The secret life of horses

Prolonged observations of wild horses reveal a host of unexpected behaviors/Wendy Williams 

The article is published with the approval of Scientific American Israel and the Ort Israel network
Scientists have been studying the best way to train and care for domesticated horses for years, but wild horses have generally been ignored. Recent studies are beginning to fill this gap.
Long-term observation studies on horses in the wild show that the common opinion that males are at the center of the power relations between horses is wrong. After all, it is the females who often decide. They use tactics of cooperation and persistence to get what they want.

Once upon a time, about 35,000 years ago, when large parts of Europe were covered in ice, an artist obtained a mammoth tusk and began carving. The result was a masterpiece in the shape of a horse that was about five centimeters long. The arched and impressive horse's neck combines muscular power and natural grace. His slightly bowed head gives him the appearance of deep thought. You can almost hear him blowing and raising his head, signaling to his opponents to watch out. It is not known who created this miniature wonder known as the "Pogelhert horse" after the cave in Germany where it was found, but it is clear that this ivory engraver spent a lot of time observing wild horses. He examined their social relationships and studied their body language.

Unfortunately, such an observation has been forgotten by heart. Equine scientists looked at the best way to train show horses, how to feed racehorses, and how to heal the delicate bones in a lame horse's leg. But unlike chimpanzees, whales, elephants and other animals, the habits of horses in the wild have hardly aroused scientific interest. And only a handful of the few studies that were done were long-term projects.

Recently, some efforts have been made to fill this gap - and the results are surprising. Scientists have documented behaviors of free-ranging horses in the wild that disprove long-held beliefs about how these animals communicate with each other and their interrelationships.

Mares against horses
Horses are special among hoof spreaders, many of which migrate together in large herds and shed their gold in great numbers. Wild horses, on the other hand, live all year round in groups, or small groups of three to ten individuals. A few mares, loyal allies, and their young foals are the nucleus of the pack.

The members of a pack of horses are not just social animals with a gang mentality. The researchers found that, similar to humans, connections between individuals within the group are sometimes more important than the identity of the group. These connections are sometimes based on family kinship, but often they are simply a matter of personal taste. The preference can and does change: friendships are made and fade away, foals grow up and leave for another group, relationships between them sometimes last and sometimes not. That is why the social life of the horses is clearly full of vicissitudes. More precisely, a prolonged observation of these beasts in the wild is like watching a soap opera. Beneath the surface are constantly seething fights, tricks to gain status and power, battles over personal space, loyalties and betrayals.

The latest ethological studies, objective studies of behavior in a natural environment, show that these power struggles are more complicated than previously thought. The popular opinion, as described in a recent report by the American Academy of Sciences, is that "a harem, sometimes called a pack, consists of a male ruler, adult male and female subordinates, and colts." At first glance, such an assessment seems correct: what attracts attention when observing horses in the wild is the commotion produced by the males. But a study by Jason Ransom of the University of Colorado and his colleagues shows that this male-centered view is wrong. The mares are not subject to them at all. Often they are the ones who initiate the group's actions and many times the males are just appendages.

Ransom once watched a herd of mares stop to lick grass and start looking for water. The horse didn't notice. When he looked up and saw that his friends were leaving, he panicked. "He started running after them," Ransom told me. "He looked like a kid saying 'Hey, where's everyone going?'" The mares ignored him. They didn't seem to care if he caught them or not.

Mares also sometimes have a taste for horses. They reject males they don't like with surprising tenacity, even if the male has established his status as a quarterback in the group. Joel Berger of the University of Montana studied the behavior of two unrelated mares that had wandered together for several years. As Berger described in his book Wild Horses of the Great Basin, the pair joined a herd that had been taken over by a new male. To prove his status, the male tried to mate with them by force several times. The mares actually refused and time after time helped each other repel him with kicks and bites as he tried to mate. Elephants have long been known to cooperate, but before ethologists began to systematically study wild horses, few thought that cooperative mares were capable of not only fighting like this, but also winning. In light of the truth about the mares, the word "harem" seems very old fashioned.

Photo of horses in the wild. Credit: Lisa Dearing
Repelling unwanted suitors is not the only avenue of rebellion for mares. For years Laura Lagos and Felipe Barcena, both from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, have been studying the behavior of the Garranos, an unusual species of wild horse. Life is difficult for the Granos in the jagged hills of northwestern Spain and northern Portugal. The danger of wolves is always hovering over their heads. As part of their work, Lagos and Barsena recorded the behavior of a pair of mares in one herd, who were very close to each other and slightly different from the rest of the herd.

