Horses Belong to The Land
Let’s talk about the importance of horse grazing to the environment. Not many people know this, but horses feeding off of the land is the healthiest way to preserve our lands. As we all know, the grasses and a diverse range of forage is a very popular category of horse food. Horses love it and it is free to all who graze upon the lands. Before horses became domesticated animals, they would roam the lands freely. They would graze and move around and run with their herds, they had no limitations. They belonged to the land and the land belonged to them. Of course, as humans, we like to strip all things of their freedoms and possess them. Horses soon would be trapped installs, limited to specific feeding times and given man-made foods and grains instead of feeding off of the land. I want to highlight the fact that horses don’t need our help, they don’t need our grains and our medicines to make them better. They can rely solely on the lands and the variety of plants and grasses if allowed. And in turn, these lands will flourish because of the horses grazing patterns.
Wild Horse Grazing
Wild Horse grazing can be a vital part of keeping the lands healthy and contributing to biodiversity. The horses get their nutrients from grazing while they work to fulfill their environmental niche. Horses are architects of the lands, one of the biggest contributors to creating biodiversity and keeping our planet healthy and clean.*Horses also play an important role in the preservation of habitats that are home to a diverse range of species. Horses do this by grazing on more aggressive plant species that would dominate the habitats if left unchecked. A lack of grazing animals can lead to a rapid deterioration of the condition of many natural habitats. Without proper management, or grazing animals, more invasive plants and grasses take hold and the subsequent losses are almost immediate. Wildflowers dwindle and eventually disappear, leading to the decline of butterflies, bees, insects, reptiles and several other species that rely on these habitats. As architects of the lands Wild horses move around and eat plants and grasses, shrubs and bushes helping other animals to create homes and places to inhabit.
Horses Provide Us With Natural Fertilizer
Now let’s talk about fertilizer, a key ingredient in helping the growth of grasses and other plants. **Horses and burros rebuild soils by contributing more organically intact droppings. These act as long-lasting fertilizers, contributing more humus to the earth. Forage goes through the horse’s digestive system and out the other end as manure, ** horses and burros spread more intact seeds in their droppings whose richer nutrients help a greater variety and abundance of seeds to germinate in the widespread places where horses and burros roam, all the while practicing natural rest rotation. Both the droppings and the seeds are food for many diverse animals, including many birds and mammals. Their manure increases the nutrients in the soil which makes it a healthier and more sustainable environment for plants to grow in. They promote more growth of grass and other plants while also preventing the growth of brush. The more grass there is, the less likely it is for the brush to grow. When there is a lot of brush growth, there is an increased risk of wildfires occurring and spreading. So, manure helps our surroundings in more ways than one. Who knew the horse digestive system could be so helpful to our ecosystem.
Preserving Energy and Avoiding Pollution
As we have established, horses help our planet in more ways than one. They are helping the grass grow, they are cleaning up land by eating it, and they are carrying us all over the place. Another way in which they are saving our environment is their contribution to renewable energy. Fun fact, ***horses produce up to 9.1 tons of manure every year. This manure is turned into green energy for farms to re-use. I mean, can you imagine the amount of pollution and energy we are saving from this. Another benefit to this is that the manure can be sold to companies to turn into green energy as well, which benefits the farmers. Farmers are making money off of horse manure, which is free. Who knew horse grazing, which is also just free horse food, could help farmers. That is truly crazy. What other animal gives us as many benefits as the horse does?
Let’s Recap the Cycle That Helps Us All
The takeaway in all of this is that not only do horses do a lot for us, but they also help the planet tenfold. Simply from feeding off the grass, they set into motion a cycle that benefits everyone and everything around them. Wild horses eat the grass, shrubs, and forage which goes through their body and comes out as manure. This manure then feeds the land, which creates more grass, forage, and plants to continue to feed the horses and other animals. The more the horses eat, the more manure they produce. Our habitats benefits from this simple cycle that starts with some horse feeding.
An Upsetting Fact
Now that we understand how vital wild horses are to our ecosystem, we have to wonder why the government has over 70 thousand wild horses in government holding pens removing them from the public lands and replacing them with cattle. ****Cattle and other ruminants are significant producers of the greenhouse gas methane—contributing 37 percent of the methane emissions resulting from human activity. A single cow on average produces between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year and, worldwide, there are about 1.5 billion cattle. All contributing to climate change and environmental degradation.
America’s Wild horses are a native species to North America and have been able to roam freely on reservations and open lands from the beginning of time. They took care of the land without the need for human intervention. Yet the government has decided that they want the land for special interest groups with little balance between industry and nature.
Why Must We Disturb Nature?
Horses do nothing but care for us and the land and humans have come in and destroyed that peace. Why must we ruin all the sweetness in life? While we think we always know better, taking the horses off of the land will only hurt us. They create a healthier planet for us to live in, we need them to survive. Horse nourishing off of the land has come to be seen as an inconvenience to our government. They send helicopters in to frighten and round up these wild horses, they separate babies from their mothers, and they take them away from the land that belongs to them. Horses are the most compassionate creatures who care for everything around them, from people to nature. They deserved to be treated with the same love to which they give. Every creature on this planet has a purpose and a reason for being. It may be a simple task like grazing that seems trivial but actually has a great environmental impact. Our ecosystem depends on the Wild horses the greatest architects of our lands.
We Need Horses
By this point, I hope you have learned about the large impact horses have on every aspect of our lives, especially wild horses. Not many people realize their importance, but without wild horses, our planet would suffer and in turn so would we.
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