BLM said today the grazing fee for 2020 will be $1.35 per AUM, the same as in 2019.

The new season begins on March 1.

An AUM is the amount of forage consumed by one wild horse, two wild burros, one cow/calf pair or five sheep in one month.

The base value in 1966 was $1.23 per AUM, according to the news release.

RELATED: 2019 Grazing Fee Announced.

UPDATE: News release from Forest Service on 01-31-20.

Refer to this document.  The 90-day public comment period begins today.

Alternative D, preferred, involves the following changes:

• The Rock Springs Field Office portion of the Adobe Town HMA would revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses.  For the RFO portion of the HMA, all checkerboard land and the portion of the HMA north of the existing Corson Springs southern allotment boundary fence would revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses.  The remainder of the HMA would be retained and managed with an AML of 259 – 536
• The entire Great Divide Basin HMA would revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses
• The entire Salt Wells Creek HMA would revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses
• The entire White Mountain HMA would revert to HA status and be managed for zero wild horses.

Forage previously allocated to wild horses may be reassigned to wildlife, livestock or other ecosystem functions, following an in-depth review of intensive monitoring data, according to the Alternative D narrative.

A news release had not been issued by the BLM at the time this post went live.

RELATED: Rock Springs RMP Amendment to Target Wild Horses.

The BLM has drafted a Resource Management Plan Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement for proposed changes to wild horse management by the Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices, according to an announcement published this morning in the Federal Register.

• Change the Salt Wells Creek HMA to a herd area, which would be managed for zero wild horses, and re-gather the herd area to zero wild horses if its wild horse population exceeds 200
• Change the Great Divide Basin HMA to a herd area, which would be managed for zero wild horses, and re-gather the herd area to zero wild horses if its wild horse population exceeds 100
• Change the AML for Adobe Town HMA to 225-450 wild horses or lower, and do not relocate horses gathered from Adobe Town to Salt Wells Creek
• Manage the White Mountain HMA as a non-reproducing herd with a population of 205 wild horses by utilizing fertility control and sterilization methods, and initiate gathers if the HMA’s population exceeds 205 wild horses

The draft RMP and EIS had not been included with other project documents at the time this post went live.

The driver of these changes is the infamous Rock Springs consent decree, a court order resulting from legal action by the Rock Springs Grazing Association.

RELATED: Comments Invited on Scope of Rock Springs Gather Plan.

BLM announced yesterday the opening of a comment period on proposed changes to the management plan for the Spring Creek Basin HMA in western Colorado.

The HMA covers 21,932 acres and has an AML of 65, for an aimed-at population density (stocking rate) of three wild horses per thousand acres.

Details were not provided in the letter to interested parties but the scope includes two new water catchment structures, presumably within the HMA.

Comments can be submitted at this page.  The environmental assessment is pending.

The letter did not indicate if the horses must share the land with other mandated users.

Animal Wellness Action, a lobbying group in Washington, D.C., said today that the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee heard testimony on legislation that would stop the export of American horses for slaughter.

As for wild horses, they are also at risk of such action, thanks to the $1000 adoption incentive and ill-conceived ‘Path Forward.’

Sadly, the measure does nothing to stop the roundups, contraceptives and shrinking amount of territory available to the horses.

RELATED: SAFE Act Introduced in Senate.

Cumulative totals through 01-28-20, per the BLM roundup page for the Eagle Complex:

• 855 animals gathered
• 12 deaths (1.4%)
• 379 studs (44.5%)
• 472 mares (55.5%)
• 4 new foals (2019 foals counted as adults)

The proportions of studs and mares are still outside of statistical limits corresponding to 50% males / 50% females (n = 851, p-bar = .50).  Is the contractor targeting family bands, whose mares are now heavily pregnant?

The thriving ecological balance is now only 745 wild horses away (1,700 horses to be gathered − 100 to be returned − 855).

RELATED: Eagle Roundup Day 10, Eagle Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick.

The horses captured in late November and offered for adoption last week have bids.

RELATED: Fish Springs Auction Underway.

Including the burros.  Report by Hey, it’s a way out of the house!

Lecture by David Toledo, rangeland management specialist with the USDA, on March 12, 2019, sponsored by the State Historical Society of North Dakota et al.

You can’t have a conversation about wild horses without having a conversation about public-lands ranching, and you can’t have a discussion about the horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park without having a discussion about Sitting Bull, the Marquis de Mores and Leo Kuntz.

RELATED: Management of Western Rangelands in 2018.

On the Salt River with tribphotog.

Cumulative totals through 01-25-20, per the BLM roundup page for the Eagle Complex:

• 667 animals gathered
• 10 deaths (1.5%)
• 284 studs (42.8%)
• 379 mares (57.2%)
• 4 new foals (2019 foals counted as adults)

The proportions of studs and mares are now outside of statistical limits corresponding to 50% males / 50% females (n = 663, p-bar = .50).  Why would more mares be found in the traps compared to studs?

The thriving ecological balance is now only 933 wild horses away (1,700 horses to be gathered − 100 to be returned − 667).

RELATED: Eagle Roundup Day 7, Eagle Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick.

A local advocacy group hosted a rally today at the Coon Bluff Campground to bring awareness to a new fence along the Lower Salt River that will stop wild horses from crossing the Bush Highway.

