Talk:Kerry Bog Pony

Proposed move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Kerry bog pony → Kerry Bog Pony — Breed names normally have initial caps; all sources I can find use initial caps for "Kerry" and "Bog", and most sources and the article itself also have "Pony". An alternative possibility for the title might be "Kerry Bog", or if disambiguation is needed, "Kerry Bog (pony)". However, this would only apply if the breed's name was just the "Kerry Bog", but as far as I can find it is never referred to just as that (unlike, for example, the Suffolk Punch, Clydesdale, Connemara and many other breeds). I therefore think the breed's usual name is the "Kerry Bog Pony", and that should be the article title. Richard New Forest (talk) 18:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Do it! We have a precedent for this with American Quarter Horse, as it would be patently ridiculous to call and animal an "American quarter" as if it were a coin, or, in your case, to refer to an animal as if it were a swamp!  Over at WPEQ we have a sort-of consensus (duplicated at commons) to NOT use the parenthetical (horse) for breed names (though fixing all the existing ones is a languishing project) when possible, but rather Clydesdale horse where "horse" is not an integral part of the breed name but needed for disambiguation, but, for example, "Rocky Mountain Horse" where it is.
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://kerrybogpony.ie/contents/page.php?v=19&u=breed-standard. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Dana boomer (talk) 14:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

moved long distracting comment from GA1 to here

 * Thanks for clarifying; I think I should defer to Dana to make the needed refinements in phrasing on this article, as she is the one with access to the source material. For your own background understanding, what happens with many of these "landrace" breeds is that they're shaped buy both environment AND human intention; i.e. humans select for the animals best suited to their needs in a given place, ignoring or culling unsuitable animals, but the climate, geography, etc. of the place also weed out  weaker animals.  BUT the other piece is that people brought horses to weird places (like bogs -- or deserts or jungles) where any sensible wild horse would never bother going, so that too was a human influence on what otherwise looks a lot like natural selection; the breed had to, somehow, adapt to an odd environment to be able to serve human needs. Horse domestication is a really complex issue, see History of horse domestication theories - as, basically, Y-DNA studies suggest that there were extremely few male animals originally domesticated, and their descendants were crossed on different populations of wild mares as domestication spread.  So, for example, the ancient ancestors of most of these British Isles/Irish feral and semi-feral pony breeds were probably already small, fuzzy creatures adapted to cold, damp weather when domesticated horses arrived, the crossing of calmer horses with good dispositions on the native animals created a pony that was different from the wild ancestor in that it would cooperate with humans (as opposed to the still-wild Przewalski's horse, which is still prone to kick the shit out of people to this day) and meet their needs for a working animal in some weird place totally unsuitable for horses, yet because they lived in a semi-feral state of indifferent human care, they also kept their adapted characteristics and even developed new traits.  Does that make sense?  And is it adaptation, natural selection or artificial selection?  Or all of the above?  (Sorry to geek out on you, I happen to find the overall topic rather fascinating)  Montanabw (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * semi-amusing to skim your musing; overall impression is that you're missing the point. Once domestication enters the picture, natural selection is compromised. Again, please read adaptation and try to understand, and perhaps also Speciation, ecological niches and History of evolutionary thought. (smile) MathewTownsend (talk) 02:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Overall impression is that you also are missing my point; that both human intervention AND natural selection play a role in development of these semi-feral horse breeds. This not a subspecies of horse, it is a breed of horse shaped both by the environment in which it lives (arguably, adaptation of a sort, but not really the evolutionary process) AND by human intervention.  And please, when you say "try to understand," that is implying that I am stupid.  I would hope you could kindly apologize for that choice of wording.   Montanabw (talk) 21:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Question the adequacy of the sources for this article
