you might feel differently if you didn’t operate under the assumption i haven’t hiked through western rangeland. I don’t think the horses are a 100% slam dunk non-harmful thing at all, but it’s pretty clear in your example the cattle are more likely to be the issue. And anyhow, i’m comparing with cats, not with no horses. And you probably know too that the biggest issue in the West is cheatgrass, along with inappropriate land uses. If we solved those two somehow, the horses would be a non-issue. If we don’t, the horses will at worst be small nail in a coffin with much better nails.
It’s from this:
Erick J. Lundgren, Juraj Bergman, Jonas Trepel, Elizabeth le Roux, Sophie Monsarrat, Jeppe Aagaard Kristensen, Rasmus Østergaard Pedersen, Patricio Pereyra, Melanie Tietje and Jens-Christian Svenning (2024). Functional traits—not nativeness—shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities , Science 383 (6682):531-537 | doi:10.1126/science.adh2616
I am not particularly commenting on whether the study is correct or not but again, comparing with cats which are ubiquitously always harmful from what I can tell aside from the very specific scenario i mentioned earler. I’m not a horse person in this debate, i’m just ‘neutral’. In regards to common reed, the splitters got to that one and they aren’t even the same species any more under most metrics (surprised iNat hasn’t split those out considering the splits they do approve). I just think the horse management agenda should be set by data, not by ranchers who conflate horse damage with cattle damage or PETA members in New York City who think horses are cute but have never seen sagebrush in person. I can come here and hear people get very offended because i just said they aren’t as bad as cats, but i can also go elsehwere and talk to very informed people who look at it differently.
Anyhow i just don’t think you can compare invasive plants with invasive animals. It’s not just the magnitude it’s also how they work. Invasive animals roam around and damage habitat but invasive plants just take entire areas out of commission entirely, like making black holes in the map.