By Luciana Gomez

Jan 2, 2024 | 1:22 pm

https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/horse-carriage-bans/

Horse on Dallas street in front of Adolphus Hotel. scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net

Horse carriage rides represent an idyllic experience, an activity to celebrate the holidays or a platform for romance. But detractors say that the use of horse carriages in urban settings such as downtown Dallas puts animals and humans at risk: Street traffic, the sound of a horn, and unfamiliar objects on the road can cause a horse to spook.

Risks such as these are among the factors being weighed by the Dallas City Council’s Quality of Life Committee, who took up the topic of a possible ban at their meeting on December 5.

The issue is not unique to Dallas. New York has had multiple events involving horse-drawn carriages that have brought the cruelty of the practice to light: In July 2023, a horse named Billy died after being forced to pull carriages during a punishing heat wave, and in August, another horse collapsed in Hell’s Kitchen.

Jerry Finch, Founder and President of Habitat for Horses, says that horses used under these circumstances are pushed beyond their limit and suffer from heat exhaustion, loss of weight, and severe hoof issues.

“The stress of being on crowded streets, breathing exhaust fumes, denied adequate water, constantly walking on paved roads in weather extremes often leads to severe medical issues,” Finch says.

Other cities such as New York, San Antonio, and Philadelphia have all recently proposed similar bans. Cities that have already instituted bans include Chicago and Salt Lake City.

Dallas has an active group petitioning for a ban, founded in 2021 by Gloria Carbajal, a social worker and avid animal lover who created a Facebook page called Ban Horse Carriages in Dallas and who holds monthly events at Klyde Warren Park to create awareness.

“I just knew that nobody was stepping up to the plate to spearhead this in Dallas,” Carbajal says.

Carbajal partnered with Jodie Wiederkehr, Executive Director of Chicago Alliance for Animals and executive director of the Partnership to Ban Horse Carriages Worldwide, who successfully led an effort to ban horse-drawn carriages in Chicago in April 2020. The Chicago ban went into effect on January 1st, 2021, providing the three horse carriage operators in the city ample time to phase their businesses out.

“We have no desire to put people out of jobs. We just want to end a cruel and outdated activity,” Wiederkehr said in a statement.

Dallas has four horse-carriage operators, but the dominant player is Northstar Carriage, which offers rides from Klyde Warren Park and West End. (The other three companies are focused primarily on private events.) A representative from Northstar claimed that the company follows coding rules and guidelines, takes good care of the animals, and keeps log sheets.

Dallas City Council member Adam Bazaldua, who chairs the Council’s quality of life committee, supports a ban.

“I don’t think we should have a place for horses on our streets,” Bazaldua told the Dallas Morning News. “I think it’s inhumane for the animal. I think it’s overall dangerous for having safer streets.”

During the December 5 meeting, council member Gay Donnell Willis concurred, saying that “as a society, it may be time to just move beyond this” practice.

But District 14 council member Paul Ridley said he was opposed, feigning laughable concern about the future of the horses.

“These horses have a purpose in life and that’s to work,” Ridley said. “If we ban this operation, what’s going to happen to those horses? They’re probably going to be put down because they are expensive to maintain, and if they don’t generate income, there’s no motivation to keep them around.”

The industry is monitored by the Transportation Regulation Division, under the Department of Aviation, who said in a statement that “compliance is monitored through periodic field audits to verify requirements are being met.”

Aviation department director Patrick Carreno told council members that his office knew of no record of any accidents involving North Star Carriage.

But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which keeps a national list of horse-carriage related accidents, recorded two accidents in Dallas in 2014. In both cases, the horses got spooked and threw people out of the carriages, then ran freely down the street.

In other cities that have instituted bans, the horse carriages have been replaced by electric-driven carriages, resulting in no losses of jobs, the most common objection raised by carriage companies.

“There’s no need to keep these overworked horses toiling on hard, loud, congested urban streets,” Carbajal says.

Written by EMMA B. MINCKS on December 29, 2023 

By EMMA B. MINCKS
Source New Mexico
The Mexican gray wolf named Asha roamed for months around New Mexico and parts of Arizona.
She’s now in captivity with two male wolves at the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility in La Joya, N.M., where U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials want her to mate.
Her journey and capture is showing division between federal wildlife managers who want to ensure Asha stays safe from poachers — or people protecting livestock — and conservationists who insist a free roaming Asha is best restoring the Mexican gray wolf population.
A federal judge could ultimately settle the matter.
In 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Defenders of Wildlife co-filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court of Arizona stating that the federal wolf management system does not follow the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act, which prioritizes natural habitat in addition to population growth.
The complaint directs the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to “explore more conservation-oriented alternatives” and use updated scientific research in relation to Mexican gray wolf recovery.
A judge is still considering the matter that could change federal policy and potentially release Asha back into the wild.
Southwest program director and conservation advocate for the Defenders of Wildlife Bryan Bird said, “Northern New Mexico and Valles Caldera where Asha was heading is really a perfect habitat for wolves, and has a low livestock grazing density.”
The Defenders of Wildlife supports roaming for wildlife because of its ecological benefits.
Concerns about Asha’s safety arose when observers realized there were no additional known wolves in the area where she was traversing north of Interstate 40 in western New Mexico.

