Talk:Mustang/Archive 6

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Fringe Theory

I don't think protectmustangs.org can be considered a WP:RELIABLE source for these sorts of claims. The article on protectmustangs.org is essentially a reprint of an article published in a Science Publishing Group journal, Science Publishing Group is a Predatory publisher which provides no peer review on their papers, there's no reason to cite it or give credence to the claims unless a better source can be provided. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I see you took out the footnote, but you did it based on the wrong reference in the webpage. You state that it is because of the Downer article. But the part I reference was the Claire Henderson Statement.

Fair enough, I still think that the statement should be attributed directly to Claire Henderson, though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Fix it as you see fit. Here's another article to look at for a reference: https://search.proquest.com/openview/1b40a9128eaba2e22ab3fed4cf6551a8/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

The problem with these stories is that horses spread much faster into the american interior than colonists did, spreading from tribe to tribe, so it is understandable after hundreds of years and having recieved the horses from other indians that they would believe that they had always had horses, when this isn't the case. A lot of what is said in the study seems to be trying to deconstruct a "Eurocentric Myth", which shows that she already had preconcieved ideas about what the results of the study were going to be (note this is for a degree in Indigenous studies), and then cherry picked evidence to support her claims, like anecdotal accounts from indigenous elders. She say this about how she came to be involved in scientific work:

In keeping with the traditions of my Plains Indian ancestors, my education began with a spiritual experience I had involving a gift from an Indigenous “medicine man and woman” who lived on a New Mexico Pueblo. During a time when I was in desperate need of healing, they gifted me with two horses - a red roan mare that had been trained (according to their People’s traditions) to protect others during spiritual battle - and her four-day-old paint foal. My education continued with a vision that I experienced from my Ancestors. I gained this initial knowledge through firsthand observation, the utilization of all of my senses, and other experiential learning methods. Thus, began my role as a participant-researcher.

Citing experiencing visions in a scientific paper is not a great sign for an objective scientific study. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that. She also references the Downer article that you took abjection to. He claims in his article that a 5500 year old horse fossil was found in a cave in Montana, but offers no source. I would think that if horse fossils that revealed horses had survived in the America's 5,000 years later than anyone thought, that would be big news and you could find stories all over the internet. Nada. The only place you find it mentioned is Downer's article. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

That's the problem with predatory publishing, even if it looks like a legitimate scientific paper it is no better than someones blog post. The only people who seem to mention this theory that I can find are fringe pro-mustang websites and blogs. The question is whether including this WP:FRINGE theory, even in a footnote, is WP:DUE weight. I personally don't think so. This might be worth taking to the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard to see what other uninvolved contributors think. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The above is a bit tl;dr. We’ve reached stability in this article and any more taxonomy debates need to go to the appropriate articles elsewhere. IMHO, before we all trot off to a drama board, let’s just look at the other articles in question and see what improvements can achieve consensus. Montanabw^(talk) 18:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I've pondered on this and come to the conclusion that the problem is a statement in the article that's been there for a long time: "At the beginning of the Columbian Exchange, some 10,000 years later, there were no equids in the Americas." That statement opens the question of the fringe theory: "What about the assertions of Native Americans that they had horses prior to Europeans brought them?" I think we should dodge the whole issue by replacing that statement with: "The youngest physical evidence found for equids surviving in the Americas dates back to 10,000 years ago" and reference the article on the Yukon horse. Of course there's still the undisputably fringe theory that I've heard that they've found younger bones, but they've been hidden away by those that don't want it to come out that there were horses here when Europeans arrived. (That's actually more of a conspiracy theory.)

Speaking of the Yukon horse, I added a new heading to this discussion, but would still like to have a brief discussion I brought up on that issue.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 10:45, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Someone, somewhere pointed out that the issue on this is actually mythology, and as such that's the better way to explain it. I think we are getting there on that point. NO ONE is trying to argue that this is a scientific argument, but because it's a prevalent misunderstanding, it does need to be explained. Montanabw^(talk) 18:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Revert

