Green Group discussion

I am a horse person so I'll probably keep finding interesting horse items to share. The relevance to a green forum is that we have a responsibility to treat our working partners and friends well.
Horses are also used where vehicles cannot be or are not used, such as logging on steep mountainsides or in National Parks. Horses contribute natural fertiliser to fields and consume feed, not diesel, while having a light tread that does not compact the soil like tractors.
Today most horses in developed nations are used for sports. In less developed nations, horses, donkeys and mules/ hinneys are beasts of burden and transport, often poorly kept, like other beasts of burden.
Top performing sport horses are being cloned. This may eventually add to our ability to restore other extinct or nearly extinct species.


Here is an excellent article from the nice people at Phys.org, about improving racecourse fences in line with the colour vision of horses. This should improve the safety of jump racing.
Nobody seems to have asked a showjumping rider if horses see coloured poles differently. Of course they do!
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-equine-...
Further comment: horses have eye muscles attached to ear muscles so they can easily check up on a suspicious sound and see in more than one direction at once. This means that if the horse does not have her ears pricked forwards, she will see a blurred line down the centre of her vision as two different fields of vision meet with a gap. For this reason the wider the fence is as the horse approaches the better. Especially during a race, when she may be trying to keep track of horses galloping on both sides of her body.

The Last Horsemen: A Year on the Last Farm in Britain Powered by Horses

This is a lovely book about an English working farm; see my review.

Horses do not seem to be distressed when working with therapy riders. This is based on a study of blood samples of both veterans and horses.
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-therapy...

I can add that years ago I read how the horses in a Riding for the Disabled school were calm and gentle with special needs kids, but after class they needed to be let loose to roll and buck around, releasing the extra energy they had chosen to suppress.

The horse evolved in and was reintroduced to an America full of large predators - wolves, cougars, bears - that would eat old or sick horses. Now in areas where there are wolves there are no horses and in areas where there are feral horses there are no wolves. The cattle ranchers who want the land for grazing would not support the reintroduction of natural wolf packs and cougars, so that is why horse areas are becoming overpopulated.

California Forest Service is now talking about rounding up feral horses and selling them off cheaply; activists are concerned that many will be bought for slaughter in Canada or Mexico.
https://www.care2.com/causes/hundreds...

Relevant book, if outdated:
Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West

Zebras have evolved to survive with the tsetse fly, which kills horses by introducing disease. Seems their stripes gave the zebras an advantage.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-2...

'Primitive' horse colouring and one which sometimes appears as recessive coloration, is zebra dun. This horse has stripes on its lower legs. Icelandic ponies sometimes show this colouring.

Pinterest is a great site for pictures of horses. Here are some zebra dun horses.
https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/24741657...

Donkey baseball from 1935.
Keep watching as it just gets funnier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcNWf...

The story which prompted the above; a Chinese noble lady was buried with three donkeys, probably used for donkey polo.

https://gizmodo.com/discovery-in-tomb...

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20200...

Przewalski's Horse herds are thriving on the Chinese steppe. I can't stop looking at that beautiful photo.

Donkeys in Africa are commonly stolen and sold for the donkey skin trade to China. As you would imagine, the skins are not even used as skins but boiled down to make a 'traditional medicine'.
Not only is this a bad outcome for the donkey, which is poorly treated all along the way and may spread equine diseases across borders, but a hard-working family has lost its source of support.

Brooke Equine Hospital is working to make the trade illegal.
https://www.thebrooke.org/our-work/do...

Brooke Hospital explains about exploitative industries like brick kilns, coal mines and tourism. Horses, donkeys and mules work as hard as the people who are often in appalling conditions.

https://www.thebrooke.org/our-work/ex...

The Lost War Horses of Cairo: The Passion of Dorothy Brooke


This book explains how Dorothy Brooke, General Brooke's wife, went with him to Cairo after WW1 and found that the British Army had sold off its warhorses and mules which were being used as beasts of burden in the streets and out of sight too. She thought they were being poorly treated and were less suitable than donkeys, so she decided to start buying them back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy...

This is not a cheerful tale, but it may inspire people to make a difference.

The earliest known sculpture of a horse: Vogelherd Horse.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/scu....

A genetic study was carried out on Arabian horses, both in their original area and dispersed.

Arabians are distinct from other breeds by having fewer ribs, not mentioned in the article, giving them a shorter back.

