roundups for example PZP fertility control which manages them humanely but also keeps them wild and free. Also the horses rounded up while some may get adopted to loving homes majority of these horses are often abused,neglected,starved, sent to cruel TIP trainers, put in Mexican rodeos, sold as sale authority, go through the adoption incentive program, end up in kill pens and sadly in a lot of cases are sent to slaughter for human consumption across the border in Mexico and Canada where they are put through the most brutal,cruel and most painful death imaginable
Here are the links to the scientific evidence that wild mustangs are native to North America:
americanwildhorsecampaign.org/media/learn-more-americas-wild-horses-native-reintroduced-species
www.idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/horse-protection/wild-horses-are-native-to-north-america/
i came here from pbs eons, and im glad i found that gem of a channel :)
'many view them as an invasive pest and one that's damaging a fragile landscape' ... while trucks are being driven up and down on the beach...
good point
Do as I say....
The beach is actually the road. There are no paved roads in the area where the horses are kept.
Speaking of invasive species. We are best example.
@@slashsd1000 hellz yeh we are :)
@@slashsd1000 lol 😂😂😂😂
@@slashsd1000 everywhere outside Africa
@@slashsd1000 humans in general. None actually originated in North America.
technically not, people moved to americas and oceania by pretty natural causes.
You can watch the host cringe a little when he endorses target lol
It's sad that more "respected institutions" do not support these great channels. Sadly they'd rather be associated with the Kardashians.
@@topperharley8322 Because in capitalist murica that is your targeted audience with the largest volume.
@@anarchyantz1564 "Target" -ed I see what you did there!
Sponsor blocker... haven't heard a sponsor in a loooong time.
I didn't notice. What's wrong with Target?
Another theory for the origin of these coastal horse populations is that colonial era farmers stowed horses on the barrier islands to avoid taxation.
Horses actually evolved and adapted in the americas, alongside many other ungulates during an early migration period. Including but not limited to; mammoths, mastodon, bison, deer, elk, antelope, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, camelids (which includes camels, Llamas and alpacas) and many more. They are native to this land, we just so happened to have reintroduced them. Just like we reintroduced wolves to yellowstone.
It is not the same case as that of the wolves, since to begin with they were extirpated only from the area and by human actions. Horses disappeared much longer ago and for natural reasons, and a very important fact, THEY WERE NOT THE SAME SPECIES, there were several species, smaller, the size of a donkey, that disappeared. The domestic horse evolved from a species from the Asian tundra, it is not the same at all. I understand that they are cute, but we have to be objective
Barrier Islands should really all be protected land that never had significant human development, anyway. St Mary's National Sea Shore in Georgia is a great example of this. Galveston, on the other hand, is a terrible example of this. But that Island is far, FAR more developed than any of the southeastern Islands I've seen. It *was* supposed to be Houston before the Galveston hurricane.
Eons sent me. Glad they did! Hi Joe!
In 1985 my mother, sister and I went to Assateague. My sister went to play in the ocean, I went to find some wild ponies. And I found them. I saw them and they saw me. I moved slowly toward them until one, probably the stallion, turned to face me and gave me a warning snort. Now, I've been riding horses since 1963, and while I only rode nice, tame horses, I heard that snort before and knew what it was. I crouched down, and no longer approached them. The one that warned me off, stayed on the side of the herd I was on, and continued to watch me, but since I was keeping my distance and I was out in the open, he didn't feel the need to warn me again. I stayed there and watched them for about 20 minutes before I got up and moved away. Now, since I do know horses, I continued to look back at the herd since I didn't want the stallion to feel emboldened to come after me. Not that I backed away, but I kept looking back. Those ponies don't seem to be quite as accustomed humans as these bank horses. Granted it was 35 years ago, but the ponies are also not getting quite as much human interaction since Assateague is a protected island.
Great show. Glad Eons suggested it. Always like Joe's "Smart" channel, too. Bit disappointed they are so East Coast-centric, particularly in an episode like this. They talk about a handful of horses on islands never intended to be lived on by either humans or horses, and virtually ignore the tens of thousands out west, living the lives their ancestors lived before extinction on this continent. THAT is the story of wild horses in America.
The horse family, Equidae, has existed for 50 million years, nearly the entirety of the Cenozoic, and for the vast majority of that time, equids had been endemic to the North American continent, having only expanded outside North America 3 million years ago, and the last of North America's wild equids only died out roughly 10,000 years ago, a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary time-scales. Additionally, amongst the last wild equids to live in North America was the species Equus ferus, which today includes the modern domestic horse, Equus ferus caballus.