Federal law clearly states capture
According to revised federal policy for Mexican wolf wildlife management, Asha was always going to be captured if she went across certain boundaries. The law states that “Mexican wolves that move outside of the geographic boundaries of the MWEPA are fully endangered and the allowable forms of take provided for in this rule to address conflict situations are not available.”
On Dec. 9, Asha was captured east of Cuba, N.M. She was then transported by helicopter to the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility, where biologists said “she is healthy and doing well.”
Asha was seen roaming in New Mexico days before her recent capture. She showed no signs of returning to the wolf recovery area on her own, which led federal officials to decide that recapture was in her best interest.
State wildlife officials said the capture could ensure that Asha is not killed.
“As much as the individual wolves capture the attention and the hearts and the minds of the people, we are really focused on reaching our recovery goals,” said Aislinn Maestas, spokesperson with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “How do we reduce mortalities and reduce conflict with livestock? These are the issues we are focusing on every day.”
Maestas said that federal officials are concerned Asha would mate with other non-wolf animals. She reiterated that if Asha is to mate, it would be better for her and the population health of the Mexican gray wolves as a species.
Because Mexican gray wolves are highly endangered, Asha’s search for a mate has given wildlife management at Sevilleta hopes for breeding and increasing population numbers.
According to Maestas, wildlife management is working around the clock to increase wild wolf population numbers. At least 242 Mexican gray wolves are counted in the wild by federal officials, per 2022 statistics. The 2023 count is expected to be released in January 2024.
She said that the wolves are counted each year through cameras, tracking collars, and helicopter searches.
Officials hope that #F2754, Asha’s official federal designation, will “have a partner, produce pups and contribute to recovery” efforts. Their goal is to increase the wild population to a minimum of 320 wolves.
Brady McGee, the Mexican gray wolf recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that recapturing Asha gives her and potential future pups the best chance of survival and will help increase the Mexican gray wolf population.
Should she be allowed to go her own way?
Asha is being monitored in Sevilleta along with two wolves that she previously didn’t want to mate with, wildlife officials said.
For federal officials to meet their goal of getting at least 320 Mexican gray wolves in the wild, they will need one of the males, both brothers, to attract Asha to mate.
“We are observing her to see which one she prefers,” Maestas said.
But she’s made her choice clear, supporters to release Asha argue, and should be allowed to find the mate she prefers in the wild.
Bird and some wildlife advocates hoped that Asha might find a mate with one of the gray wolves roaming Colorado, which he said could more greatly improve the genetic variation of the New Mexican gray wolf subspecies.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials released three male and two wolves from Oregon into the wilderness around Grand Junction on Dec. 18. This follows a directive Colorado voters passed in 2020 to increase the wolf population in the region.
“I think we’re all really disappointed right now,” Bird said regarding Asha’s capture. “There are tools available for peaceful coexistence for predators at the top of the food chain.”
He said that if people are more educated about wolves, it will prevent future problems. It is illegal to kill a wolf in New Mexico; penalties can include a $50,000 fine and jail time.
Maestas defends Asha’s capture, and said the management program in Sevilleta has a successful track record “increasing the health and genetic diversity of the wolf population in New Mexico and northern Arizona.”
Federal officials do plan to relocate Asha again in the spring or summer next year, hopefully with her pups, Maestas said.
Bird, however, argued that current management rules impede wolves’ natural instincts in many cases.

“Down to the fish, birds, and plant life,” he argued, animals need to be given space to follow those instincts to make a beneficial impact to ecosystems. “The issue really is allowing them more habitat range into and not artificially or politically limiting them.”

Photo: Golli. An Icelandic falcon.

• Steindor Gretar Jonsson
• January 2, 2024
• Nature, x News

The falcon population in Iceland has never been smaller, at least not since research into it began in 1981. Bird flu is the likely cause, experts at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History told RÚV.

The gyrfalcon is the largest of the falcon species and its Icelandic population is genetically unique compared to other populations in countries across Arctic coasts and tundra. Its image was featured on the crest of the Icelandic coat of arms until 1919 and Iceland’s highest honour, the medal of The Order of the Falcon, is named after it and bestowed upon citizens and foreigners by the president of Iceland.

Only one case of bird flu discovered

For over 40 years, the Icelandic Institute of Natural History has monitored falcons in an area of over 5,000 square kilometres in the northeast of Iceland. Since research began, the population has never been smaller and has dwindled significantly in the last three years. In only 38 of 88 known nests did experts discover nestlings. Never before have there been as many empty nests in the northeast area. Fluctuations in population size are not unusual, however, and are linked to the population of ptarmigan in Iceland, the gyrfalcon’s main prey.

Experts still say this drop is worrying. The likeliest explanation is that more birds succumbed to bird flu than originally estimated. Only one case of bird flu in falcons was discovered in Iceland in 2022, but many more falcons have been found dead with bird flu as the suspected cause.