The scientists say "not that much" of Thoroughbred genes are from Arabians but among racing Arabians today, there has been an influx of Thoroughbred genetics. Sounds likely as Anglo-Arabs are highly popular for racing; by now, thanks to Gaudenzia, all the Palio racers are Anglo-Arabs.

Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio


Anyway here is the article.
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-genetic...

Certainly it is not correct to say in the article that the genetic study means Arabians did not contribute genes to the TB horse. Of course they did; this is recorded in the Stud Books.
The Darley Arabian
Godolphin Arabian
Byerly Turk
and all the greys are descended from the Alcock Arabian as grey is recessive.
However, some of these were war horses and not that many cavalry horses got brought back to England. This was expensive and the officers had to pay the cost themselves.
The stallions could cover twenty or forty mares in a summer so the majority of the genes came from the best British or imported mares.

King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian

The Godolphin Arabian.

The Byerley Turk: The True Story of the First Thoroughbred


The Byerly Turk.

Mr. Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in Twenty-Five Horses

Darley Arabian.

I am always researching horses. My researches recently turned up this information relevant to the above, reminding us that Arabians were small:

"An illustration of the value of the
Arab stallion in producing a most
useful stamp of horse is shown in the
following extract from scraps in the
"Live Stock Journal" :-"Among the
the horses belonging to His Majesty
(King George III.) at the Great-
lodge," says Mr. Frost, in 1807, "is
a small Arabian stallion called the
Hampton Court Arabian. This horse
is about 13h. 3in. high, and, notwith-
standing the smallness of his size, if
put to a large roomy mare he gets
horses 16 hands high, and full of bone,
capable of carrying 20st a fox-hunting.""

Found in
Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954) Sunday 1 July 1906 - Page 16.

The Cleveland Bay is Britain's only native warmblood. The genetic diversity is low due to these horses not being bred for draught work and a small number having been saved in the first place.

New study:
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-reveals...

Heavy Horses

More on the imported sires.

"Their analysis of the 52 Y chromosomes showed that the paternal lineages of various modern horses split much more recently than the domestication of the species, which goes back more than 5,000 years.
Apart from a few private Northern European haplotypes, all modern horse breeds included in the study clustered into a roughly 700-year-old haplogroup, transmitted to Europe by the import of Oriental stallions, they report. The haplogroup includes two major subgroups (or clades): the Original Arabian lineage from the Arabian Peninsula and the Turkoman horse lineage from the steppes of Central Asia."

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-modern-...

This did not seem to include rural draught horses. Certainly, imported Arabian ponies were often turned out with mountain and moorland ponies and New Forest ponies to improve the breed.

An earlier study from 2013, which explains the genetics at the start.

" An examination of over 600 stallions from 58 (largely European) breeds showed that the animals could be grouped into six basic lines or haplotypes. The ancestral haplotype is distributed across almost all breeds and geographical regions. A second haplotype also occurs at high frequencies across a broad range of breeds, although not in northern European breeds or in horses from the Iberian Peninsula. A third haplotype is present in almost all English Thoroughbreds and in many warm-blooded breeds. The final three haplotypes are only found in local northern European breeds: one in Icelandic horses, one in Norwegian Fjord horses and one in Shetland ponies.".......

"Wallner feels that, "the results were intriguing, for example in the way the distribution of one haplotype reflects the widespread movement of stallions from the Middle East to Central and Western Europe in the past 200 years. Another haplotype results from a mutation that occurred in the famous English Thoroughbred stallion 'Eclipse' or in his son or grandson. It is amazing to see how much influence this line has had on modern sport horses: almost all English Thoroughbreds and nearly half the modern sport horse breeds carry the Eclipse haplotype.""

They explain that with controlled breeding a popular stud can provide genetics to an entire generation, as opposed to wild horses.

https://phys.org/news/2013-04-equine-...

A look at Quarter horses in 2012. In case you didn't know, this was the first breed to have its genome sequenced, but it's a relatively recent breed.
Quarter horses are now cloned, if they are good performers and that is what their owner wants and can afford.

https://phys.org/news/2012-02-quarter...

Here was the 2009 announcement: Genome sequence for the domestic horse unveiled.

https://phys.org/news/2009-11-genome-...

Asiatic wild ass, the khulan, was prevented from reaching its feeding ground for decades due to railway construction and fencing. Now a crossing has been provided, and the khulan are returning.

https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Release...

See the thread on Rewilding for more on joining up fragmented habitat.

