Horse riders should have to clean up after their horses on trails.
I’m a big believer in leave no trace in the outdoors. To the best of your ability, everything should be as you found it when you leave the woods.
Wild horses have been extinct in north America for many thousands of years, in my local area as far as fossil and archeological records can show any native horses that might have existed here were long gone before the first native Americans set foot here. They are not a part of the ecosystem.
I don’t care if it’s biodegradable, I wouldn’t leave apple cores and banana peels behind either.
The environment in my local parks isn’t so delicate that a few entitled rich assholes leaving behind horse shit probably isn’t going to make a significant impact, but there are other places where it absolutely could, throwing off the chemical composition of the soil, contaminating ground water, causing algal blooms, introducing non-native parasites, bacteria, and pathogens, etc. and you should be following best practices across the board. Treat every inch of the outdoors as if it were potentially vulnerable and don’t try to bend the rules just because you think you can get away with it.
And it’s just an eyesore and detracts from the natural beauty.
The horse people fire back about how they can’t carry a shovel with them, or how they may not be able to safely get on or off the horse. This is the shit horses were bred for- to carry people and stuff, I can find you an avalanche shovel and a small folding step stools that will break down plenty small and light enough to fit in a backpack or lash to the saddle with some rope to pull the stool up after you get on, and it’s all gonna weigh a lot less than the armor, and rifles, bedrooms, etc. that people used to ride horses with for a lot longer and harder than the couple house you’re spending plodding along the trail. If you can afford to go horseback riding you can afford the hundred bucks or so for a shovel and a step stool. If that’s not enough for you to get on and off your horse safely on the trail, maybe you should take that as a sign that you shouldn’t be riding a horse there, stick to a dude ranch where some big strong cowboy will help you get on and off of the horsey.
I mean aren’t oil leaking and gas spewing motorbikes and four-wheelers just as bad for the environment? On top of the sound pollution. But yeah the horse people could have a buggy pulling the shovel for sure.
Another thought that crossed my mind, since most of these people don’t live with their horses within horseback -riding distance of most of these trails, so these people usually have to go hitch up a horse trailer to a gas guzzler of a pickup truck and drive sometimes a pretty considerable distance to take their horses out. Often the parking areas at the trail heads aren’t particularly well suited to accommodating a truck and horse trailer, and they end up being kind of a parking nuisance on top of that.
They absolutely are, and if there were any ATV trails in my area I’d feel just ash strongly about that. As it is though, a lot of these trails aren’t even open to pedaled mountain bikes (partially because they spook some of the horses) and with the ones that are, there’s some significant debate on whether e bikes should be allowed.
Horse riders should have to clean up after their horses on trails.
Oh, but horse riders do. It’s when pigs are riding the horses, they don’t.
If they do where you live, I’m happy for you, but I’ve spent a lot of time hiking in my area hiking on shared use trails and have never seen any rider clean up after their horses or who even looked like they were prepared to, and there is always horse manure along the trails.
Cops should too, I make no exception for them.
I mean forget trails, there’s horse shit all over my city centre every time there’s a football match :(
And the horse people will try to retort that dog poop takes longer to break down, smells worse, and is more likely to spread disease
Which is true, still doesn’t justify not cleaning up after your horse. Just because the horse manure is “less bad” doesn’t make it ok.
They can also just- diaper the fuckin horse. I dont see why they havent considered that yet.
