As the photos roll out, remember that you are watching an enforcement action.
Media coverage—if there is any—will focus on casualties and the treatment of the horses but the real injustice was done years ago, by those who wrote and approved the resource management plans.
On the Lost Creek HMA, for example, the horses receive an estimated four percent of the authorized forage, excluding wildlife. They have been consuming more than their fair share, around 16%, so the herd needs to be cut down to size.
The same is true for the ‘Path Forward,’ a plan with the same goal but much broader scope: Enforce the resource allocations across all HMAs, manage them principally for cattle and sheep.
Notably absent from the signatories are drillers and miners, the supposed boogeymen of western rangelands.
But there are dozens of ‘advocacy’ groups that can be added to the list—always begging for your money—so they can make sure those forage allocations never go any higher.
They, like the public-lands ranchers, are enemies of America’s wild horses.