Bog Pony Co-Operative Society of Ireland is cited 10 times (by far the major source), but there is no information as to its reliability, as it's a breed fancier's site. Storey's Illustrated Guide to 96 Horse Breeds of North America is used 6 times but it's doubtful its a reliable source for this rare breed of pony (reading the reviews of this book). The only other sources are a handful of brief newspaper articles. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:01, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Mathew, this is getting a little ridiculous. The Society is the government-recognized breed registry and studbook holder. This makes it a reliable source, especially on pieces of information such as how many horses have been registered, studbook requirements, etc. Storey's is a book by an equine expert, published by a major company. If you have other suggestions for sources, I would love to hear them. This is, as you say, a rare breed. That makes finding sources difficult, as they do not exist is such quantity as they do for, say, the Thoroughbred. I have looked for other sources, as has the editor who took this article to GA quality on the French WP. General breed books, breed registries, and a few newspaper articles are all that multiple experienced editors have been able to find. You keep saying we should find other sources, but fail to mention what these sources should be. Dana boomer (talk) 16:13, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry Dana, I'm afraid that this fail is entirely due to Mat's irrational and vindictive attitude toward me personally - and probably my refusal to just go slink off and suck my thumb somewhere (see Talk:Stephen Hawking for further examples). I don't understand why this became so personal, but I can arrive at no other conclusion.  I am going to renominate this article for a different GA reviewer and hope things go smoother next time.   Montanabw (talk) 18:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Do either of you have access to LexisNexis? I'm finding a few sources there that might be helpful. If not, one or both of you can email me and I'll forward a few articles. There's also Breaking the Silence Mary Denis Reidy, a book referenced by several LN articles. The breed is mentioned in an Animal Genetics article (doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2052.2006.01506.x) and one in Animal (10.1017/S1751731111001212). I'm having trouble accessing Factiva at the moment, but search results suggest a couple potential sources there too. All that being said, though: while if this article ever went to FAC I'd expect to see some of these sources incorporated, for GA level the current referencing is IMO adequate. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I can access some paid databases via the college where I am an adjunct. If you can toss me the cites, I may be able to find them. I also have already downloaded a few general articles about horse breeds in the British Isles, so may have something already too... (I'm useless at using doi links...)  Montanabw (talk) 20:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nikki! Montana, the first one can be accessed here, and the second one here (it's the third one down). You're better at reading DNA studies than I am - I think these two might be the basis of the DNA studies we discuss in the second paragraph of the Characteristics section?? Would you mind taking a look and seeing if there is anything that you think is useful and not too complicated (article for the layman and all that...). The book looks interesting, but is self published, which makes me a bit leery, and I'm not sure how expert the author is (one article I found said the author is a friend of Mulvihill, the main promoter of the breed). I'll probably toss it on my to-buy list, though, since it's not expensive. I'm definitely not planning to take the article to FAC right now (there's not enough breadth and depth of sources for my taste). Dana boomer (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, some more potential sources (through LexisNexis and Factiva mostly): "Kerry Bog Pony back on track" Irish Times 29 july 2004; "Kerry bog pony given official status as rare breed" Irish Times, 02/08/2006; On the trail of the Kerry bog pony Irish Times 04/05/1994; Kerry's best kept secret Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; Breeding the real Kerry deal Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; The bog pony that nearly sank without a trace The Times, ISSN 0140-0460, 01/16/1997; Irish dead donkey tickles the Russian palate but untasty bog pony is safe The Observer 1997-11-2; In a rare land there is rarer still Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0531.2012.02082.x; Plan to save rare pony Irish Times 03/24/1995. Most of these are quite short, but there should be some good material in there. Let me know if you need help accessing them. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool. Splitting these out, so I can reply one by one:
 * "Kerry Bog Pony back on track" Irish Times 29 july 2004;
 * "Kerry bog pony given official status as rare breed" Irish Times, 02/08/2006; Nothing new here - DB
 * On the trail of the Kerry bog pony Irish Times 04/05/1994;
 * Kerry's best kept secret Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; Nothing new here - DB
 * Breeding the real Kerry deal Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; A bit of new info added - DB
 * The bog pony that nearly sank without a trace The Times, ISSN 0140-0460, 01/16/1997;
 * Irish dead donkey tickles the Russian palate but untasty bog pony is safe The Observer 1997-11-2;
 * In a rare land there is rarer still Irish Independent, 10/16/2007; A bit of new info added. - DB
 * DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0531.2012.02082.x; Nothing new here - DB
 * Plan to save rare pony Irish Times 03/24/1995.
 * Will reply individually as I get access to these and integrate them. Dana boomer (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)