@Montanabw: I see you have reverted my edits to the etymology section, but the another editor has reverted the changes back in. I was wondering if you had any objections to the text I prepared or if you just wanted them discussed first. Basically I have used a more modern edition of the OED and corrected the misleading impression that: 1.) the was more than one Mesta in old Spain. 2.) the Mesta dealt mainly in cattle or horses (in fact their business was wool). 4.) the Latin word was a direct ancestor of 'mustang' (in fact it contributed to the etymology of Mesta, not to 'mustang' directly.) 3.) the English and Spanish languages were somehow anachronistically divided by the US-Mexico border several centuries before it existed. I'm not sure about the comment you left on my talkpage. What citations are you objecting to? GPinkerton (talk) 12:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Those do seem like inclarities that are worth clarifying, even if they're only in the inference rather than direct implication.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the update is getting there. But it's important not to go into the weeds. There was once a much longer and more complicated version in there that we streamlined after a lot of work, I just didn't want to get it all bogged down and sidetracked again. Montanabw^(talk) 18:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Prehistory section

This discussion concluded

Why does this page have a prehistory section? What other breed of domestic horse developed in historical times has a prehistory section which deals with the far-distant extinct non-ancestors of the breed? I propose this whole section be removed and whatever content is valuable merged with a different section. There are no prehistoric mustangs, and neither will there ever be. They are, at oldest, a 16th century breed. GPinkerton (talk) 14:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC) It's primarily to give context to the common claim that the Mustangs are a "reintroduced species" replacing the horses that were present 10,000 years ago. The debate about whether they are "reintroduced species" or an invasive one plays a role in discussions around their management. 10,000 years may seem far distant in human terms but is relatively short on the timescales of the existence of species (which can be over 1 million years). Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC) See these refs discussing the issue Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC) References I agree that anything longer than the paragraph as it is currently would be a a WP:COATRACK and well off topic for this article. Do you think the content should be moved to Horses in the United States? Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC) It could go to Horses in the United States, Feral horses, Wild horse, or just a particular section in this article that involves controversy today. The way the article is arranged at the moment makes it look as though mustangs were roaming America 10,000 years ago, went off to live in Spain and then came back unchanged. Nothing could be further from the truth! Basically the history section should start with Columbus and not before. Stuff about the whys and wherefores of the idea E. ferus or Equus generally might be a long-lost native taxon or ecologically useful is basically irrelevant to mustangs per se. The argument that they're "native" could be made about any domestic horse set loose in North America. Or camel, for that matter. It has nothing to do with mustangs themselves and the article should not be allowed to suggest so. Perhaps a section on Ecology would be in order, and that could take in some of the land-use issues too. GPinkerton (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC) You have a point. Maybe we simply need to move it the "Land Use Controversy" Section Lynn (SLW) (talk) 15:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC) I went ahead and moved it. See what you think. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 16:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC) I think the change is good, it proves better context to the specific issues regarding land use. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC) I disagree, we are getting into the weeds of a controversy that was beaten to death a couple years ago, let's not crank this up again. The need to explain the Mustang in the context of the ancestral wild horse is precisely because they are commonly called "wild horses" and the average reader doesn't know that they aren't. This isn't a coatrack at all, but rather a critical component of the issue. Montanabw(talk) 18:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC) It is cranked up again, for good reason. It's in the wrong place in the article. I'm putting it back where the rest of us agree it makes more sense. I think one more addition, describing the size of the the last documented horses in the Americas would be a good addition.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 16:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC) I have always fought the implication that Mustangs are a breed. They are essentially Grade horses, distinguished by the fact they are or were once feral. It is their feral state that the article focuses on, and the prehistory is essential context for this. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 14:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC) They are a breed of feral horse. I don't know what "grade" horse means. There is no prehistory to mustangs. They are a modern breed and were never in the Americas did not exist before Columbus. Wild horses in the Americas and mustangs are completely different things. GPinkerton (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC) For someone that seems so sure of yourself, I would think you would know what a grade horse is. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 15:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC) The phrase does not appear in the OED and I had never heard it before. I suspect it is an Americanism. GPinkerton (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC) The issue of the grade horse versus the "Mustang" is also off-topic. While different bands of Mustangs have different genetic roots, and some relatively recent, the bottom line is that as a feral breed or landrace breed, the "Mustang" is probably more of a "breed" than a lot of the designer crossbred animals that get called "breeds" these days. Let's not get into promoting the propaganda of the cattle industry and their lackeys at the Bureau of Land Management. Montanabw(talk) 18:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC) Please don't read more into what I wrote than what I wrote. I'm entitled to an opinion, I don't consider mustangs a breed.