Month: April 2019

Another Horse Found Dead at Heber WHT

The cause of death has not been established, according to a report posted yesterday by KJZZ-FM of Tempe, AZ, which brings the total to 17 since October.

The WHT and surrounding lands are subject to—wait for it—permitted livestock grazing (see map on page seven of this document).

The Forest Service omits it from the list of WHTs, as though it doesn’t even exist.

RELATED: No New Details on Heber Wild Horse Shootings.

Artist Returns to Unfinished Sculpture Thirty Years Later

Known by many as ‘Wild Horse Monument,’ it sits on a ridge above the Columbia River near Vantage, WA.  Fifteen life-sized horses made from steel were installed before the money ran out in 1990.  Fundraising has resumed and the designer visited the job site recently with the goal of completing the project as originally intended.

RELATED: Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies.

Horses at Double Devil Corrals Now ‘Three Strikers’

A report posted today by the Herald and News of Klamath Falls, OR says that 219 former wild horses aged ten years or more have been placed into private hands, with 83% exiting the facility via ‘sale with limitations.’

They were forced off their home range last fall so their food could be sold to public-lands ranchers.  Another roundup is set for later this year.

Horses younger than ten that haven’t been adopted are now considered ‘three strikers,’ meaning they can be sold with limitations, starting at $25 each, then dropping to $1 each on May 13, according to the report.

RELATED: Devil’s Garden Horses Face Third Adoption Event.

Goal of New Darting Program Is Sterilization?

A story that appeared today in the Reno Gazette Journal said that PZP, a pesticide that will be fired by dart guns into Virginia Range mares to prevent conception, requires a primer and booster in the first year and annual boosters in subsequent years, but after three to five years mares can become self-boosting and no longer require additional injections.

Does that mean their ovaries are now producing a hormone that blocks ovulation or interferes with conception?  Or have they become sterile?

Last year there was uproar when the BLM tried to move ahead with sterilization research on wild horses.

But nobody raises an eyebrow if the same result is achieved by fertility control ‘drugs.’

RELATED: Governor Praised for Resuming Fertility Control Program.

Letters to Editor Counter Wild Horse Narrative

Refer to comments by this reader and this reader in today’s edition of High Country News of Paonia, CO.  Remarks were prompted by this article.

“Overpopulation, however, is a real problem.  In March 2018, the BLM estimated nearly 82,000 wild horses and burros were living on BLM-managed lands, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year, and a number that exceeds what the land can sustain by more than 55,000.”

There is no wild horse overpopulation, only deceit and greed of the public-lands ranchers, their overlords, cheerleaders and political allies.

RELATED: Wild Horses and Burros Facing a Bleak Future?

Governor Praised for Resuming Fertility Control Program

Nevada legislators commended the governor for reinstating ‘humane management practices’ on the Virginia Range, according to a story posted yesterday by Nevada Appeal of Carson City.

The wild horse preservation movement began in these hills, east of Reno, with the efforts of Velma Johnston in the 1950s.

Today, you have many advocacy groups, some big, some small, arguing there are too many horses on the range.  Their habitat is threatened by development.  Therefore, we have to destroy them to save them.  Roundups are cruel, darting is not.  Never mind the side effects.

Fertility_Control_Puzzle_Solved-1

The Virginia Range, with a population density exceeding ten horses per thousand acres, defies the narrative pushed by the public-lands ranchers and their allies in government, namely, that western rangelands can only support one horse per thousand acres.

It’s an outlier that needs to be brought in line with the HMAs and WHTs (federal lands).

And who’s gonna make that happen?  The PZP zealots.

RELATED: NDA Allows PZP Zealots Back On Virginia Range.

Enjoy Them from a Distance

A BLM news release issued yesterday reminds horse watchers to keep a safe distance when viewing or filming them on the range.  One hundred yards is the minimum recommended distance.  (Individuals equipped with PZP dart guns who are aiding in the extermination of these animals will need to get within 25 to 40 yards for accurate shot placement.)

The announcement also suggested that you move back if they approach, which is how you tell them you’re lower in the pecking order.  Next to hand-feeding, it’s one of the best ways to make a horse pushy and disrespectful.

RELATED: Keeping a Safe Distance.

Financial Incentive Will Reduce Wild Horse Population?

This story, presented yesterday by KOLR News of Springfield MO, features Fred Woehl, chair of BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.  You might get the impression from his remarks that livestock are a minority on western rangelands.

Let’s take a look at the numbers.  What matters is resource loading.

BLM currently allocates about nine million AUMs annually to privately owned cattle and sheep on public lands in the western U.S.

If the grazing season lasts three months per year, as stated by Woehl, there must be three million cow/calf pairs on western rangelands.  If the season lasts six months per year, there must be 1.5 million cow/calf pairs on those lands.

Compared to 80,000 wild horses and burros (90,000—the figure he uses—may be a bit high).

Livestock have access to 155 million acres of BLM land, wild horses and burros have 27 million acres.

That puts the population density for livestock between ten and twenty cow/calf pairs per thousand acres, compared to three animals per thousand acres for wild horses and burros.

Now which species is overpopulated?

An AUM is the amount of forage consumed in a month by one horse, one cow/calf pair or five sheep.  Wild horses and burros consume one million AUMs annually (because they’re on the range 12 months per year, as stated by Woehl).

RELATED: Will the Cash Incentive Boost WHB Adoptions?

This is Not What Americans Mean by ‘Wild Horse Protection’

Video from the Onaqui Rally on 04/05/19.  Note the poster at 0:19 and the remarks beginning at 0:50.  These so-called advocates have bought into the overpopulation narrative and now seek to “manage horses to a lower population.”

They’re not friends of the Onaqui horses, they are enemies.  They do the bidding of the public-lands ranchers.  Don’t give them a penny.