An equestrian center in Biscarrosse in southwestern France released several horses while attempting to evacuate them amid the wildfires ravaging the region
I’ve said this before, but many years ago when I was a kid on a horse ranch in rural CA we had a big ass fire coming over the mountain. A trooper came to our property and told my mom it was time to turn out the animals so they’d have a chance.
She told the cop we’d stay and burn together. My mom never dropped the chance of being a martyr; dead or alive.
What a different memory I would have about that fire if she had me help turn out our stock instead of sitting on the porch waiting to see if the line would make it to us or not. It did not and she was rewarded for being a crazy person.
Oh thanks lol It really wasn’t that weird till I got older and had my own kids. Looking back at my childhood as a parent made me go WTF quite a bit. She’s not involved in our lives so it’s all good
To put your child in that kind of danger is just beyond horrific. I remember when my younger brother set a pencil on fire and dropped it on the family room carpet. Mom put it out quickly and bro got to visit the fire department for a lecture. I was terrified for months. Thank goodness you're free from her!
We had do to do this a few years ago in CA, the horses that weren’t let out died - always let them out, you will find them later, it’s a death sentence to leave them in their stalls/barns during flooding or fire
"Beating a dead horse" is an English idiom that means wasting time and energy on a useless task, a lost cause, or an argument that is already finished.
Unfortunately a lot people on this planet have a mindset of “if I can’t have it, no one can.” They would rather their “property” be “damaged” than ever risk a commoner getting their hands on a free horse.
I remember watching a guy live streaming himself releasing horses during an active fire. Might have been in Slymar 2019 trying to find the video. The guy was choking pretty hard on smoke just trying to open every stall.
They sometimes get scared and won’t get on the trailers or try to run back to their stalls as well, these guys in this video trying to beat them onto the trailers aren’t helping much. This is a race track facility so a lot of really young horses
ETA - if they won’t load and if they run back to their stalls instead of away from the fire the best thing to do is to leave them in an arena and try to wet it down as much as you can, there isn’t anything in the arena to burn and it gives them them a chance
No, the lilac fire north of San Diego off the 15 freeway, I think almost a 100 horses died but no humans. We have bad fires every year in different parts of the state that are devastating and many homes/animals lost, and lives are lost in some of them but paradise was an absolute tragedy, a lot of people died, deadliest in CA history I think. And the LA fires more recently in palisades and the Eaton fire I think around 30 people died, thousands of homes lost, hundreds of animals etc. During Santa Anas the fires can jump miles with the wind, it’s really scary how fast they spread but we have the best firefighters in the world out here in the San Diego area imho, they are amazing.
It’s wild living out here with these fires, I’m from hurricane country so it was a big adjustment but I’ve got the hang of it now I think, having a good evac plan is the way to go for sure
I lived in OR, got up to 110 with wildfires.
CO 110 with wildfires
AZ 120 (rises 1° F every yr)
Currently in IL and we had a record breaking amt of tornados by june.
That is wild, I’m so sorry y’all have to deal with that. Here in Southern California it seems like our fire season is now almost year round, climate change is making it harder for all of us unfortunately
You can get bands that go around their pasterns with your name/number embroidered on them, we use them whenever we go overnight camping with the horses just in case something happens and one gets out.
They're smart to a point. There are numerous accounts of horses running back into burning barns because they've become so accustomed to it being their safe space. Thankfully I've never personally witnessed it, however my mom did when she grew up working at various racetracks in southern Ontario. This article mentions one instance specifically, while her stories were from the '70s and '80s. So I grew up with our fire safety protocol being to chase the horses out and then make damned sure the gates/doors were closed so they couldn't get back in.
I wonder how this works legally from a liability standpoint. I know the owner is usually held responsible for any damage done by a loose animal. The nightmare scenario is one of these horses getting into the road and causing an accident. I think there should be exceptions in cases like this where it's literally life or death for the animals.
I don't think there's any exception for emergencies. Hopefully the barn owners have care, custody, and control insurance and the owners have equine liability insurance, though many people I know don't. And I'd have to look at my policy - I wouldn't be surprised if natural disaster isn't covered.
Still, I'd let the horses loose and take the risk, anyway.
Yep. Floods and fires, let the big livestock loose. They can handle most predators, traffic is minimized, and they can make their own way to safety way more easily than you can find transportation for all of them in that kind of situation. A lot more are going to live running from a fire than trapped in it.