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC) That’s a broader issue within WPEQ. And your opinion is OR, which I have been trying to explain to you for years. Montanabw(talk) 00:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC) My. Opinion. Is. OR. How the fuck does that work?Lynn (SLW) (talk) 02:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Proposal I suggest carving out a new section, to go near the top of the article, covering "Ecology". Under it would go some of the general information on the habits, range, ecological impact, just like with any animal, and also a discussion of prehistoric North American horses (broadly defined), their ecological role, and their eventual extinction. After that could come the history section, and then after that a slimmed-down section on the legal/land-use/political issues of the present day. That way a chronological logic can be preserved and a flow which suits the subject matter as both wild animal and domestic horse breed. (This is also chronologically logical, since they are wild animals today and their ancestors were domestic (i.e. tame)). GPinkerton (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC) I'm reluctant to treat them like a wildlife species. The difference between what happened with a mustang and say a duck, is we're talking a bout an animal that was once wild in a region, then died out, then a domestic species was brought back to the region, then went feral. Ducks simply have a wild type and a domestic variant. Domestic animals go feral, they don't go back to being wild-they are no longer wild-type.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC) Sure, they're not wildlife in the usual sense, just like Feral pigeon isn't "wild" in quite the way a Rock dove might be. But both pigeons live as wild animals and interact with nature as wild animals do. Just like mustangs and Przewalski's horse, both of whose modern ancestors were at one point domestic animals (in the sense of being tame, rather than in the sense of being separate [sub-]species). The Brown rat isn't native almost anywhere it lives, but the article there still gives a detailed examination of its habits and interaction with the environment. GPinkerton (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC) As not all Mustangs are free-roaming “wild” horses, I actually agree that an ecology section doesn’t work. Also, we have the Land management article that’s SLW’s little coatrack playgroind that discusses those issues, free roaming horse management. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) Not all brown rats are free-roaming "wild" rodents, but the breed still has an ecological effect, just like feral pigeons. Please sign your comments. GPinkerton (talk) 18:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Sorry, didn't finish that comment, and the issue is addressed below anyway. Montanabw(talk) 18:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Article organization Just to keep this discussion organized, the question of how to handle the prehistory section is valid and once I took a close look at the edits made over the last 48 hours or so by GPinkerton in particular, I see where they are going. Those changes to content seem to be improving matters, particularly with added explanation about the sourcing and reasoning. BUT. I don't think it's wise to restructure the article, such as tossing prehistory or moving the whole thing to a mere land use controversy. There has been a lot of drama and debate here over the years, and the structure has been a result of some significant compromises. Keeping this article carefully NPOV is critical to its long-term stability, and this does include mentioning the myths, legends and misconceptions in a way that admits they exist and educates the reader. POV pushing in either direction must be avoided, but not at the cost of pretending the controversies don't exist. Montanabw(talk) 18:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC) Please act like we're your equals in this discussion. Just because you "don't think it's wise" doesn't trump the opinion of the other three of us. Either provide a valid rebuttal to the discussion that sways us, or I'm putting it back. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC) @Montanabw: See my proposal above. I think a new section on the ecology of wild mustangs should cover these issues at the top. GPinkerton (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC) @GPinkerton:, sorry you have been dragged into an editing dispute between myself and Wysong here. We’ve been debating about this article for years and the status quo ante was a hard-fought compromise that was stable for years. I think the article can be improved, but only with a clear understanding of how damned complicated this issue is. EVERYTHING needs to be carefully sourced and meticulously balanced. Montanabw(talk) 00:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC) @Montanabw: Things might progress a little easier if you didn't keep mass reverting all changes to your own pet version. This is not acceptable; you don't WP:OWN the article. The "hard-fighting" you mention appears to have come from you. I will revert to the recent consensus. If you have objections more substantial than "I didn't make these edits so they can't be in the article", I suggest you discuss them here. GPinkerton (talk) 00:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC) @GPinkerton:, First off, my reverts yesterday was to the version that incorporated your intervening edits. I reverted, then carefully reviewed what you did on the etymology section and concurred that you improved it, and restored it. But once Wysong went in there with her false “consensus,” there was no way to avoid a mass revert and then Restoring your content. Be aware that there’s a very long history here. I’ve been less active on WP the last couple years, but I have been on WP since 2006, have over 100,000 edits and worked on about 30 featured articles, most of which have appeared on the main page as TFA. Wysong has been edit-warring with me and other editors ever since she arrived a fee years ago and her Psychological projection that I am an “owner” reflects her own “my way or the highway” attitude. She consistently presents an anti-free-roaming view, and is consistently trying to sneak in OR and SYNTH by hiding it within dozens of mini-edits. I always have to review her sources because she cherry-picks the data and I’ve caught her doing it dozens of times over the years. Montanabw(talk) 00:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC) There's medication for this problem, you know. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 01:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Asses