So, while modern North America's "wild" horses are not exactly the same as those that lived at the end of the Pleistocene, they are indeed native.
While it is true that North America's feral horses have caused land & ecosystem degradation across much of the continent, however, that is NOT because they are "invasive", it is because of over-population of their habitats due to the utter devastation of North America's top predators, to the point that most feral horse populations exist in places where most, if not all of North America's top predators have been extirpated (local extinction), with the only exception being Cougars.
The problem of using Cougars to control feral horse populations is that in most places where feral horses & Cougars overlap, Cougars are heavily hunted, to the point that their populations become dominated by what amounts to teenagers, young & inexperienced, these young Cougars are incapable of preying upon feral horses beyond neonates. And even in the few places where Cougars aren't hunted, their effectiveness as horse-predators varies from place to place, because, as ambush predators, Cougars require either broken topography or dense vegetation (or both) in order to effectively prey upon feral horses, and even then, they can only prey upon horses that are up to roughly one year old.
Now, why are cougars so heavily hunted, you may be wondering, the reason for why is because in most places in North America where feral horses live are public land, specifically BLM (Bureau of Land Management) owned land, the same public lands where ranchers like to bring their cattle & other privately-owned, non-feral domestic livestock to forage (which, by the way, VASTLY outnumber feral horses), thus, to protect the cows & other livestock, the cougars are heavily hunted to the point that their populations become dominated by what amounts to teenagers.
Fortunately, this isn't true for ALL of North America, as there are a few feral horse populations that live with the full suite of North America's top predators, such as in the Chilcotin region, British Columbia, Canada. In the Chilcotin, feral horses live right along side all of North America's top predators (with the exception of Jaguars), Cougars, Western Grey Wolves, Black Bears, and Grizzlies.
Although, in the Chilcotin, it appears that the effectiveness of top predators to regulate feral horses varies from place to place, for a couple of examples, in places such as the Nemaiah Valley, where a small ranching community exists, the combined impacts of feral horses & cattle seem to have a degenerative impact on the land, despite the presence of top predators.
However, in other, more remote places, where ranching doesn't occur, such as the Brittany Triangle, the combined impacts of grazers in the form of feral horses & browsers in the form of moose have made the Chilcotin a more biodiverse, mosaic landscape of forest with meadow patches, within the forest matrix, the feral horses have created a complex network of trails that many other animals presumably use to either move through the forest or to move from one patch of meadow to another, and finally, within the meadow-patches themselves, when under top-down regulation by top predators, feral horses seem to have a very heterogeneous impact, with the vegetation at various sites being impacted at varying degrees, quite possibly creating micro-habitats that other species may be using.
Thank you for the added information.
yea North America is in desperate need of more predators like wolves and cougars that can help keep the huge populations of deer and feral horses down without needing human intervention in the form of hunting. At least back when the North American horses went extinct there were far more predators around than we have today, like the American Cheetah, the Short-faced Bear and of course the Dire Wolf. Nowadays the only real predators that can keep the feral horse populations in check are wolves, mountain lions and maybe brown bears (though idk if they would go after a horse unless really desperate or if it was a foal), and all of those animals exist in very limited populations compared to their historic populations, besides brown bears who are doing pretty well.
@@Dell-ol6hb While bears probably wouldn't hunt full grown horses, likely primarily preying upon neonates and young foals, they could still help contribute in keeping feral horse populations in check by stealing and scavenging the remains of horses killed by other predators, such as wolves and cougars, and thereby forcing them to kill more horses to compensate.
Wonderful and educational comment but I just wanted to correct one thing- Cougar's actually are capable of killing fully grown adult horses. They have done it multiple times before during studies in nevada and canada. But usually only big male Cougar's (toms) can accomplish that, because they have much stronger jaws, and bodies than the females of their species.
So Cougar's can also control adult horses as well.
Horses belong in north america. Calling them "invasive" is like calling a family that has been on vacation for 3 weeks "intruders" for trying to enter their home. How does that work? Lol
This was very enjoyable, im here from PBS Eons
I'm late to the party but EONs sent me here. Would've been here sooner if I knew Joe was hosting this. As for the horses, I once camped out there and it was little scary hearing the horses approach your tent in the middle of night. Good experience overall!
Sent from Eons! Love this!
Thank you. Please continue to provide these snapshots of interesting current life. ⚘
Mustangs lived here for a long time without overly straining the environment, the issues now are because they're being aggressively displaced by cattle farming.
