[Animals] Why the wild horses of Sable Island are a threat to the ecosystem they have inhabited for centuries

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Sable Island horses have inhabited the island for hundreds of years. Now scientists question the impact.
Sable Island is an island located in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Canadian coast. At 40 kilometers long, the island is so narrow that you can see the sea from one end of its width to the other. There is a record of this island since the 1500s, when Portuguese sailors were in charge of drawing a map of the American territory and its surroundings.

Wild horses and their impact on the island
Sable Island is known for its vast po[CENSORED]tion of wild horses. However, they did not always exist on the island. The island's home to horses dates only to the 18th century, when a Boston merchant abandoned the horses he had either bought or stolen after the British drove the Acadians out of Nova Scotia and forced them to leave their cattle in the continent. Horses and their descendants gradually po[CENSORED]ted Sable Island.

The efforts to maintain this po[CENSORED]tion of horses in optimal conditions were maintained, so much so that by the 19th century more horses were introduced to 'improve' the po[CENSORED]tion that inhabited the island. The plan turned out the opposite, the animals were captured and used as work animals on dry land.

By the middle of the next century, the destiny that humans planned for horses took a completely different turn. The federal government decided to eliminate all wild horses from Sable Island, without success as the human po[CENSORED]tion protested against this act and finally declared the species as protected in 1961.

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A threat to the ecosystem
Scientists have been warning since the 1950s that horses are having a detrimental impact on the well-being of their habitat. But it was not until 1998 that the Canadian Wildlife Service began a scientific, rigorous and in-depth study of the damage caused by wild horses.

“THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT HORSES ARE AFFECTING THE ECOSYSTEM. THAT'S VISUALLY EVIDENT TO ANYONE WHO COMES TO THE ISLAND,” SAYS DAN KEHLER, AN ECOLOGIST AT THE SABLE ISLAND NATIONAL PARK RESERVE, WHICH SPANS THE ENTIRE ISLAND. “I THINK THE QUESTION FOR US IS WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF SOME OF THOSE EFFECTS?”

One of these consequences has been the apparent increase in invertebrates in some ponds, because the excrement of the horses enhances the growth of algae, which is the food of the invertebrates. Although this would seem like a positive consequence, Andrew Medeiros, a specialist in freshwater bodies, affirms that the po[CENSORED]tions could become parasitic.

The debate is evident: those who want to protect the wild horses of Sable Island and those who want to protect other species and the environment from the damage they cause. The different positions have opened the panorama for a very specific question: How do you decide which species belongs to which place?

Hundreds of animals have been transported from one continent to another for centuries; they have reproduced, left offspring and mutated according to the new conditions of life. What to do with these species? Should they return to their places of origin? Do they already belong to their new homes? The conclusion is far from clear-cut, and the Sable Island horses are just one of many cases of human-introduced animals affecting their ecosystem.

https://www.ngenespanol.com/animales/por-que-los-caballos-salvajes-de-sable-island-son-un-amenaza-para-el-ecosistema-que-han-habitado-por-siglos/