This discussion concluded

Not sure what to do about wild burros, and it probably is a coatrack to get into Ice Age megafauna other than horses here. But maybe there IS a place to put in material on them. We do have Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 where some of the info about asinus in the Americas could go, or maybe even a feral donkey page (now a redirect) should be created. What's not clear to me is WHERE asinus branched off from equus; from the various journals we have been looking at here, it looks like the split occurred about 4mya, but I'm not sure remains of asinus have been found in the Americas? (?) So, did asinus as a species (or subspecies) evolve in the Americas or in Eurasia? We seem to only have the "caballine" lineages in prehistoric North America, or am I missing something here? Montanabw(talk) 19:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC) When adding the comment I was more concerned about the present, much less about any prehistoric forbears. I don't know much about the relative distribution of mustangs and burros but I imagine their ranges overlap and their ecological effects might be comparable. Also, there is the Act that deals with both, and both are equines whose feral populations were established in the early period of colonization and are now dealt with as semi-native or semi-protected species. GPinkerton (talk) 19:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC) The only kinds of equine present in North America at human arrival around 15,000 year ago were Stilt legged and caballine horses as far as I know. According to the most recent DNA study, Haringtonhippus falls outside the common ancestry of all living equines (though this is disputed by a more recent morphological study, generally I am inclined to trust the molecular results given the extensive homoplasy in equine morphology). I don't think what exactly the caballine horses in North America were will be fully resolved without nuclear genomes. The origins section of This paper implies than asinus evolved in Eurasia, and were never native to the New World. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC) @Hemiauchenia:I just rewrote the prehistory section after a closer look at the three articles referenced. It's a taxonomic nightmare, so I had to be very careful how I referenced the animals. Take a look and see if you think I got it right.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 22:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC) @LynnWysong: The 2017 study that named Haringtonhippus was based off a complete miochondrial genome, while the other study is based on very incomplete fragments, so there's not really any reason to treat them as equal. The taxonomic status of Haringtonhippus is a bit of a coatrack for this article regardless. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC) @Hemiauchenia: I agree, so I reversed the information in the footnote with that in the main text. I'm good with the latest edit. These collaborations are very helpful.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 00:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC) While this taxonomy is very interesting, my point really was that the fact that after the Colombian Exchange, as well as domestic horses, domestic donkeys strayed into the wild and now roam freely. The article references the burros many times, including their ecological role, mentioned in the same breath as mustangs' impact, but half a sentence somewhere saying that they arrived at the same time as the [modern] horse and like them are [in historical terms] not native species wouldn't go amiss. Whether or not donkeys are sufficiently equine to be "returning" to ancestral home of the horse family is very much beside the point (though interesting for me); the point is that mustangs share their environment with other introduced equines, and whether or not they fulfil a similar ecological role as their relatives (however distant) 10,000 years ago should be considered an issue of both modern species. Indeed, the legislation treats them together, and the article refers in several places to the ecological role of both together. GPinkerton (talk) 23:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC) uuuuggghhh. I see your point, but let's go back to a previous conversation. My contention is that "the mustang" is not a breed, but the designation given to grade horses that have gone feral in the American west. They are defined by their feral state. You're talking about an article that should be called "Feral equids in the American West" that then has a small section devoted to the fact that there is a designation "mustang" for the horses. Personally, I don't have a problem with doing this, but my experience is that there are one or two editors out there that would pull no punches to stop it. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 01:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC) No I don't think anything like that radical is required, I just think that since burros are mentioned about 30 times on the page while we explain how horses got to the Americas it would suggest to the uninitiated that burros had always been there, which is a bit misleading. That's all. What you do raise is the other feral horses in North America; until I came here I understood that all American feral horses were called mustangs; I didn't realize that there was a view they were confined to the western US specifically. It might be worth a sentence explaining that feral horse populations in Canada and Mexico (?) are considered different to mustangs proper. Or are they? The article is a bit vague. GPinkerton (talk) 00:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Yeah, "Mustang" as a label for feral horses, is pretty much limited to the area once controlled by Spain/Mexico, which precludes Canada and most of the Eastern Seaboard. I'm not aware of any feral horses in Mexico; "Western US, is a relative term based on what era you are referencing. In the early 1800's, it may have been west of the Appalacians, but by the late 1800's it would have been west of the Mississippi River. