In Sketches Here and There, Aldo Leopold described his moment of grace. After shooting a wolf from the rim rock in Arizona he recalls, “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes… there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain.”1

Recent revelations about the suffering and loss of equine life at the International Society to Protect Mustangs & Burros have me reflecting again about the hubris of human kind. While being “protected,” dozens of formerly wild horses have starved to death, suffering untold disease and neglect. It’s a big case, but not an isolated one. Numbers, costs soar in wild-horse controversy, Rapid City Journal, Oct 14, 2016

ISPMB has, at last count, 810 horses on 680 acres near Lantry, SD. The ISPMB herd was and is a failed experiment in self-regulation. Supposedly, the horses would not breed past their food allowance. It was expected that some would starve. They bred, and even now continue top breed and when the money and food ran out it became a horror show.

Wild horse advocate and ecologist Craig Downer has put forth the idea that horses will self regulate if predators are in the environment. That presumes that the reserve (as he diplomatically avoides the word sanctuary2) is in a topographical environment large enough to allow seasonal migration and also contains and can sustain numerous mountain lions or large, experienced wolf packs.

Size Matters

Thousands of tourists flock to Yellowstone Park each year. The park’s advertising campaign last year, “Find Your Park” was so successful that a park representative this year suggested their pitch be “Find Another Park.”

What’s been learned over the past century is that even Yellowstone Park at 3,468 square miles is not large enough to provide a healthy ecosystem for the magnificent fauna that live there. This led to the establishment of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, linking Teton and the interstitial areas, increasing the size a thousand percent to 34,375 square miles. Kruger National Park in South Africa pales at only 7,532 square miles, while the stunning ecosystem of the Okavanga Delta has been transformed into the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area 17,8415 square miles.3

In the case of ISPMB, one has to wonder about the sanity of attempting a self-regulating environment for 810 mega fauna on 680 acres. From Heisenberg to Hegel, it’s not a new idea removing an object from its environment changes everything.

Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the US Forest Service, and a founder of the Yale School of Forestry was a close advisor to Teddy Roosevelt, who understood the need for large, unaltered landscapes. Pinchot was instrumental in establishing the national forests and parks we enjoy today, due to his understanding that size matters. In 1905, when Pinchot became chief, federal forests totaled 56 million acres. In 1910, only five years later he left the service with 172 million acres as federal forest land.4

When it comes to mega fauna what is known is: 1. Almost impossibly large tracts of land with varying topography are required for a healthy ecosystem. 2. That we can’t divorce a species from its ecosystem and expect it to self-regulate the way it does in that ecosystem. 3. Horses are mega fauna requiring many, many square miles and the ability to migrate.

In my opinion, this is the downfall of the HMA (Horse Management Area) system as created by the Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act of 1971. Interestingly, today we just call it the Wild Horse & Burro Act. The “Free-Roaming” part seems to have gotten lost.

In an interview with author Paula Morin, Tom Marvel of the famed Marvel ranch of Nevada recalls wild horses migrating from Austin, NV all the way to Battle Mountain, with the only fences in Nevada being along the railroad. He said it took about a year for them to make the run up and back, a migration route of about a hundred miles each way.5

Today wild horses are confined to the artificial boundaries of HMAs that are between roughly 25,000 and 500,000 acres. And yes, there is some migration happening between HMAs and USFS land that are adjacent, and yes the horses do wander off the HMAs onto other holdings. Now, not only are the great migrations that allowed horses, like other ungulates, to move with the seasons not allowed, much of the land the HMAs occupy have other uses. Human development, ranching, mining and extraction are all effecting resources and water tables.

Do I have a simple answer? Of course not. However now more than ever, it’s vitally important to realize some source infinitely more intelligent than us has created a system so diverse, complex and inter-dependent and we should fall on our knees in beauty and wonder. We should be earnestly learning all we can before it disappears forever. There is almost no place on earth, and certainly no place in North America where the natural landscape has not been negatively impacted, if not irrevocably damaged by man. Now more than ever, there’s no place for ego, hubris or profit at all costs.

1. A Sand County Almanac, Leopold, Aldo; Estella Leopold. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949
2. Oxford definition: 1 [mass noun] Refuge or safety from pursuit, persecution, or other danger. 2 A nature reserve. 2.1 A place where injured or unwanted animals of a specified kind are cared for. 3 A holy place; a temple.)
3. Various sources, easily verified.
4. http://connecticuthistory.org/gifford-pinchot-bridging-two-eras-of-national-conservation/
5. Honest Horses, Paula Morin. University of Nevada Press (February 13, 2006

The Donate Button: We’ve all done it. Opened an email to find a gut wrenching story of a starving child or abused animal, accompanied by a horrifying photo that literally breaks our heart and leaves us in tears, or so angry our blood pressure rises and our face burns.

