Are horses vegetarian?
CuChullaine O'Reilly's book, Deadly
Equines has certainly opened a can of worms. The trick question is
whether horses will eat the worms. The whole concept of the horse as
placid herd living vegetarian has been called into question by
CuChullaine's book and like so many other behavioural issues, we
discover that nice, neat and tidy divisions, end up as a complex,
messy continuum. But however complex and however messy, if we are to
understand our animals, we need the truth, not a simple system which
just happens to be based on a lie.
The first animal, however we define it,
will have lived on plants, because unless it ate itself, that was the
only option available for the first animal. That does not make it a
vegetarian. If I go to the house of a strict temperance teetotaller,
I do not become teetotal, I just can't get alcohol. It is not
drinking in pubs and the houses of those who do drink alcohol, that
would define me as teetotal, if I didn't reject the idea. Anyway, at
last years apple and pumpkin day, I was passed a glass of what I
thought was apple juice, but which was actually a very fine cider.
It was very nice, but despite the
claims of the AA, I am not back on the demon booze I have had a
glass. I just can't claim that I don't drink alcohol. I mention this
because the vegetarian/vegan fanatics have a lot in common with the
Alcoholic Anonymous and Anti Smoking lobby. They insist on this
black/white scenario when the world is full of colour.
I stopped drinking alcohol about three
years ago, and stopped smoking about ten years ago, and was a keen
supporter of both industries at an industrial level. Now I am not. I
don't have withdrawal symptoms, I don't avoid smokers or drinkers and
I don't try to convert them. I am gradually eating less meat, but for
no major reason, I am just eating less of it.
So the first animal was an omnivore,
there just wasn't very much omni to vore that wasn't plant based. As
the numbers of animals increased, some obviously decided that eating
animals was an easier route to the proteins etc that they needed. But
this split was from an animal that had evolved on a pure plant diet,
not because it was a strict vegetarian, but because there wasn't an
option. So an animal that has evolved on a pure plant diet, can
evolve into an omnivore, eating plant and animal. Eventually a
specialised great white shark will appear , but its ancestor ate
vegetables exclusively.
That animal was water based, because
evolving motion, ie becoming an animal, is easier in water. But on
land, the first animal would have lived exclusively on vegetables,
because again, the alternatives weren't available. As they spread
over the earth, some of the land based plant eaters would have taken
the easy route and started eating meat, but I doubt the marine
carnivores would have competed on land. A shark makes a suitable anti
hero in the water, but on dry land, rats, or even horses, would finish the shark off pretty easily. So the land based vegetable eaters evolved into
Tyrannosaurus rex to provide Hollywood with something else to feed
off.
Then mammals arrived on the scene. I
suspect that the first mammals were predominantly vegetable eating.
But from this vegetable eating ancestor, the sabre tooth tiger
evolved.
The glorious divide we have created
between carnivore and herbivore clearly has shaky foundations. The
ferocious Grizzly bear, in reality is a omnivore, happily eating the
fruits of the land when salmon or whatever isn't available. As the
ice caps melt, the Grizzly is apparently hybridising with then Polar
Bear, and producing viable young. This suggests they are pretty close
genetically, yet the Polar Bear is pure carnivore. The fact that ice
floes produce a very limited crop of nourishing grain, is a possible
reason.
Animal, and human, food preferences are
based on what is available. There is also an inevitable tendency to
specialise. I friend of mine who did some time at Her Majesty's
pleasure, met a guy who shoplifted from B & Q. He knew the
routines, where the cameras were etc, and wasn't going to risk the
dangerous environment at Homebase. Who knows what sort of savage
predators roam the aisles preying on innocent shoplifters?
Animals specialise from both ends of
the spectrum, so edible meat tends to be surrounded by creatures that
will eat it. If a corpse is already surrounded by vultures,hyenas and
jackals, there is probably a lion on the way as well. This is not the
sort of group a sensible wild horse is going to join. So the wild
horse gets on with grazing, while the carnivores dismember the
corpse. The obvious reason that the smell of fresh blood scares
horses, is that fresh blood suggests a carnivore is being carnivorous
in the area. This is not a good place to hang out.
It is the risk of carnivores eating
them that keeps herbivores away from kills. At the very least the
blood would be an easy supply of salt. CuChullaine is right, we
cannot look on horses as placid, flight oriented vegetarians, that is
what the Sabre Toothed Tiger, T Rex and the Great White Shark all
evolved from. The horse may be gentler, and eat less meat, in the
same way that I drink less, and smoke less and eat less meat, but I
have evolved, (in my lifetime) from chain smoking, heavy drinking
consumer of bloody steaks to someone who does much less of all of
them. But I still have the same lungs and digestive system, I just
use them differently.
We are looking at a continuum, and once
we accept that our horses behaviour will tend towards eating
vegetables and running from predators, but that the basics are there
to let them kill and to eat what they have killed, we will learn
where on the continuum they actually are.