I love this channel, it takes me to places that I could never visit (Antarctica) along with ones that are only a couple hours away. Fantastic, informative video! cant wait for more!
Hey, I thought I recognized that voice! Cool episode. Maybe after quarantine you can do one on invasive species in Hawaii.
Is it Joe Hanson?
@@Xaiff yes he said it himself in one of his videos
YES PLEASE
Interesting idea for a channel. One thing I've learned about NYC (primarily from "The Other Islands of New York City: a History and a Guide" by Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller) is that right in the backyard of the biggest city in the US there are tons of island that have very little human contact. It would be fun to see a shot going over a densely developed part of the city, then a after a small patch of water, a little green speck. It would pitiably be hard to get the permits, but it might be worth it.
I love it when humans have the audacity to call other species “invasive” pot meet kettle.
As we drive our massive vehicles on beaches burning fossil fuels
Dude's got a point.
Well that doesn't make those species less invasive.
Two things can be true at the same time, you know?
@@Alexander-is9jo I didn’t imply that it makes anything else less invasive, don’t assume more than what I’m saying.
“Pot meet kettle” means we are both invasive.
Wild horses are no different as wild pigs. Except the horse gets a pass for being a charismatic megafauna.
It might help that horses, or their ancestors, were originally native to the americas.
Just discovered that channel 2 days ago, and as always, anything from PBS is just amazing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Ehm... the horses damaging a fragile landscape? Pardon me... how about the dozens of SUV's and Trucks driving around the same landscape?
i didnt see any trucks driving on the grassy areas, just sand and roads that dont kill grass, unlike horses. but i get it, humans bad nature good, is about as deep has most people can go ,
@@3BlueHaze Uhm, yeah. Right. And the exhaust and lost fluids that seep into the ground water of those vehicles don't harm the plants at all. Sure. And you are a prime example of deep thought, sir.
@@3BlueHaze And humans are not bad, we are part of nature, but somehow some of us behave like we are not.
My thoughts exactly.
There are no paved roads in the area where the horses are. The beach is the main road and the houses are only accessible via sand roads that lead off the beach. So not having vehicles there isn't an option.
For one invasive species to call another species "invasive", it is a weird one for horses to be called invasive in their own homeland.
The last true wild horses of north America are extremely different to the feral horses that roam now. Modern horses are much larger and have different lifestyles to the last wild horses of north America
Domestic horses are nothing like the extinct horses of north america, the closest living analogue is przewalski's horse which are much smaller and hardier
The Spanish brought modern horses to America…
Horses seem to thrive in these ecosystems. There's another 500 year old population on Sable Island off the Nova Scotia coast.
Mustangs wouldn’t be invasive if they actually had predators *cough cough* WOLVES
Wild Horse literally told me a few thousand years ago that they'd be back to North America
4:45 can someone explain why it is bad to put your hands on the side of a horses head? I tried googling and got nothing...
The horse evolved on the North American grasslands and crossed the land bridge to Asia about 20,000 years ago then went extinct in North America after the last Ice Age some 8 ,000 years ago due to climate change and overhunting by the indigenous people so technically the horse was just re-introduced to North America by Spanish conquistadors, these small sturdy horses once again spread quickly throughout the Americas.
Been staying in Corolla in the Out Banks this week when I remembered this video and was pretty sure it was about this very island. Haven't seen any wild horses this week, but I'm glad I looked it up again.
They're called charismatic megafauna, people give them importance because they're so big, visible and beautiful.
Everman in Texas just south of Fort Worth. Has a colony of 2000+ Quaker parrots
The horses are a Problem but not those GARGANTUAN cars destroying the beach? Or the many wood shed (houses?) plastered right into the dunes?
America has odd priorities.
There are 2 great solutions for this problem : Panthera onca and Canis lupus.
How about 'less people' :D
@@MarinusMakesStuff Nah,more is always better.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 More, more, MO4Rrrr
There's also Puma concolor, Ursus arctos horribilis, and Ursus americanus.
Jaguars, wolves, cougars, grizzly, and black bears (to a lesser extent) would be good and reliable native predators for not only feral horses but also feral boar; but they would only really work in the western states as those states have enough wild spaces for large populations of the US' native large carnivores to reliably manage not only the populations of these feral species but their native prey as well. We already know that cougars will take feral species as this "Southwestern Naturalist" article has analyzed www.jstor.org/stable/3672527?origin=crossref&seq=1 so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that North America's other apex predators would do the same if given the chance to expand into horse territory.