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 01:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC) @LynnWysong: Obviously I mean the western states as used in this article; i.e. the present day western part of the present day United States. I am well aware of the rapid territorial annexations that enlarged the US over the 19th century, but I'm not sure how "limited to the area once controlled by Spain/Mexico" can be taken to mean it "precludes Canada". Perhaps you've never heard of New Spain's settlements in British Columbia? Were there not horses at Santa Cruz de Nuca and elsewhere in the Nootka Sound? Are the feral horses of the Canadian Great Plains somehow of different lineage to those of the Great Plains south of the 49th parallel? GPinkerton (talk) 18:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC) @GPinkerton:, be aware of how many related articles we already have, including feral horse, wild horse, Horses in the United States, Free-roaming horse management in North America, Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, List of Bureau of Land Management Herd Management Areas, plus separate articles on several redomesticated and standardized Mustang breeds such as Spanish Mustang and so on. Oh and Colonial Spanish Horse. And, to be honest, none are coatracks, IMHO. Montanabw(talk) 01:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC) @Montanabw: "Rv to status quo ante in light of mass POV pushing by editor with previous agenda of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH" can you explain who you are referring to here? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Wysong and I have been debating this article for years. My view on this is that I am trying to be fair to all sides and make it accurate and neutral, my view is that she is consistently trying to insert her own original research and WP:SYNTH into it to present her POV (Which isn’t entirely clear except that she seems to dislike free-roaming Mustangs, note the “grade horse” and “not a breed” remarks above)) are over all others. That said, when she’s correct, which she sometimes is if she can just quit cherry-picking the data to create a bias, I sometimes have agreed with her. If you really want to run an editor interaction tool on our years-long history, you will no doubt run screaming over how much bandwidth we’ve spent on this Montanabw(talk) 00:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC) And my view is that "Asses" is the perfect title for this discussion. Why don't you stop acting like one, and start collaborating?Lynn (SLW) (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Aaaaaand we’re off again. So much for focusing on content. “Collaboration” is not “let Lynn make 500 POV edits because she’s fooled some people new to the article into thinking her edits are neutral.” Montanabw(talk) 00:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC) HEEEE HAWWWW HEEEEE HAWWWWWLynn (SLW) (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC) and on that note, I can live with moving the prehistoric context down to the controversies section (I don’t like it, but I’ll compromise, it isn’t a hill to die on), but the rephrasing there subtly implies that the ancestors of modern horses didn’t exist in the Americas, which is nonsense, as the horse most definitely did not originate in Eurasia. The discussion of what exact subspecies crossed Berengia at what point is worth discussing here and at wild horse, but clearly, the jury remains out on that question.Montanabw(talk) 01:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC) The ancestors of modern horses also lived in the oceans if you go back far enough but I don't think it's reasonable to imagine that's what the article should say. Domestic horses come from the Old World because that's where horses were domesticated and that's where horses were before being imported to America. I don't think that's "subtly implying" anything that more than what it says. GPinkerton (talk) 02:55, 18 June 2020 (UTC) We do say that domesticated horses are what was brought back to the Americas. That's not disputed. But the point is that the debate is over whether the modern horse is a returned descendant of the original species that inhabited the Americas (acknowledging that a lot has changed) or if horses are an invasive species (which, for example, is true of the Brumby in Australia, where equus ferus did not exist prior to the arrival of European settlers). The discussion hinges not merely on whether the horses running wild today in Nevada and other parts of the Great Basin should be there or not (which is a useful discussion because there are legitimate problems), but also encompasses the historic spread of the horses called Mustangs across the entire western United States from 1519 to the present, where they clearly thrived and managed to run loose in large numbers with little management for several hundred years without wrecking the place. Montanabw(talk) 17:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC) What is relevant for this article is the ecomorphology of the horse that was extirpated. We're talking a pony sized horse that inhabited a grassland steppe. When we are talking native vs invasive species, that's very relevant since the average mustang is at least 50% larger, and they are now found in sagebrush steppes, or just plain desert areas. The fact that DNA would call them the same species needs to be acknowledged, but a St. Bernard and a toy poodles are also the same species. That doesn't mean that St. Bernards are suitable for a city apartment, or that toy poodles can survive outside in the Alps. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 14:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Yes and no. A St. Bernard and a toy poodle ARE the same species, indeed. But the modern shetland pony and Akhal-teke horse breeds are also the same species, each landraces adapted to very different ecosystems. The Hagerman horse or whatever was pony-sized, sure. We can explain that the ancestral wild horse was smaller and inhabited grasslands, we can also explain that the first horses that returned to the Americas also inhabited a similar grassland niche. We can explain today that the bulk of free-roaming horses that now run in Nevada, explaining ways it does (dry) and does not (hot) resemble the ancestral steppe territory inhabited by ancient horses, AND we can (and do) also explain that the original Mustang inhabited a much larger range east of the Continental Divide. The management article could be linked to this article as well, as there is more detail there. All of which can be done with NPOV. Montanabw(talk) 17:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Seeking consensus