Another report on the khulan.

"Most large herbivores in arid landscapes are especially vulnerable to disturbances of their habitat. In many other of the world’s drylands, human exploitation of water for agriculture, industry, and domestic uses increasingly drives the availability and access to water for wildlife. Khulan tend to use pastures within 7 km of water and areas beyond 15-20 km of water become functionally inaccessible.

“Blocking access to water excludes khulan from the landscape and identifying important waterpoints in arid landscapes like the Gobi Desert is therefore essential for wildlife-friendly land-use planning,” said lead author John Payne of the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology.

Until recently widespread and abundant throughout the arid landscapes of Central Asia and Mongolia, the number of khulan has declined dramatically in the 19th and 20th century. Besides changes in land use and overhunting, the increasing difficulty in accessing water is believed to have played a major role in this development. Until now, however, there had been little data on how water availability is influencing movements.

Said co-author Chris Walzer, Executive Director of WCS’s Health Programs: “Khulan are living barometers of the health of Central Asia’s unpeopled, arid landscapes. Any human development of this fragile region must be done with extreme care or we will lose the wildlife that have called this area home for thousands of years.”"

https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Release...

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/cave-pa...

Horses in cave paintings showed realistic depictions of prehistoric horse, and new DNA studies suggest some horses did indeed have the gene to make spotted coats.

The earliest spotted horse is the Knapstrub and more recently the Appaloosa was derived from Spanish-crossed stock in North America. The Chinese depicted them as the Emperor's horses.

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/cave-pa...

Here's an article showing the spotted horse. Note that early people depicted spotted cattle too, and nobody doubts they existed. White and dark spots probably helped as camouflage during the end of the Ice Age.

"Dr. Hofreiter, 38, began his career working with a pioneer of ancient DNA research, Svante Paabo. Though he intended to study taxonomy, he was so intrigued by the idea of extracting DNA from ancient material that he switched his focus. “You have this 30,000-year-old piece of feces in your hand,” he said, adding: “Well, you should wear gloves. And you can actually get to the genetic code from the animal. And I thought, this is so fascinating.”

He and his colleagues did not set out to study cave art. They were simply continuing their work on coat color in prehistoric horses. Only after they found the spotted horse gene in their ancient samples did they realize they could say something about archaeology.

“What we found is that there were really only these three color patterns — spotted or dappled; blackish ones; and brown ones,” he said. “These are the three phenotypes we find in the wild populations. And then we realized these phenotypes are exactly the ones you see in cave paintings.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/sc...

For those who are wondering: the other colours we see today are dilute forms of black or red/brown.

Zebra stripes repel flies and equally, horses wearing check or stripe blankets repel flies.

https://phys.org/news/2020-08-zebra-s...

More information: Zebra stripes, tabanid biting flies, and the aperture effect, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2020). rspb.royalsocietypublishing.or … .1098/rspb.2020.1521
Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

The Brooke hospital has produced a photobook to show us how donkeys, horses and mules help families meet the UNB Sustainable Development Goals.

https://www.thebrooke.org/our-work/wo...

Guatemala: Horse carries firewood to sell at a local market. Photo: Richard Dunwoody MBE

Further to the above:

"Marking the United Nations' 75th Anniversary, Harry Bignell, Brooke's Global External Affairs Officer, argues that we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals without investing in animal health systems"

https://www.thebrooke.org/news/we-can...

Combination of rewilding, zoos and cloning with the news that a cloned Przewalski's horse has been born.

"Le Villaret, located in the Cevennes National Park in southern France and run by the Association Takh, is a breeding site for Przewalski's horses that was created to allow the free expression of natural Przewalski's horse behaviors. In 1993, eleven zoo-born horses were brought to Le Villaret. Horses born there are adapted to life in the wild. They are free to choose their own mates and must forage on their own. Such a unique breeding site was necessary to produce the individuals that were reintroduced to Mongolia in 2004 and 2005. In 2012, 39 individuals were at Le Villaret.

"The Przewalski's Horse Reintroduction Project of China was initiated in 1985 when 11 wild horses were imported from overseas. After more than two decades of effort, the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Centre has bred a large number of the horses, 55 of which were released into the Kalamely Mountain area. The animals quickly adapted to their new environment. In 1988, six foals were born and survived, and by 2001, over 100 horses were at the centre. As of 2013, the center hosted 127 horses divided into 13 breeding herds and three bachelor herds."