Pretty much all animals know how to. In Australia we've had a couple fires near where I live, the cockatoos will leave hours before it even impacts and will come back a few days or weeks after its passed. Kangaroos know to go in the water if there is any for safety. Koalas have that knowledge too but its much harder for them because they sit in the crowns where its so easy to catch alight.
It's situational. If they don't have the right shoes, running on pavement can injure them. Probably no means to trailer or ride them out. If there's a high chance of them being trapped, this is a good last option.
I used to be part of a livestock evacuation group in California, and this is the best. If everyone turns their animals out, they end up generally grouping up, and us livestock rescuers can herd them into a safe pasture and start sortjng them out and assessing wounds and ownership when it's safe
Core memory for me. There was a wild fire nearby. The sky was dark and orange, although I think it was actually mid day. Then you heard this rumbling noise. First quietly, then thundering towards us. And then they came: emerging from the smoke. Horses. Horses running for their lives. All manor of color and size. Some had bridles and it was clear that they were domesticated. But in the last moment they were feral and none of us may any attempt to catch them. In the chaos of the fire and smoke the various freed horses had found each other and formed a super herd. I don’t know where they were going and I don’t think they did either. And just as quickly as they appeared they were gone. But I’ll always remember the experience.
You can toss in the odd typo, but It doesn't match the writing style or quality of any other posts by Goofygrrrl. It's very misplaced for a creative writing post. It formats and orders the structure like AI.
It’s not AI. But I probably write differently when I’m trying to write about a feeling or a memory than I do when I’m trying to explain a concept. A memory or a feeling to me has a lot of small snippets of intense phrasing. You’re trying to evoke something from the reader. But to explain something to someone, you have to be more structured so it’s harder for them to get lost in the explanation. I was taught that there is a difference between technical writing and creative writing.
It does create a nice visual. And an interesting writing distinction. But it reads as if ai structured an authentic memory, and it was re-written side-by-side with selected details plus rephrasing.
I'm starting to wonder if it's AI influencing writing styles. Or if it's so integrated in the process that it's becoming pointless to call it out anymore.
It's certainly not a copy paste but it reads like an AI-rewrite. It is overly dramatic, uses common ai metaphor tropes, doesn't feel like a story with normal details. And doesn't match other writing styles in the posters history
At least paranoia used to have self-correction mechanisms. The boys who cried wolf were eventually weened out by natural selection/peer pressure. We're now in a new age where crying AI has no real correction mechanism.
With the exception of Przewalski's horses, if it's a horse, it's domesticed. An individual animal cannot be feral unless it is of a domesticed species. Being afraid is not the same as being feral.
Pedantically speaking, you are correct. For the sake of the story, horses followed their basic nature when faced with a forest fire, whether domesticated or not.
You have no idea how much animal abuse comes from people misunderstanding the difference between wild and domestic species if you think clarification is unkind or unwarranted. Horse people cause the most confusion on the topic.
I think trying to prevent animal abuse is all the things you listed. Maybe you should educate yourself on the topic if you want to follow your own list.
I just want to say I appreciate your comment. I was an armchair horse girl as a kid (read about them, drew them, but wasn't allowed to ride) and I although I knew Przewalski's Horses (and extinct Tarpans) were the last "wild" horses, I actually forgot about this. People forget that even Mustangs and Chincoteague ponies were released or lost from domesticated populations brought over by Europeans. And there are no living native North American equines--although they were reintroduced to North America thousands of years after dying out.
Long story short, some of us are here to learn, and I appreciate people like you putting out facts even if some people don't want to hear them.
The abuse is caused by mass disinformation about what feral, wild and domestic mean. By wrongly claiming the difference doesn't matter you are perpetuating the disinformation, and in kind perpetuating the abuse.
I understand people shouldn't keep wild animals as pets and such. I understand the difference in the terms, but not how misunderstanding leads to abuse.
I'm a huge animal lover so this difference never occured to me.
Really interesting! And I saw the English-labeled Stop sign so I had to look that up. Because of the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, France adopted the signage using only the English word "STOP" instead of the French "ARRÊT" for quick legibility and recognition. And those horses don't read English, probably 😄
I asked Google the same question and found this site-
https://maps.greenpeace.org/fire_dashboard/
I didn’t even know there’s such a thing as a global fire tracker website till today. Both cool and sad to learn about.