These wield horses are an invasive species and should be treated as such..
That's so interesting! Thank you for the video!
Fascinating. I have to admit that I would be fighting the temptation to approach the horses too. I am an incurably "horse crazy" kid at heart.
But I find it amazing and really great that they've found a way to help control the population, AND still let the horses stay mostly wild. Birth control seems far better than culling, which I believe is what they've had to resort to with the Mustangs out west from time to time.
What makes them cool is that they are FREE roaming, wild horses. I don't get people who want to approach them, want to pet them etc...hence trying to domesticate them when the very thing that makes them cool is that they roam free. There are always people who make dumb decisions and want to ruin something good.
Guess I should’ve closed my eyes when you drove me to the place where your horses run free.
Thank you Target and PBS
“What do horses like to eat?”
“They like apples, pears, they’ll graze on oats…”
**dude down the beach is feeding them cheetos**
“Bruh…”
I love this channel is active again!
The horse originally evolved on the North American continent so no, it's not an invasive species. Also, as someone's already pointed out in another comment, the damage is caused by cattle ranchers and not by the horses.
1:44 this horse just phased into reality
I miss Caitlin and Arlo you guys!
PBS Eons sent me! :)
My father-in-law was a Target Executive. Norm Mcmillan would have enjoyed this video. His vision was to improve our world, and our way of looking at the problems we deal with. He has been gone now from this earth for four years, still, Norm cared about our world and wanted the best for us. All of us.
Eons sent me! awesome channel! :D
It's irrational to discriminate invasive species and give some of them more protections than native ones.
Eat horse then? These horses are exceeding the local carrying capacity for their species and they have no native predators.
PBS Eons sent me here!
Hi team
Another cool episode..
Thanks..🙏👍
Nevada has a love hate relationship with the wild horses there. The Nevadans mostly like the horses, there are people who get miffed when one jumps a fence and mates or the entire heard hit the haystack. The Bureau of Land Management rounds them up from all over the state for prison inmates to tame / break. The remaining horses that were rounded up, well that's where all the controversy begins....
In winter, I have to be careful of the ice on the road. The rest of the year, I have to be careful driving in to work because the darn critters are all over the place. Horses on the way to Fallon, horses on the way to Fernley, horses on the way to Dayton, horses in people's yards in Silver Springs, horses in the street in Virginia City, horses in the industrial parking lots by USA parkway, horses crossing Hwy 50. And people from out of state whine about "oh, those poor endangered animals ".
@@mikearmstrong8483 ah... "Mustang Triangle" Dayton, VC, Fallon...
Joe you are great!!! Do more videos I love them!
Thank you for a view into the US that's hard to see these days. I miss watching life as it is and not caring about anything else.
Considering that horses originated in the Western Hemisphere, they aren't invasive. They've simply been returned home.
Had no idea Joe from its okay to be smart was working with pbs terra, but boi oh boi was I happy to hear it!
There are actually several papers supporting the origin of E. ferus in the Americas, and having been present until earlier in the Holocene (possibly as soon as 5kya)
My favorite memory of my first trip to the Outer Banks (1990’s) was a beautiful stretch of unoccupied (tourist) beach covered in huge clam shells and a small band of wild horses. On the way back down the dirt road, we came across two stallions standing slightly away from the road nuzzling each other.
My worst memory of my second trip to the Outer Banks (about 10 years later) was the unoccupied beach was no longer unoccupied and condominiums had sprung up all down the stretch of the dirt road leading to the beach. Unfortunately there wasn’t a single sign of any wild horses and it just about broke my heart.
The horses aren’t the problem. They have learned to adapt to the conditions of living on the barrier islands. It is humans and technology and “progress” that is the problem.
It always hurts to come back to a previously empty beach and see mass tourism popping up like a fungus. We need more empty, quiet places in the world.
Check out the Namib Desert Horses, probably the only feral horses in Africa. They date from WW I when Germany lost then South West Africa to the British.
Thanks Eons 🙌🏻🙌🏻
I don't know if they're America's most beloved invasive species, but they couldn't drag me away.
They're not invasive, they're native to NA but were extinct here for 10,000 years. The Spanish unknowingly reintroduced them to the continent and it was a fairly successful reintroduction of a previously extinct species to its former ranger. At least until the US government stepped in with its stupid ideas of eradicating the mustangs and other reintroduced wild horse populations.
These islands will be under water in 10 - 20 years, probably less, so some accommodation will have to be made for the horses eventually.