After descriptions of the effort to reproduce the horses after the world population dwindled to 12, we get this entry:

"In 2020, the first cloned Przewalski’s horse was born. In a collaboration between ViaGen, San Diego Zoo Global (SDZG), and Revive and Restore, the foal was cloned from a genetically important stallion that had been born in the United Kingdom in 1975 and died in 1998. Its cells had been cryopreserved at the SDZG Frozen Zoo since 1980."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewal...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/12/us...

Sweet photo of that baby.

"(CNN) A cloned colt born at a Texas veterinary facility could revive the endangered Przewalski's horse.

The colt is a clone of a male Przewalski's horse and the first successful cloning of the species, San Diego Zoo officials said in a news release on September 4. It was born August 6 to a domestic surrogate mother."

Phys.org delves into the science.

"The colt has been named "Kurt," in honor of Kurt Benirschke, M.D., who was instrumental in founding the Frozen Zoo and the conservation research program at San Diego Zoo Global.

"A central tenet of the Frozen Zoo, when it was established by Dr. Benirschke, was that it would be used for purposes not possible at the time," said Oliver Ryder, Ph.D., director of genetics at San Diego Zoo Global. "Now, the living cells in the Frozen Zoo are contributing to reversing losses of genetic diversity and contributing to population sustainability. The cells of hundreds of Przewalski's horses reside in the Frozen Zoo, and form the basis for new opportunities in applying scientific research to preserve species into the future.""

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-birth-c...

Clare wrote: "Phys.org delves into the science.

"The colt has been named "Kurt," in honor of Kurt Benirschke, M.D., who was instrumental in founding the Frozen Zoo and the conservation research program at San ..."

Thanks Claire, great to hear of a new kind of seed bank.

As far as I am concerned, the more horses the better.

Maybe, Clare, but keep in mind that many people are unable to care for the horse they get. That is a fairly common occurrence. Then they must find another owner. It costs a lot to keep a horse.

Here is one article about one form of horse abuse:

https://www.equineadvocates.org/the-i...

I agree with you, and many people don't want to keep a horse in retirement. I'm not keen to read that article.

Photojournalist Richard Manning, who can be found on Linked In, tells me he has photos of the Przewalski's horses in Mongolia and Marwell Zoo in England. If anyone needs such photos, he still has them.

Gorgeous photo of Konik horses crossing a river in the wild.

https://grazelife.com/news/new-grazel...

"In a previous blog, Deputy Director of ARK Nature Esther Blom described not only the ecological benefits of these large herbivores, but also the considerable legal challenges posed when Konik horses naturally cross the Meuse within the park and effectively enter a foreign country. Now, in a newly published GrazeLIFE report, ARK Nature and grazing expert Renée Meissner of Dutch non-profit organisation Herds and Homelands provide more detail on some of these challenges and offer possible solutions to enable the freer movement of grazers.

In natural and semi-natural herds of Konik horses, young stallions will periodically leave the herd to see if they have more luck with the ladies elsewhere. In the Meuse Valley, this involves a spectacular swim across the River Meuse to look for mares on the other side.

These intrepid crossings take place infrequently now, but are expected to become more common as water levels in the Meuse drop and the river becomes more fordable. It is expected that bovines will also begin to cross the border, as the populations of both species continue to grow and seek out new territory and animals learn how and where to cross the river. "

This interesting article suggests that hoofed mammals may have developed on India before India collided with Asia, and then these ancestors of horses, tapirs and rhinos dispersed.

"Rose added: "In 2004 our team was able to return to the mine, where our Belgian collaborator Thierry Smith found the first mammal fossils, including Cambaytherium."

Encouraged, the team returned to the mines and collected fossilized bones of Cambaytherium and many other vertebrates, despite challenging conditions.

"The heat, the constant noise and coal dust in the lignite mines were tough—basically trying to work hundreds of feet down near the bottom of open-pit lignite mines that are being actively mined 24/7," he said.

Through the cumulation of many years of challenging fieldwork, the team can finally shed light on a mammal mystery. Despite the abundance of perissodactyls in the Northern Hemisphere, Cambaytherium suggests that the group likely evolved in isolation in or near India during the Paleocene (66-56 million years ago), before dispersing to other continents when the land connection with Asia formed."

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-indian-...