Discussion concluded

We're getting a hard to follow discussion above. I hope I accurately am framing this issue as now, at this point, figuring out how to best phrase the Mustang#Prehistoric_context section. So, let's see if we can agree on background, and then decide if we need to edit the status quo ante, which for simplicity's sake let's use GPinkerton's most recent edit. Montanabw(talk) 18:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC) To wit, is there consensus for the following: Equus (genus) first evolved in North America (or the Americas) There are extant members of Equus today (which ones, we discuss below) The Hagerman horse appears to be the earliest member of genus Equue The most recent common ancestor of all modern equines (members of the genus Equus) lived in Canada within the range of 4.0 to 4.5 Mya[1] Harringtonhippus aka the "stilt-legged" horse, is a different critter which appears to be extinct and has no living descendants today. I agree these things are probably correct and I don't have strong feelings bout the North American horses' palaeontological taxonomy but I would favour adding something on the ancient ecology of North America generally, and the extinct horses within that, as far as is known, to give some actual "context" to the section following. The following section should also mention some of the other changes humans have wrought on the fauna, flora, and climate, including the loss of bison (wolves are also briefly mentioned) and the gain of donkeys. GPinkerton (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Lets just KISS. Does anyone have a problem with this sentence: One 2017 ancient DNA and tooth mophology study tentatively classified the North American caballine horses as the same species (Equus ferus) as Przewalskii's horse, but with a caveat that Przewalskii's horse possibly should be classified with domestic horses, Equus caballus, indicating that the North American caballines are closely related to domestic horses.  ? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Insufficient context and we don't want to drag the Przewalski into this. Let's start with the current version, and go from there. We can use strikethrough and underlining to show changes. Montanabw(talk) 19:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC) The taxonomic horse family "Equidae" evolved in North America 55 million years ago. By the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the family present in North America, which recent DNA studies now indicate belonged to the two different genera: Equus, also known as the “caballine” or “stout legged horse”; and Haringtonhippus, the “stilt-legged horse”. Two DNA studies published in 2017 reached conflicting conclusions: One indicated that the prehistoric caballine horse was closely related to modern horses, the other study classified it as Equus lambei or Yukon Horse. However, at the end of the Last Glacial Period, Haringtonhippus went extinct and Equus was extirpated from the Americas, possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. The youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas prior to the Columbian Exchange dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old.{{efn|In 1991, [[ethnohistorian]] Claire Henderson put forth a theory based in part on [[Lakota People|Lakota Sioux]] oral history that Equus was not completely extirpated from North America, but that the northern [[Plains Indians]] had domesticated and preserved horses prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Deb Bennett, a vertebrate [[paleontologist]] who, at the time was on the staff of the [[Smithsonian Institution]], expressed skepticism about Henderson's theory, but conceded that "there may have been isolated pockets of grasslands untouched by the glaciers of the Ice Age in which horses could have survived." However, it is generally accepted that, at the beginning of the Columbian Exchange, there were no equids in the Americas.}} References I think the ancient "North American caballines" are the ancestors of domestic horses. Do we agree on that? (and probably the Przewalski also, I think that lineage diverged in Eurasia, but I haven't drilled down on that research, which isn't super relevant here) Montanabw(talk) 19:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC) The differences between my last version, copied above, and Lynn's preferred version, hinge on the following bits: One 2017 ancient DNA study tentatively classified the North American caballine horses as the same species (Equus ferus) as Przewalskii's horse, but with a caveat that Przewalskii's horse possibly should be classified with domestic horses, Equus caballus, indicating that the North American caballines are closely related to domestic horses.