During the breeding season, the two mares went to visit the stallion male of another pack. Lagos watched one of the mares socialize with this quad and not her pack's. Then the two returned to their original group. When the other mare was ready to mate, the pair again abandoned the herd and her quad and went to meet the dominant male of the foreign herd. Then, again, return to the first group. This was not a one-time exception. These mares did it again the following year. "They prefer their home territory, but the other group's quadrant," Lagos told me.

Persistence pays off
Until scientists applied ethological research techniques to horses, few horse watchers believed that mares were capable of such sophisticated deception. Their observations were simply not accurate enough. It turns out that, unlike the males, the mares don't have to fight huge battles to get what they want. Instead, they employ a technique of persistence. For example, Ransom tells the story of Hightail, a plain-looking mare with a sunken back and sparse hair. The high-tailed, so called because the base of its tail is located a little higher than usual on its tip bone, belongs to the population of wild horses that roam the Pryor Mountains in the western United States. Those who do not know her life story can easily mistake her for a pony that children ride or a retired work horse. Her prime is behind her, and she doesn't attract much attention. But the data in Ransom's possession show that this mare lived a rich and varied life and had several long friendships with different males of her choice. In 2003, when Ransom first noticed the hightail, it was spending time in the company of Sam, a male horse born in 1991. Ransom believes the two must have known each other when they were young. They were together for years. Eventually, other mares joined them and a group formed. Research shows that about half of the interactions between mares and horses are done in this peaceful way. The horse does not need to "conquer" the mare; Often she is just as interested.

Shortly after Ransom started following Sam and Hightail's group, he noticed another young horse wandering around them. Sam did not welcome the new horse, nicknamed "Far-Yoshev". As much as Fer Yoshav tried to join the group, Sam made sure to keep him away. Sam invested considerable effort in driving the young horse away, but to no avail.

Whenever Ransom saw the Hightail's gang in those days, a sitting cow was with them. He would hang around the fringes of the group, lurking for the mares, teasing Sam, and waiting for an opportunity to take over. There are descriptions in the scientific literature of accompanying males who learned to cooperate with the dominant male and thus slowly obtained the possibility, even if to a limited extent, of mating with some of the females. But that wasn't the case with Sam and Per-Yoshev. The two horses fought each other constantly. Still, Per-Yoshav was patient and stayed around.

The opportunity came in 2004. The horses living in the foothills of the Pryor Mountains are always faced with the challenge of finding water to drink. The Hightail's pack would often descend the steep slopes of Bighorn Canyon, where they could drink to their fill. One day they came down as a group. Sam didn't allow the sitter to join. While the young horse waited upstairs, the other horses stood on a small rock ledge and drank. Far away it was raining heavily. A flash flood flooded the ravine and blocked the way back for the horses. For about two weeks the high-tail and her group, and Sam with them, remained cut off without food.

People who realized that the situation was serious intervened and allowed them to escape. The emaciated animals managed to get up and out of the ravine. Sam lost more of his muscular build than anyone else. He was starving almost to death, and an easy opponent for the sitting cow, who had been waiting all this time on the edge of the ravine. When the horses came up, a buck "just came and chased Sam off," Ransom describes. Sam tried again and again to fight off his young rival, but his strength was no match for him.

Most of the gang accepted the new male. But not high-tailed. She used to withdraw from the group at every opportunity and look for Sam, her longtime partner. Every time she went, a sitting bull chased her and brought her back while bowing his head and baring his teeth as if threatening harm. So that he wouldn't bite her, she surrendered and returned to the group, but every time a sitting shepherd didn't notice, she got high-tailed and ran away. This went on for weeks, until the young horse gave up chasing her. "Since then, only Sam and Longtail have remained," says Ransom. "They got back to their normal weight, and at first Sam tried to run the stallion away and go back to the other mares, but all his attempts failed."

The talltail remained with Sam until his death in 2010. (Due to the stress of constantly fighting other males, horses' lives are often shorter than mares'.) After Sam died, investigators identified the high-tailed in the company of a horse named Admiral. Later the admiral's charm disappeared in her eyes. Ransom doesn't know why.

We saw the talltail one afternoon in July of that year. She was with two other horses. One was a member of her original group, a mare she had known for years. The second was a sitting cow. After being rejected by the high tail when she was younger, he was one of her best companions. Primate researchers engaged in field observations have long discovered the fluctuations and changes of alliances within their herds, but until recently no one had observed free-ranging horses with a precise enough observation to notice that they too behave this way. I asked Ransom if there was any iron rule regarding the behavior of wild horses in the wild. "They hardly choose to isolate themselves," he replied.

The article is based on the book "The Horse: The Glorious History of Our Noble Friend", by Wendy Williams, and is published by agreement with Scientific American/Farrar Straus and Giroux, LLC (US), Harper Collins (Canada), Oneworld (UK)

Copyright © 2015, Wendy Williams