More information: Kenneth D. Rose et al, Anatomy, Relationships, and Paleobiology of Cambaytherium (Mammalia, Perissodactylamorpha, Anthracobunia) from the lower Eocene of western India, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2020). DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2020.1761370
Journal information: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Provided by Taylor & Francis

Brooke Hospital is highlighting the work carried out by horses for families working in brick kilns, particularly in India and Pakistan.
Linked In post:


https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-br...
Animal welfare was all but ignored at COP25. This is why that is a grave mistake
medium.com • 2 min read

And link to read the article on Medium. Working horses, donkeys and mules are essential to many people in the developing nations.

https://medium.com/@BrookeCharity/ani...

Brooke again, they made a 360 degree film of a family and working horses in a brick kiln.
We are left to imagine how the heat and dust feel. Brooke works to help these horses and their owners.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag...

A balanced article about feral horses in the American west.
Neglects however to explain clearly that if wolves and cougars were not persecuted, they would keep wild horse populations in check and healthy. Also does not delve into the harm caused to herds while rounding them up with helicopters and vehicles, and the sale of captive horses for probable slaughter in Canada.

https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-horses-...

I love these rewilding stories; find more about them in the Rewilding thread.

"A shipment of 20 Konik horses has just been released onto Ermakov Island in the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta rewilding area. The animals, which were translocated from Latvia at the end of October, are now roaming free and will enhance wild nature through their browsing, grazing and fertilising. They will also help to attract more tourists to the area, thereby boosting the local economy.

The animals join a 23-strong herd of Koniks and a herd of 18 water buffalo (released in two shipments) here in 2019. Both of these herds have acclimatised well to their new environment, with three Konik foals and three buffalo calves born this year. Herds of four red deer and 12 fallow deer were also released on Ermakov Island in early December."

https://rewildingeurope.com/news/new-...

Chernobyl: thriving nature.

"Since the disaster, the area has become a haven for elk, wolves - and the stocky endangered breed of wild horse native to Asia, Przewalski's horse.

The breed, named after Russian scientist Nikolai Przewalski who discovered it in the Asia expansive Gobi desert, became all but extinct by the middle of the 20th century, partially due to overhunting.

It was reintroduced by scientists to areas of Mongolia, China and Russia as part of preservation efforts.

In a different program, 30 of the horses were released into the Chernobyl zone in 1998, replacing an extinct horse native to the region, the Tarpan."

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2021...

This was shown in A Life on Our Planet by Sir David Attenborough, and good to see. It is just that this kind of rewilding would take too long for most of us on Earth, I think. Nice though.

Thanks for contributing, Carolyn. Yes, it's good to see this kind of project.

"A new study of ancient DNA from horse fossils found in North America and Eurasia shows that horse populations on the two continents remained connected through the Bering Land Bridge, moving back and forth and interbreeding multiple times over hundreds of thousands of years.
...
"Paleontologists have long known that horses evolved and diversified in North America. One lineage of horses, known as the caballine horses (which includes domestic horses) dispersed into Eurasia over the Bering Land Bridge about 1 million years ago, and the Eurasian population then began to diverge genetically from the horses that remained in North America.

The new study shows that after the split, there were at least two periods when horses moved back and forth between the continents and interbred, so that the genomes of North American horses acquired segments of Eurasian DNA and vice versa.

"This is the first comprehensive look at the genetics of ancient horse populations across both continents," said first author Alisa Vershinina,"

More information: Alisa O. Vershinina et al, Ancient horse genomes reveal the timing and extent of dispersals across the Bering Land Bridge, Molecular Ecology (2021). DOI: 10.1111/mec.15977
Journal information: Molecular Ecology
Provided by University of California - Santa Cruz



https://phys.org/news/2021-05-ancient...

New research on predation. Donkeys in Death Valley.

https://phys.org/news/2022-07-donkeys...

"The authors compared the behavior of wild donkeys at wetlands with and without mountain lion predation on wild donkeys in Death Valley National Park. They found that donkeys were active day and night and were active up to ~5.5 hours a day on days over 95 degrees Fahrenheit at wetlands without predation. However, at sites with predation on donkeys, donkeys used wetlands only during the day, when the risk of ambush predation by mountain lions is lowest. And they used wetlands sparingly: visiting wetlands for only ~40 minutes a day on days over 95 degrees.

The authors then investigated whether these changes in behavior reduced the effects donkeys had on these ecologically important desert wetlands. "The differences between wetlands with and without mountain lion predation are remarkable," according to Dr. Lundgren, "and are even visible from satellite imagery."