You sit, sobbing, tears streaming down your face, or feeling the heat of anger rising. It’s uncomfortable. Emotions swirl through your being. What’s even more uncomfortable is that crying child or bag of bones with the sad face and pleading eyes is hundreds or thousands of miles away. There’s nothing you can do. You are powerless to change that picture. But are you?

At the bottom of the page is, in marketing terms, a “call to action.” The donate button. Donate Now! it says, to alleviate the suffering of these children, animals, refugees. Help us save these dolphins, horses, homeless children. Wow, you think, there IS a way I can help. You press the button, sign the petition, give your email and financial information and Whew! You feel better. The terrible discomfort is relieved and there is a sense of closure. I did something. I helped. Big sigh. You dry your tears and go on with your day.

This scenario goes on millions of times a day. I dare say we’ve all done it. Charities, churches, advocacy groups and scammers rely on your discomfort and their donate button to fund their budgets. Why is this so successful and just how does it work?

What we know from neuroscience and brain imaging can explain this common scenario. Emotions are processed deep in the older part of the brain called the amygdala1. Just like receptors for pain, that information bypasses the prefrontal cortex that controls “executive function.” In a life or death situation, we don’t have time to cogitate on whether the fire is hot, the gun is loaded or if that scary person is coming to hurt us or not. That input goes directly to the older, more instinctive areas of the brain creating the fight or flight mechanism, producing adrenalin. Most learning and rational thought fortunately is not that fraught with the same intensity. Reading a technical manual or balancing your checkbook may not be a happy chore, but unless you are suffering severe financial problems, is probably not a fear producing event and the needed skills are found in the prefrontal cortex. No amygdala needed, thank you.

Can you see where I’m going? The disturbing images that come with the call to action, i.e.; the donate button, hits us in our hearts. Hard. Depending on our sensitivity and where we are at that moment, we may even feel a physical ache in our heart, or falling sensation. Like a broken heart, the pain is a real, physiological event. There’s a reason for that. The amygdala and the heart are sending strong signals back and forth. And it feels terrible. Even worse, you feel powerless.

Powerlessness has been studied extensively and has proven to be one of the most damaging of all emotions. People can endure unbelievable hardship if they feel they have even a little power over their environment. Overcoming the feeling of powerlessness is a large component of cognitive behavioral therapy. Even mice stay healthier when they have some control over their choices!

So there’s a quick fix to that discomfort you’re feeling at the stories and images of tragedy, cruelty and injustice. The Donate button! The call to action! Everything in that email or Facebook post is carefully crafted, often by marketing experts, and consciously designed to go directly to your amygdala2,3 and your heart, bypassing your cortex. Not only do we fail to investigate the verity of the information, often we don’t even check to see if we have the funds in our budget to make a donation. It does not want you to think!

A couple of years ago I met the head of a famous and very successful animal advocacy organization whose heart wrenching emails arrived in my inbox on an almost daily basis, screaming about the terrible injustices being done, always begging for money for yet another legal action. I liked her. She was intelligent, extremely knowledgeable and very realistic about the issues. I called her out on the hysterical tone of the emails. She waved her hand dismissively and said, “Oh that’s what my marketing person says gets results.”

I’m not saying it’s wrong to hit that donate button and support worthy causes or agencies that are aligned with your values. It is however, your responsibility to understand how you are possibly being manipulated and research the truthfulness of the claims.

My call to action is for you to recognize the mechanisms of “donate button advocacy,” be conscious of the discomfort, postpone the urge to relieve that discomfort by signing the petition or sending the money, and investigate the veracity of the information first.

“You can make this world a better world. Yes you can, yes you can, can…” Allen Toussainte. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7F-JwTx_U

*The Scream, by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch

1. http://bigthink.com/videos/the-amygdala-in-5-minutes
2. Feelings of anxiety start with a catalyst — an environmental stimulus that provokes stress. This can include various smells, sights, and internal feelings that result in anxiety. The amygdala reacts to this stimuli by preparing to either stand and fight or to turn and run. This response is triggered by the release of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Consequently, blood sugar rises, becoming immediately available to the muscles for quick energy. Shaking may occur in an attempt to return blood to the rest of the body. A better understanding of the amygdala and its various functions may lead to a new way of treating clinical anxiety. Davis, M (1992). “The role of the amygdala in fear and anxiety”. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 15: 353–375. doi:1146/annurev.ne.15.030192.002033. PMID1575447.
3. Studies in 2004 and 2006 showed that normal subjects exposed to images of frightened faces or faces of people from another race will show increased activity of the amygdala, even if that exposure is subliminal. Brain Activity Reflects Complexity Of Responses To Other-race Faces, Science Daily, 14 December, 2004