 * Although my attributions were removed from the article by Montanabw, the book Storey's Illustrated Guide to 96 Horse Breeds of North America (which is casually written) does qualify statements about the pony with "According to the American Kerry Bog Pony Association ...". I think similarly, the information from Kerry Bog Pony Co-Operative Society of Ireland also should be attributed. Being a "the government-recognized breed registry and studbook holder" doesn't mean the information on genetics and history of the breed is government certified. None of that information regarding genetics, history etc. is sourced. I'm sure the site is accurate as to numbers registered etc., but not necessarily for the history or genetics of the breed. Note that the source for the American enthusiasm was Mulvihill, according to the book. Are there sources for the history etc. of this breed independent of Mulvihill and friends? Please also check for close paraphrasing. Montanabw: "this fail is entirely due to Mat's irrational and vindictive attitude toward me personally - and probably my refusal to just go slink off and suck my thumb somewhere (see Talk:Stephen Hawking for further examples)." Please do see Talk:Stephen Hawking to elucidate the problems of editing when Montanabw is involved. (It's not just me that's accused of lacking good faith.  Also, a read of Montanabw's comments at the Stephen Hawking entry at Today's featured article/requests, and my talk page User_talk:MathewTownsend#Hawking_lists. I regret being blunt very much, but I believe people like Malleus believe there is such a thing as being baited. To accuse me of failing the article out of spite at Talk:Kerry Bog Pony/GA1 is beyond the pale.  MathewTownsend (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Malleus is right; there is a place for profanity, I'm sorely tempted, as it is YOU who are baiting and generally being a troll. Mathew, you've done enough damage to this article and you clearly don't know squat when you cannot tell the difference between an animal breed and a subspecies.  You also fail to realize that most governments don't give "certification" to every genetic fact and bit of history research on ANYTHING.  Further, your profound ignorance of Irish history was obvious:  Ireland was not an independent nation in 1804, so it was impossible for them to have their own cavalry!   It is manifestly clear from your actions that you have no intention of contributing anything useful here, you are only trying to bait me, So please, WIth all due respect, go commit the infamous anatomically impossible act - somewhere else.   Montanabw (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: MathewTownsend has been blocked as a sock. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Does that mean someone can now go over and pass the GAN? Dana is doing work to improve the page, but it's more FA tweaks than GA tweaks.   Montanabw (talk) 21:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Source analysis.
This bit from the Animal Genetics article is highly relevant and probably can be used as one of the "DNA studies" for sure: "Most striking was the observation that only a few of the KB sequences belonged to the common European haplo- group D (Europe: 35%; KB Pony: 13%), and a high pro- portion were within haplogroup E (31%). Haplogroup E is rare globally and no other population analysed to date has been so highly represented herein (McGahern et al. 2006). Within all published horse data, haplogroup E contains 29 of 844 mtDNA sequences of which 66% are from popula- tions in the British Isles (12 KB pony, six Shetland and one Thoroughbred). Haplogroup E also contains one Icelandic pony and two Cheju mtDNA sequences. Fisher exact tests of independence for haplogroup E concordance with British and European pony populations were both significant (P < 0.0001). Therefore, this haplogroup has a propensity to contain a high frequency of mtDNA sequences from small ponies distributed principally on the western fringe of Europe."
 * Translation (and proposed edit): DNA studies suggest that the Kerry Bog Pony is not closely related to the other two native Irish breeds, the Irish Draught and the Connemara pony. It has a rare haplogroup that is more closely related to other small horse breeds found in western Europe, including the Shetland pony and Icelandic horse.
 * Conclusion: Toss that in with the citation if you want, re-edit as you see fit. (Haven't found any ref to Welsh ponies yet) But it is a stronger source for the stuff on DNA that's there.   Montanabw (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Next: Found full text pdf of the Animal (2012), 6:1 article here. It focuses on the roots of Canadian breeds, so the other stuff is mentioned in passing Some relevant quotes: I'll admit that the numbers are mostly gibberish to me, but the obvious conclusion is that the breed is low in numbers and inbreeding is a risk. I suspect the differences between the two studies are perhaps because there are so few ponies and they may have been outcrossed with different breeds... I think the first article mostly looked at Mitochondrial DNA, which comes from only the female line, the other probably was stallions and mares... My guess is that we have a bit of romantic speculation mixed with a low population. However, these sources seem to agree that they aren't related to Connemaras, anyway. Montanabw (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "The Mountian and Moorland breeds originated from the British Isles and include the Connemara, Dale, Dartmoor, Eris- kay, Exmoor, Fell, Highland, Kerry Bog, New Forest, Shetland and Welsh. The Nordic breeds also include the Shetland along with the Norwegian Fjord and Icelandic." (19)
 * But then this source says that the Kerry Bog is related to the Dartmoor and Exmoor (not Shetlands and Icelandics- confusing), and clearly NOT the Welsh or Connemara (that much consistent) though possibly they crossbred some later on: "Within the Mountain and Moorland groups, several breeds also consistently shared several similarities among the phylogenetic trees. Specifically, the Dartmoor and Exmoor breeds paired together and appear to share common ancestry with the Kerry Bog ponies... the Welsh and Connemara breeds also consistently paired together with great confidence, supporting previously published data, and share common ancestry with New Forest breed...the New Forest, Highland, Fell, Dale, Haflinger, Welsh and Kerry Bog populations, which also shared admixture among each other." (23)
 * "...most notably the New Forest and Kerry Bog, still did not form their own individual clusters but rather appeared to be a mixture of breeds ... The Kerry Bog pony suffered a severe herd reduction to only 20 animals in the 1990s, and as a result the breed was also likely crossed with other Mountain and Moorland breeds in order to conserve the population (McGahern et al., 2006)." (27)
 * OK, I've added this in to the Characteristics section, replacing the info on DNA studies that was already there. In doing so, I was able to remove two references to the breed organization, which should also help alleviate concerns there. Used some of your wording and created some of my own... Maybe check and see that I didn't screw anything up? Dana boomer (talk) 16:01, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it looks good. Nice work!   Montanabw (talk) 21:25, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Pics
Just wondering, seeing as how this is GA and not FA, would it work to use the photo of the stallion with the pack saddle as the lead, instead of the foal (maybe swap positions) I know the foal is looking left, but the stallion is at least standing with his head turned and could be considered "looking" into the article if he were the lead image; he so much nicer an example of the breed. I don't have real strong feelings, just think it's a more representative animal. Thoughts? 21:24, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

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