Organizers said the fence would separate the horses from valuable resources, such as water, food and land to roam.

The Forest Service says it will reduce collisions with vehicles, which kill about 20 horses per year, and also stop livestock from joining the herd, according to a report posted this evening by Phoenix-based AZCentral.

RELATED: Local Advocacy Group Opposes Salt River Fencing.

The proposed management actions announced earlier this week were prompted by resource impacts related to excessive horse population and a desire to achieve rangeland health standards in the area impacted by the overpopulated horses.

Does that mean the number of wild horses is too high or the AML is too low?  What is the impact of other authorized users of those lands, not mentioned in the news release?

The forage requirement for the 721 wild horses currently on the HMA is 8,652 AUMs per year and their population density (stocking rate) is 5.3 animals per thousand acres.

The forage requirement for the 100 wild horses allowed by plan is 1.200 AUMs per year and their aimed-at stocking rate is 0.7 animals per thousand acres.

The HMA intersects four grazing allotments.  The forage allocations and stocking rates for livestock inside the HMA must be computed from data in Table 2 of the draft EA.

Although cattle and sheep are authorized on the allotments, the calculations are based on cow/calf pairs only, for a direct comparison to the horses (the resource requirements of cow/calf pairs and wild horses are said to be equivalent).

Note that the cow/calf densities allowed by plan are in the same range as the pre-gather horse density.  The Tatow density (5.7) is nearly identical to the current horse density.

The allotment acreage inside the HMA, computed from the portions inside the HMA (133,731), agrees fairly well with the acreage stated at the BLM page for the HMA (134,965) but differs from the acreage stated in Section 1.2 the EA (120,113).  If you wanted to submit a substantive comment on the EA, that would be one.

The acreage from the BLM page was used in the density calculations.  Accordingly, little if any of the land inside the HMA is not subject to permitted livestock grazing.

The forage contributed to livestock inside the HMA by the Antelope allotment would be .43 × 3,277 = 1,409 AUMs per year, assuming the resource is uniformly distributed across the parcel.

Likewise for the other three allotments.  The total estimated forage available to livestock inside the HMA is the sum of the forage fractions (7,793 AUMs per year).

The number of cow/calf pairs that could be supported inside the HMA by the Antelope allotment is 1,409 ÷ 11 = 128.  Ditto for the other allotments.

The total estimated number of cow/calf pairs inside the HMA is 887.  The weighted average grazing season is 8.8 months (7,793 ÷ 887).

The estimated livestock density allowed by plan inside the HMA is 6.6 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres (887 ÷ 134,965 × 1,000).

These figures are compared in the following charts.

The forage allocated to horses and livestock inside the HMA would support the current wild horse population (1,200 + 7,793 > 8,652).

The forage available to livestock inside the HMA would support an additional 649 wild horses (7,793 ÷ 12) for an AML of 749 (100 + 649).

But the management plan assigns 13% of that resource to horses and 87% to livestock, on land set aside for the horses.

The wild horse management paradigm has been inverted.  Privately owned livestock get the lion’s share of the resources and the horses are just a curiosity, if you can find them.

If your goal is to nullify the WHB Act without arousing suspicion, this is how you would do it—slowly, one HMA at a time.

The cattle allowed on the HMA are probably worth close to $1 million, assuming half of them ship to slaughter.

Another substantive comment on the EA involves the management paradigm: Why isn’t the HMA managed principally for the horses, in accordance with paragraph 1332(c) of the statute?

You don’t have a horse problem on western rangelands, you have a ranching problem, so why are roundups and contraceptives always tossed around as ‘solutions?’

RELATED: Comments Invited on Draft EA for Swasey Roundup.

The Post Regster of Idaho Falls said today that the BLM will try to find good homes for 70 of the Challis wild horses when it hosts an adoption event at the Challis off-range corrals January 31 and February 1.

Gentling techniques will be demonstrated on both days, according to the story, and the adoption incentive applies.

The HMA was gathered in November, 2019.  A few weeks later, some of the captured horses were returned, in an effort to skew the sex ratio of the herd.

Like other HMAs, privately owned livestock receive four times as much forage as the horses (80/20 split).

They were forced off their home range because they were robbing too much food from the public-lands ranchers.  Sorry, but you’re not doing them any favors by adopting.

Members of local ranching families attended the meeting Wednesday evening to protest what they say are unfair accusations by the public, according to a report posted today by the White Mountain Independent.

One woman said “We have people from across the globe thinking the ranchers in this community are killing horses.”

RELATED: Meeting Yields No New Details on Heber Wild Horse Shootings.

The Eagle Complex has lost 520 wild horses, as of January 22, according to the gather stats, with eight deaths reported (1.5%) and no foals.

Does the sex ratio of the captured animals (226 studs and 294 mares) look like it came from a process that produces 50% males and 50% females?

RELATED: BLM Redefines ‘Foal.’

The Navajo County Sheriff’s Office won’t say if it has any suspects and the Forest Service doesn’t know if the same person killed all the horses, according to a report posted last night by AZFamily of Phoenix, AZ.

The Forest Service said 36 horses have been found dead in and around the WHT since October 2018, with 24 of them confirmed shot.

RELATED: Latest on Heber Shootings.