Sites without predation have numerous trails, very little vegetative cover, and huge areas of trampled bare ground. "These are the areas land managers and conservationists are concerned about and use to argue for the wholesale removal of wild donkeys," Lundgren told us. "However, if you go just a few kilometers away to wetlands where mountain lions are hunting donkeys, wetlands are lush with untouched vegetation, have only one or two donkey trails, and limited trampling," Lundgren continued.

According to the authors, these results suggest that we should strengthen protections for mountain lions and other predators."


More information: Erick J. Lundgren et al, A novel trophic cascade between cougars and feral donkeys shapes desert wetlands, Journal of Animal Ecology (2022). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13766
Journal information: Journal of Animal Ecology
Provided by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Thanks to Gayle Irwin for this item.


"Last week I traveled to a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, a seven-hour drive from my home in central Wyoming. Enroute and returning home, I experienced nature in several meaningful ways, two of which I've either never experienced or rarely experienced.

Wyoming is known for its captivating scenery and numerous wildlife species. One animal that is controversial right now is the wild horse. Found on public lands, like Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings, which are supposed to be multi-use oriented (recreation, like hiking and snowmobiling, as well as mining, energy development, and grazing), wild horses have sparked a "war" of sorts, as many herds are removed from these landscapes. Citing "overgrazing," "over-population," and "destruction of the landscape/resource," government officials have removed vast numbers of these animals that have only known freedom for generations. Advocates for keeping wild horses free are livid about these removals, especially those done using helicopters to drive the animals into corrals to confine, and later transport, them and those done during foaling season.

The BLM is not the only agency doing this; the U.S. Forest Service has also removed many horses from an area in Arizona known as Alpine, and the National Park Service planned to remove the entire herd from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. However, due to public outcry and political pressure from the state's federal and state legislators, the Park Service has backed off that plan, to the thrill of wild horse advocates, the public, and the politicians.

Wyoming's wild horses haven't fared as well. I'll continue that conversation in my next newsletter, along with photos I took of a major holding facility capable of keeping 800 horses from their freedom.

I saw several wild horses going to and returning from Salt Lake City, including a group of about 12 with a foal-of-the-year. I've never encountered a new wild foal before, and I was elated to capture it and its family group on my camera.

Wyoming is also known as a home for bison (often called 'buffalo'). Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks are home to thousands of bison, and some people raise them on ranches. These large, dark brown animals lumber through forest, plain, and pasture. Seeing a white bison is a rare event, and I felt blessed to observe two while lunching at Bear River State Park outside of Evanston, Wyoming. Not a pure bison, instead, these two came from the mating of a brown bull bison with a female white Charolais, a type of cow/cattle. They were lovely to see, though! Interestingly, the bison is Wyoming's state animal.

As I plan new books for the future, including releases coming later this year, I'm inspired to weave wild horses (and maybe bison!) into upcoming stories. Nature inspires me, animals inspire me, and I'm truly grateful to live in a state and region that features plenty of inspiration for stories!"

Following Late Pleistocene horse migration toward our sustainable future

The horse as we know it originated in North America around four million years ago. It is a keystone species. Horses traveled the Bering Land Bridge leaving a trail of fossils. This back-and-forth migration pattern continued as recently as the last Glacial period, between 50,000 and 19,000 years ago.

"As the horse travels, a number of life forms are given what they need to live. The horse’s digestive system and it daily grazing and browsing patterns means that seeds are passed, encased in fertilizer, ready to grow once they hit the ground. Horses easily make their way through difficult territory, planting as they go. Insects and those that eat them also have what they need to thrive, and predators of various shapes and sizes follow. Where they go, life follows."

The evolution of the horse takes place over 50 million years. It started as a small dog like animal in North America and was originally identified as a fox. The many branches of the horse family have highly studied making it easy to see how the change in climate changed the horses bodies. The horse disappeared from North America 10,000 years ago and then was brought back to North America in the 1500's. Its many forms, travels, and accomplishments parallel the many forms that humans have taken over millions of years.

https://news.ucsc.edu/2025/05/followi...

https://nativenewsonline.net/currents...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...

Thanks, Robert!
Here is a book I read recently about an aged pony, which sets out to solve a murder. On the way, he shows us the fates which may be expected by some elderly equines in the US today.
People need to consider the price animals pay for getting old.

Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch