Feral horses sully the environment of Cumberland Island National Seashore/Wild Cumberland
The National Park Service and its attorneys, the Justice Department, are running counter to the National Park Service Organic Act, and arguably to the aspirational goals of the Endangered Species Act, in their refusal to remove feral horses from Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia.
Across the National Park System, the agency works hard to remove invasive species, including feral species … except when it comes to feral horses. With those animals, the Park Service exhibits not just indecisiveness but takes almost a hands-off approach* to the detriment of native species and their habitat.
It’s not that the Park Service doesn’t see the risks posed by non-native and feral species.
After all, in Everglades National Park, the agency has welcomed the state’s help to try to rid the park of invasive Burmese pythons that are ravaging native wildlife. At Pinnacles National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Congaree National Park, and Big Thicket National Preserve — and even Cumberland Island National Seashore — feral hogs have been rooted out, fenced out, and hunted.
At Death Valley National Park, feral burros have been rounded up, Virgin Islands National Park crews target troops of nonnative mongooses, donkeys, rats and even cats for eradication, Grand Teton National Park works to remove non-native mountain goats (as has Olympic National Park), and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area tries to remove feral cattle.
But when it comes to feral horses, ones the Park Service acknowledges are not native and which it agrees are impacting Cumberland Island’s landscape and historical resources, and not in a good way, the agency would rather go to court to allow the mares and stallions and colts to go malnourished and even starved than remove them to a more suitable mainland setting.
Read why the Justice Department opposes emergency food and water for Cumberland Island's horses.
Read About The Trouble With Horses On Cumberland Island
Why?
The agency won’t say, pointing to ongoing litigation over the horses in declining to discuss the matter. Of course, taking the reasonable, and humane, approach by agreeing the 100 or so feral horses are impacting not only the seashore’s dunes and grasses but also possibly trampling threatened piping plovers and endangered loggerhead turtles and moving them off the island apparently is a step too far.
A decade ago, the 68-page “foundation document” written to guide management of Cumberland Island National Seashore said the horses were a problem that had to be dealt with.
"The feral horse population that has free range on Cumberland Island is a nonnative species that has documented adverse impacts on the island’s natural resources. General observations also point to additional impacts that have not been thoroughly investigated and/or documented,” the document reads. “Likewise, observations also indicate that they have an adverse impact on cultural resources including archaeological and historic features.”
Whether the Park Service has ever closely studied the adverse impacts caused by the horses is a good question.
Is there disinterest, unwillingness, or inability on the part of park managers to directly identify the problem and potential actions to reduce or eliminate it? The Park Service’s silence could also signal a lack of direction from on high to the park to remove the horses or to support them in doing so.
The ongoing legal battle is a waste of money that could be better spent rounding up the horses, moving them to greener pastures on the mainland, and allowing sullied areas of the national seashore to recover. Not to do so not only is inhumane, but contrary to the Park Service’s mission, and a continuing threat to the island’s native species and ecosystems.
It’s time to do the necessary science and then develop a plan to remove the horses — involving the public in the discussion and complying with the National Environmental Policy Act.
* Park Service staff at Cape Hatteras National Seashore are debating whether it's appropriate to keep horses there. Staff at Theodore Roosevelt National Park tried to do the same, but political pressure and public opposition killed the matter.
Comments
Choose your problem, and there are plenty to choose from, and do whatever you can to fix it. What generally ends up happening is that you make it worse. The Bureau of Land Management every year uses helicopters to round up "feral" horses out west. They are put in pens where they live unnatural lives for what time they have left. A very few are adopted. Some--who knows how many--end up being shipped to kill facilities in Mexico. What is happening is atrocious.
Remove the horses from Cumberland Island, and something like that would be the end result. It is not pretty.
Admittedly, there is suffering among the horses on Cumberland Island. Nature is cruel. Mankind is, too often, as cruel. To remove these horses from the island and put them in pens is a terrible solution. A park ranger on Cumberland Island once told me "The island sizes the herd." If there is drought, the numbers are reduced. In times of plenty, they flourish.
The definition of "feral" is a squishy one. The horses have been on Cumberland for hundreds of years. Are they really "feral?"
Rita Welty Bourke, author of "Islomanes of Cumberland Island."
I grew up in a family that bred quarter horses.
It seem to me that a humane and reasonable solution to the feral horse problem across our public lands is to sell them for slaughter. Unseemly? Yes. A difficult solution to a difficult problem? Yes. Would this be a good source of affordable protein for the poor in and outside of the US? Yes.
Like feral hogs, deer,elk, bison, bear, the horses of Lewis & Clark, and on and on, it makes no logical sense to exlude horses from the list of possible sources of affordable protein. Most states allow deer hunters to donate venison to hunger advocates.
If you don't want to buy or eat horse-based protein, don't buy it. I wouldn't, but then again, I won't eat venison. We have folks STARVING in the US & Mexico--let's address both problems at once.
What we're doing to wild horses on Cumberland Island and across the public lands of the west is the scandal. Let's be bold. Let's be more humane.
Slaughter is imperfect to be sure, but doing nothing about wild horses on public lands as we have for 50 years is perfectly inhumane.
Too bad a pasture wasn't proposed in this park's land swap, eh? So ridiculous. It's a tourist draw and the park is so mismanaged they're afraid this would upend it all.
You are right Kurt, " Round 'Em Up, Move 'Em Out"
Sterilize the stallions and then let nature take its course - with humane intervention when warranted. That is the kindest and most cost-effective solution. It will also be more palatable to the romantic public than slaughtering the animals.