I never knew about this. How fascinating!
deep look sent me here 😁and im glad
I blame Spirit:Stallion of the Cimmaron for hoodwinking a bunch of kids. Now all grown up whining about Spirit Untamed, even though that show does the right thing when showing that horses are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE WILD.
The Large herd of Sable Island Horses on the beach.And they made from in Canada.
🏀🐴🇨🇦🍟🏖🛻
Remember the time horse extinct in america thousand of year ago
It is ironic that horses are called an invasive species in North America, when they evolved there and were present until 10 000 years (even the still existing species Equus caballus), which is nothing in evolutionary time. Many plants and animals probably still retain adaptions to live with horses. We just need predators (wolves, cougars, bears or jaguars) to be present in areas were wild horses live and the ecosystem gets more balanced. I see that on an island that is no possible, but in the prairie this would be feasible.
Thanks Eons showed me this
I believe that horses do have a place in the environments of the Americas. Perhaps not necessarily the barrier islands, but the wide expanses of the plains, yes. First, the timeframe that they were absent was a blip of time relative to how long they have been there. Second, the environment is already oriented towards their presence and they serve to fill an important ecological niche. For the time being these horses will appear as a nuisance until suitable predator populations, primarily wolves, are restored to help keep their populations in check.
Generally, I believe we need to take a new view of environmentalism that prioritizes a sustainable system instead of fretting over whether or not something is necessarily native, especially if it comes at the cost of filling an important niche. For example, with climate change, the range of alligators is increasing north along the East coast. These animals moving north in response to a changing climate does not make them invasive (also they could serve to be a useful check on the barrier island horse populations).
Wild grazers are good for the environment, millions of native buffalo used to roam the plains and maintained to hundreds of miles of grass lands.
Barrier Islands aren't prairie grasslands.
Maybe there's too many houses, not horses?
How many of those houses built on sand are federally insured because no insurance company is stupid enough to do it? Who's doing more damage, horses or houses?
I wouldn't call them invasive, they first evolved in North America, crossed the land bridge into Asia, and were reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish. The first of them was called Eohippus, or Dawn Horse, a little dude about the size of a medium sized dog with four toes.
For people who say that horses evolved here so they are not invasive, know that the species that inhabited the continent were different from the ancestor of the modern domestic horse, with different sizes and adaptations. It is exactly the same difference that there would be with a mammoth and an elephant.
The amount of development and infrastructure there looks to be much more invasive.
(5:00) Shame (5x)! Wild and endangered species are meant to free and left alone, not being used as pets and photo props.
LOVE HORSES WITH ALL MY HEART AND ALWAYS WILL
I'm here thanks to Eons, and really looking forward to seeing more Overview episodes. This one was wonderful. Confession: I was a horse-mad girl most of my life, and have settled down to being merely horse-adorer.
That being said,, I must protest the idea that the *horses* are the invasive species to worry about. Are you kidding me? As you say, horses have been on the outer islands for 500 years. Trouble didn't start until European humans arrived en masse. I'd rather see humans kept out and off the islands than the horses!
Thank for the content
That these charming, iconic creatures could be harmful is probably misunderstood by most Americans.
Sad to see the conflict in emotions and solutions.
Save the wild horses everyone!!
It's not an invasive species if they died out only a few thousand years ago (most likely due to overhunting). The reason horses are doing so well in the wild in America is because they are evolved to survive there.
"there so invasive!" ...Drone view shows 2 horses & about 50 part time vacation mcmansions...
Well now I want to go visit! Conundrum!
Hey what happened to narrator from antartica series?
Really liked her voice.
Title says 4k but the video quality doesnt go up that high?
A wild horse will not attack or harm a gentle caring human. You obviously have no first hand experience with these incredible creatures that flee from danger and are not predators.
I love how he calls the horses an invasive pest damaging a fragile landscape while the vid shows 4 vehicles driving by digging up the sand...
Wow! This is a great channel. I would love to see a video like this over the wild mustangs, or if you’re brave enough.... a video over America’s truly most beloved invasive animals, domestic cats and dogs!
320 million+ humans, 2 million+ cows/sheep and back in the day USA had millions of buffalo but 95000 horses in the whole country is to much?
Oh come on
Thanks joe
Eventually the horses & pigs will evolve to be smaller or different in some manner that will let natures equilibrium balance out. So it might be better to just leave them alone even if that means some will die out. 🤔
How can us humans talk about invasive species without biting our own tongues?