[4] and At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballine was extirpated from the Americas and The youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old. So, I think the first phrase above is the problem one. I think the second one is pretty similar to what's in there, just different phrasing, and the third bit on physical evidence is in there, with different phrasing. Montanabw(talk) 19:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC) In "my" version, I'd have no real problem chopping Two DNA studies published in 2017 reached conflicting conclusions: One indicated that the prehistoric caballine horse was closely related to modern horses, the other study classified it as Equus lambei or Yukon Horse.[3][4 and just saying something like "the prehistoric caballine horse was an ancestor to modern horses." or "to equus ferus, the wild ancestor of the modern horse."Montanabw(talk) 19:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC) "we don't want to drag the Przewalski into this" Who sez? And, there's plenty wrong with the rest of it; 1)The Barron article and the Heintzman article conflict on whether the stilt-legged horses are a different genus from Equus. Unless we want to go into that, leave it out the mention of Haringtonhippus. 2)Heintzman didn't attempt to classify species, they just used the names in use before the Barron article. So to say Heintzman and Barron conflicted is incorrect. 3)"One indicated that the prehistoric caballine horse was closely related to modern horses, the other study classified it as Equus lambei or Yukon Horse" That's a totally meaningless statement in the context of the purpose of the paragraph. And, why is okay to mention the yukon horse but not Przewalski? They are both mentioned in both articles. 4)"the other study classified it as Equus lambei" The Heintzman discussed other Equus species, not just Equus lambei Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC) I agree the bit about Przewalskii's horse is wordy and could be phrased more concisely without mentioning it. Montanabw, I think your second version is better but the use of the term "ancestor" is problematic. Populations of caballine horses were present both in North America and Eurasia in the Late Pleistocene, so to suggest that the Late Pleistocene american caballine horses were the direct ancestors of the domestic horse is misleading, simply saying that it has been suggested that both populations belong to the same species gets the point across, without unwarranted implications. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC) "I think the ancient "North American caballines" are the ancestors of domestic horses. Do we agree on that?" Why does it matter? You aren't a reliable source. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC) " simply saying that it has been suggested that both populations belong to the same species gets the point across, without unwarranted implications." Where is the reference that suggests that? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Baron et al 2017 says that they belong to the same species. Heintzman et al 2017 figure 1 based off full mitogenomes shows that the NW caballine equids E. lambei and E. cf scotti sharing a mutual ancestor outside the living variation of horses. The semantics of this "ancestor" discussion boil down to an issue of chronology. Are Middle Pleistocene (over 100,000 years ago) caballine equines in North America ancestral to living horses? Possibly. Are caballine equines in North America 15,000 years ago ancestral to living horses? Probably not. We still haven't discussed the over 500,000 year old horse genome yet. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:55, 18 June 2020 (UTC) "Baron et al 2017 says that they belong to the same species." Quote? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 19:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC) "The caballine equid species appears to be conspecific with E. ferus Boddaert, 1785, and this is the name we propose should be assigned to this material" Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC) But, it goes on to say that domestic horses are E.caballine. That was the point of the "More Taxonomy" thread, that got so quickly derailed. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC) The distinction between domestic and wild forms as separate species is ultimately semantic, and I wouldn't use it as a justification for treating them separately. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC) So, are you conceding the Barron did not say they are the same species? Because you can't use them for a source saying they are. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:21, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Stilt-legged horse, Harringtonhippus, is not equus. We can tweak the citations if there's an error in there somewhere. Equus as it existed in North America is the direct ancestor of the modern horse. Any dispute there? Montanabw(talk) 22:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

