Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
RELATED: Emergency Roundup Scorecard, August 8.
The agency’s headquarters are now officially in Grand Junction, CO according to a news release issued today.
Near Mammoth Lakes, CA with Jay Wilson.
The analyst, looking at data from a process, faces two problems:
The statistical methods used by Western Horse Watchers are designed to minimize the losses from these mistakes. There are no probabilities, no underlying distributions.
The formulas help you decide, by calculation, if the results from a process should be attributed to chance or whether they should be associated with one or more assignable causes (nameable, knowable, findable).
Do these data look like they were produced by a simple random process?
If you’re talking about the Assateague herd, the answer is ‘No.’
Data from the recently concluded gather at Nevada WHR look like they were.
This doesn’t mean that wranglers weren’t on horseback cutting mares from the herd, to skew the sex ratio, there’s just no evidence of that in the data.
RELATED: A Lesson from Industrial Quality Control.
Containment has been established on the southern edge of the fire, according to the map at InciWeb (click to enlarge), the area closest to the Little Bookcliffs horses.
The 10 AM report says the blaze has consumed almost 24,000 acres and continues to be affected by low humidity and southwest winds.
The home page at InciWeb includes photos.
RELATED: Pine Gulch Fire Spreading.
BLM announced today that the operation concluded on August 8, with 126 wild horses removed. Three deaths occurred on August 7. Details can be found in the daily reports.
Foals represented 22% of the total.
The number of studs and mares found in the traps could be accounted for by a simple random process centered at 50% males / 50% females.
Southwest winds are driving it to the northeast, according to today’s report on InciWeb.
The blaze has consumed 20,000 acres and is zero percent contained.
RELATED: Pine Gulch Fire Burning North of Little Bookcliffs WHR.
The daily reports indicate 675 wild horses gathered through August 7. No burros have been captured and seven deaths have occurred (1%).
Foals accounted for 20.4% of the total.
On August 5, 44 mares were treated with contraceptives. A booster will be applied after 30 days, followed by return to the HMA.
The goal is remove 1,600 horses and 200 burros from the HMA, which represents about 28% of the land in the Blue Wing Complex.
RELATED: Shawave Roundup, Day 3.
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
RELATED: Emergency Roundup Scorecard, August 6.
A complete census will take a while but initial observations suggest they all survived the storm, according to a story posted today by WCTI News of New Bern, NC.
The Cedar Island horses appeared to be OK, although the herd was thinned by 70% last year by Hurricane Dorian.
RELATED: Isaias Leaves OBX.
Refer to this guest column, appearing this morning in the Las Vegas Sun.
If you believe that most of the problems on public lands in the western U.S. are due to privately owned livestock, why would you promote a technology associated with wild horse overpopulation?
The writer cites AWHC’s war on the Virginia Range mustangs as a PZP success story, but does not mention the disastrous long-term effects of PZP on the Assateague herd or the recent court order requiring the EPA to reconsider its registration of the pesticide.
Extended use, necessary for maintaining AMLs, leads to sterilization. The horses are said to be ‘self boosting.’
PZP doesn’t protect wild horses, it prevents them.
While that might appeal to some, the idea does not have broad support among ranching interests because darted mares still eat. Removal, the centerpiece of the glorious ‘Path Forward,’ is still the best option.
RELATED: Management of Western Rangelands in 2018, Livestock Grazing in Nevada.
Refer to this press release by American Equine Awareness, issued yesterday.
Should Congress direct some of the money to a pilot program that tests the new system, so it can be refined for commercial use? Would the Rolling Stones support the idea?
The House spending bill, which includes the amendment, still has to be considered by the Senate.
RELATED: If the PZP Amendment Carries, How Will the Money Be Used?
No immediate danger to the horses, according to a report published this evening by Western Slope Now. InciWeb says the fire, thought to be started by lightning, has consumed about 12,600 acres and is only 5% contained.
The WHR covers about 36,000 acres north of Grand Junction, CO.
The daily reports indicate 459 wild horses gathered since August 3. No wild burros have been captured and seven deaths have occurred (1.5%). No animals have been returned.
The goal is remove 1,600 horses and 200 burros from the HMA.
A revised management plan for Spring Creek Basin HMA has been approved, according to a report published yesterday by The Journal of Cortez, CO. Western Horse Watchers was unable to find an announcement at the BLM news site.
The Decision Record, which authorized Alternative A in the EA (the Proposed Action), has no signatures and no dates. The 30-day appeal period began July 20.
The new plan includes:
Although livestock grazing does not occur in the HMA, it was not designated a WHR.
The HMA covers approximately 22,000 acres in western Colorado.
RELATED: Comments Invited on Spring Creek EA.
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
RELATED: Emergency Roundup Scorecard, August 4.
Consider two HMAs, each starting off at low end of AML.
HMA1
HMA2
Both HMAs will need to be gathered in five years. Fifty wild horses will need to be removed from HMA1 and 500 from HMA2.
Which operation will cost less? Which one will require more off-range holding?
If the goal is to save money, zero out all the HMAs and end the WHB program.
RELATED: Best Way to End Roundups?
BLM announced today that a Decision Record had been signed, allowing the wild burro management process to move ahead. Alternative A, the proposed action, was approved.
A roundup will occur next month, but a start date was not given. The news release did not indicate how the operation will be carried out, if will be open to public observation, and where the captured burros would be taken.
Those details should be provided before anything happens in the field. The decision is subject to appeal over the next 30 days. The Final EA is posted here.
The current population is thought to exceed 2,200 animals, whose forage demand likely exceeds the total AUMs authorized on the HMA (burros + livestock). This does not mean the burros can access all of them.
The old mining town of Oatman, noted for its friendly burros, is in the HMA.
RELATED: Comments Invited on EA for Black Mountain Gather Plan.
Refer to this 13-minute interview posted today by Nevada Public Radio. The segment about wild horses ends at 8:35.
The amendment is turning out to be a cousin of the glorious ‘Path Forward,’ another opportunity for ‘advocacy’ groups to throw in with the public-lands ranchers.
How exactly does the legislation fix the resource management plans that divert most of the forage on public lands to privately owned livestock?
RELATED: If the PZP Amendment Carries, How Will the Money Be Used?
Forward speed has picked up and the system is now moving off rapidly to the northeast.
Northern end of OBX still under tropical storm warning but that will probably be lifted later today. Assateague ponies affected similarly. Volunteers and other personnel will be checking the horses over the next few days.
RELATED: Isaias Approaching OBX.
Western Horse Watchers Association 