New Wild Horse Management Plan: Reinforcing the Narrative

You know the drill: They’re overpopulated, have no natural predators, serve no useful purpose and bring in no economic return.  Keep pounding those words into the psyche.

Tell your elected representative that you want to see free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in the western U.S., not privately owned cattle and sheep.

RELATED: Cheerleader Groups Endorse New WHB Management Plan.

PZP Zealots Silent on Proposed Wild Horse Management Plan?

Of course they are.  They can’t condemn it without condemning themselves.

Fertility_Control_Puzzle_Solved-1

They oppose the government’s ‘systematic and cruel elimination’ of free-roaming horses and burros.  Instead, they want to do it themselves, ‘humanely,’ by firing contraceptive darts into the herds, with the long-term goal of sterilization.

RELATED: Opposition to New Management Plan Begins.

Another Wild Horse Found Shot at Heber WHT

The deceased animal brings the total to 19 since October, 2018, with eleven of the horses showing signs of gun shots.  Three shell casings were collected at the scene, according to a report posted today by the White Mountain Independent of Show Low, AZ.

The news release featured in the story does not appear on the Heber WHT home page as of this evening.

RELATED: Forest Service Says ‘Hands Off’ at Heber WHT.

Opposition to New Management Plan Begins

Refer to this opinion piece in the Pagosa Daily Post of Pagosa Springs, CO.

Apparently the writer has subscribed to the overpopulation narrative, in that he agrees with the use of contraceptives not to slow wild horse population growth but to reverse it, yet somehow he arrives at the right conclusion:

“The reality is, there are far more cattle and sheep on our public lands than wild horses and burros.  This is an attempt to further imbalance the ratio by liquidating populations of wild horses and burros, so that beef can may graze on more federal lands.”

The nine million AUMs allocated each year to privately owned livestock on public lands managed by the BLM in the western U.S. would support at least 750,000 wild horses and burros, enough to empty all of the off-range corrals and long-term pastures fifteen times over.  The current wild horse population is about ten percent of that.

There is no wild horse population crisis.

The proposed wild horse management plan is not about saving money or protecting western rangelands.  It’s about deceit and greed on the part of the public-lands ranchers, their overlords, cheerleaders and political allies.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?

BLM Gives More Land to Wild Horses, Cuts Forage to Ranchers

It’s not true but it’s an indication of what the headlines might look like if a proposed wild horse management plan, announced yesterday, can be defeated in the court of public opinion.  Details of the plan can be found in this policy statement by the ASPCA.

The proposal was endorsed by organizations that represent public-lands ranchers, so you know it’s bad for the horses.  The Public Lands Council, one of its supporters, makes its anti-horse agenda clear:

Public Lands Council Anti Horse Agenda-1

Note how well it aligns with the ASPCA recommendations, almost as if it was copied and pasted into their proposal.

ASPCA Proposal-1

The goal of this cabal, this newly formed alliance between ranching interests and animal protection groups, is to reduce wild horse and burro populations on public lands in the western U.S. by 70%.

Are you going to join them or will you push back?

Range-fed beef is not good for you and it’s not good for the environment if it’s produced at the expense of America’s wild horses and burros.

If the ranchers won’t back down, don’t buy their product.

RELATED: Financial Incentive Will Reduce Wild Horse Population?

Cheerleader Groups Endorse New WHB Management Plan

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Public Lands Council and Society for Range Management expressed their support today for a proposal to reduce wild horse and burro populations on public lands in the western U.S, according to a news release from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

A report by YubaNet of Nevada City, CA said the management plan was drafted by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Humane Society Legislative Fund, with input from other rangeland management stakeholders.

It employs four management techniques, all currently in use:

  • Contraceptives
  • Roundups
  • Rehoming
  • Adoptions

A link to the plan document was not provided.

As usual, the proposal puts the crosshairs on horses and burros, while privately owned livestock are omitted from the analysis.

It is capitulation to the ranching agenda, assent to the overpopulation narrative and a failure in wild horse preservation.

The problem is not free-roaming horses and burros, it is public-lands ranching.

Forest Service Says ‘Hands Off’ at Heber WHT

The Forest Service asks anyone who discovers a dead horse at the Heber WHT to report it to the Black Mesa Ranger District, according to a report posted today by the Eastern Arizona Courier, but do not disturb the scene in any way.  A news release dated 04/16/19 said evidence collected by the public may be unusable in the investigation.

RELATED: Another Horse Found Dead at Heber WHT.

A Place for Excess Horses Off the Beaty Butte Allotment

You jackals!  How many of them did you reject because they wouldn’t comply with your thirty day timeframe?

The only thing these horses did ‘wrong’ was to rob too much forage from your livestock.

Note the reference at 0:12 to the ‘Beaty Butte Allotment,’ not the Beatys Butte HMA.

These people have never accepted the WHB Act and never will.

RELATED: Rangelands in Southeast Oregon, Solving Problems That Don’t Exist.