KISS

Discussion concluded

Again, let's just keep this simple. MBW's proposal really isn't salvageable, so let's try mine again. The taxonomic horse family "Equidae" evolved in North America 55 million years ago. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the Equine family present in North America, the "caballine" and "stilt-legged", which have been referred to by various species names. One 2017 ancient DNA and tooth morphology study tentatively classified the North American caballine horses as the same species (Equus ferus) as Przewalskii's horse, but with a caveat that Przewalskii's horse possibly should be classified with domestic horses, Equus caballus, indicating that the North American caballines are closely related to domestic horses. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballine was extirpated from the Americas, possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. The youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old. References Again, other than the fact that MBW doesn't want to mention Przewalskii's horse for an unspecified reason, is there a problem with this? Lynn (SLW) (talk) 21:20, 18 June 2020 (UTC) Or, if it's too clunky, we can go back to the original idea we agreed upon: a footnote, like this: The taxonomic horse family "Equidae" evolved in North America 55 million years ago. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, there were two lineages of the Equine family present in North America, the "caballine" and "stilt-legged", which have been referred to by various species names. One 2017 ancient DNA and tooth morphology study indicates that the North American caballines are closely related to domestic horses. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the non-caballines went extinct and the caballine was extirpated from the Americas, possibly due to a changing climate or the impact of newly arrived human hunters. The youngest physical evidence for the survival of Equids in the Americas dates between between 7,600 and 10,500 years old. References Let's try this without the snark and remarks about "unsalvagable." The "Caballine" horse species in prehistoric America became the ancestor of the modern horse. Period. We can properly cite this to the most recent and relevant studies. We can probably keep Harringtonhippus as a side note or maybe even an endnote. We do need to discuss what member(s) of genus equus lived in North America prior to extirpation e.f. caballus and e.f.przewalskii diverged from a common ancestor about 45,000 years ago. (see [2]) The Przewalski is a best an endnote as no one is trying to turn loose a bunch of Przewalski horses in Nevada. Montanabw(talk) 22:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC) {{cob} Bison "Surely the disappearance of the bison from the mustangs' present range is worth noting as being infinitely more relevant to land-use issues and competition between herbivores in the modern Great Plains..." The mustangs present range is not the Great Plains but the Great Basin and other surrounding deserts. Bison were rare in those deserts in the post-Columbian era being, like ancient horses, a species adapted to the grassland steppe. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC) And we agree on that. But Bison do live west of the Continental Divide these days, at least on the National Bison Range, but that is getting into the weeds. We can probably all agree that humans have messed with everything. Montanabw(talk) 18:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC) That's the point I was getting at. Somewhere in this article it should say something like "other Eurasian domestic animals were released into the North American wilderness and became naturalized like mustangs, including burros, (feral cattle?), and, for a time in the 19th century, camels." and should further note that the main big herbivore of North America has since been extirpated from most of its range, which, contrary to what is written above, definitely included the Great Basin, as well as basically all North America. See here. As for mustangs not inhabiting the Great Plains, this seems to be a circular argument. There are feral horses in the Canadian Great Plains, mustangs historically ranged all over the Great Plains, and simply because mustangs themselves have since became extinct in much of their former range doesn't mean the article should pass over historical mustangs (or their present-day descendants outside the US Great Basin) in silence. GPinkerton (talk) 18:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC) I agree on the question of shifting ranges getting into the weeds. I think we could point out that horses (not "mustangs", per se, but horses generally), burros, cattle (mostly semi-feral, but during the Civil War, they did become flat-out feral in parts of Texas, see Cattle drives in the United States), camels (feral camels? Really? I know people imported them here and in Australia, but didn't know a feral population was established here —that's an interesting one), etc., did get turned out and established self-sustaining populations. It's all about the right weight. And also, maybe we can expand and cross-ref Free-roaming horse management in North America, which needs linking here too, along with the List of BLM HMAs. Montanabw(talk) 19:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC) On the camels issue there wasn't much of self-sustaining population, but it wasn't far from it. See: here and here and of course under United States Camel Corps. Bison are far, far more important though. (Not least because the mustangs allowed the Indians to more efficiently hunt the bison out of existence along with the American settlers.) I'm not sure the historical range of the mustang is at all "getting into the weeds". It's a vital part of the information required to make a balanced and rounded treatment of the subject "mustang". GPinkerton (talk) 21:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC) GPinkerton, I actually agree that an accuratediscussion of the historic range is useful. Basically, horses first arrived on the mainland in Mexico and spread north, on both sides of the Continental divide. humans (both cowboys and Indians, so to speak, also farmers, soldiers, etc...) spread horses far and wide, many horses got loose or were deliberately turned loose, then multiplied. Humans periodically rounded up what they needed, and at the end of the day, the “wild horse dilemma” is really only a 20th-century problem, pretty much dating to the end of World War I and the replacement of the horse by the internal combustion engine. The modern problem of overpopulation, particularly in Nevada is, as noted elsewhere, but is pretty much a problem of the last 50 years or so. It’s all aboutnbalance and weight, and backed by sources, not OR or SYNTH. Montanabw(talk) 15:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)