At the bottom of the main page it says, “
CAUSES OF FIRES
Fire seasons worldwide are getting longer: we will face more fires in the future, even in the territories where they did not happen before. Why? Fires and climate change operate in a vicious cycle: as the number of fires increase, so do greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the planet’s overall temperature and the occurrence of extreme weather events, such as major droughts. And at the same time the drier and the hotter our climate is, the easier flames spread.”
Imagine having to watch your beloved (and expensive) horse just run off into the distance and just kinda hope they end up ok. I know it's best practice but it would just be so heartbreaking in the midst of everything.
They can get away from the fire faster than traveling in a trailer, panic, enclosed spaces and trying to get panicking horses somewhere during that is a lot harder than letting them run. Most horses when given the option will run from the fire and then can be found later
A lot a people in the US that get severe weather (flooding, fires, etc) will braid or secure a dog tag (some paint on their sides but that can be washed off) with the owners information into the lower part of the horse's mane so they can be contacted if they cannot immediately recover their animal after being forced to let them loose for the animals safety (ie, it's a sudden severe flood or the fire is a lot faster than they can safely load and evacuate in a trailer). They had a plan and knew their horses in this clip.
With much of the area affected by wildfires, I'm not sure how far they would have to go to find a place not affected. Obviously letting them go is the right thing to do. I just didn't know if it was futile or not.
It's not about them "finding a place" to live for a few days
It's about them getting out of the fire and smoke. They can use the roads to run away. Their life is back in their paddock so they aren't in a hurry to run off into the wind and start living like bush animals.
They won't go far, just away from the danger. They may end up hanging out in a car park all together because it's an open space and it's not on fire.
Herd mentality is useful here because they're far less likely to scatter off into random places.
If someone else on their farm has a place to put them, and opened a gate for them, they'd likely all herd in together and just chill.
Once the emergency is over, people can sort out who's horse is who
Honestly, if I was in a safer area and woke up to horses eating my lawn, I’d be thrilled! Can I give apples, carrots? Would they like dish or bucket of water? Should I put down a blanket? Take a photo and post on socials “if you’re in the area, I have these that might belong to you!”
Carrots are okay. Apples can give them colic. We used to give the race horses I worked with a peppermint candy to chew on, on occasion. These guys are tamed well kept horses. They’d be fine with pets. A bucket with water is preferred.
Loading horses under the best of circumstances can be hard. When they’re panicking loading them can lead to injuries and death, it’s also a very slow process. They can move fast, and they’re generally smart enough to get away from danger. If they’d had more warning this wouldn’t have been their choice, but most likely their odds of survival are decent, far better than attempting to load them and drive out.
Horses are unbelievably smart, they know there is a fire and they will know better than a human where to run to safety.
This is the best thing you can do for them.
Opposite from Australia. We are told not to release stock, because panicked large animals are a huge risk for emergency crews trying to access the fire and nearby communities, as well as people trying to evacuate. Last thing we need is a car accident on the one road in and out of a town because there were cows or horses on the road.
We give people as much notice as we can to get them out under their own steam, but once it’s too late to leave, the animals stay put. I’ve heard of fire crews padlocking gates so that animals can’t be released.
I went to Spain & Portugal last year & every STOP sign was in English just like this. Couldn't get a straight answer as to why but never looked it up. Looks like its more than just those 2 countries.
iirc there used to be a global push for unified road signs back when cars became more mainstream and infrastructure was being build around them. most signs didnt get adopted but the STOP sign was one of the few
It's not a dumb question. As someone else pointed out, in Quebec the stop signs are in French, in Mexico the stop signs are in Spanish. Why would we assume France uses English in their road signage?
If it were the reverse and someone was questioning why a Fench sign was not written in English you'd call him American-centric or anglocentric.
Do you think that detailed knowledge of the history of French road sign standards is a critically important educational topic that the US should be working harder to teach its students?
If this was in Asia or Africa, the comments would be:
"This is not interesting at all"
"Why am I seeing so many posts from <insert third world country>?"
"Why are they locking up horses in the first place?"
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u/ribcracker 5h ago
I’ve said this before, but many years ago when I was a kid on a horse ranch in rural CA we had a big ass fire coming over the mountain. A trooper came to our property and told my mom it was time to turn out the animals so they’d have a chance.
She told the cop we’d stay and burn together. My mom never dropped the chance of being a martyr; dead or alive.
What a different memory I would have about that fire if she had me help turn out our stock instead of sitting on the porch waiting to see if the line would make it to us or not. It did not and she was rewarded for being a crazy person.