Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
The roundup ended with 401 horses captured, three deaths and 398 shipped.
The plan was to put 30 horses back on the HMA, including 18 mares treated with GonaCon, but the gather page shows none.
There may be a 30-day waiting period before the second dose, which may act like a sterilant, can be applied.
It’s been on back order for several months according to a report posted yesterday by WPTV News of West Palm Beach.
They are signatories to the rancher-friendly ‘Path Forward.’ Why would they oppose the removal of 82% of the wild horses in any HMA?
This is not the time for government to target wild horse herds “that have had a more than five-year investment in a fertility control program,” according to the news release.
Last year, volunteers darted 300 mares in the HMA “with safe, proven and humane fertility control.”
Meanwhile, the management plan assigns 79% of the authorized forage to privately owned livestock—on land set aside for the horses.
These people are clueless. They are a voice for the ranchers, not the horses. Why are you still giving them money?
The incident began on August 2. Gather stats through August 25:
The death rate declined slightly to 0.5%.
Foals accounted for 18.0% of the horses gathered. Of the adults, 42.8% were male and 57.2% were female.
Body condition scores were not reported.
The location of gather operations has not been specified. Four HMAs are involved.
Day 24 ended with 151 unaccounted-for animals.
The gap between males and females can’t be explained by a simple random process centered at 50% males / 50% females with n = 1,408 adults. The expected range of variation can be found with basic statistical formulas.
To date, 603 stallions and 805 mares have been taken from the Complex. The sex of the foals was not provided.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Antelope Roundup Day 22.
The map on page 2-34 of the 1992 Three Rivers RMP (page 62 in the pdf) shows two grazing allotments inside the HMA, #7019 and #7021.
They cover 71,648 public acres, according to the Allotment Master report, very close to the 71,554 acres shown for the HMA on page 2-43 of the RMP.
Both are in the Improve category.
The HMA, outlined in brown, appears to be 100% subject to permitted grazing.
The allotments may pre-date the HMA and may have provided a basis for establishing the HMA boundary, which may or may not correspond to the area where horses were found in 1971.
The 64 horses allowed by plan receive 768 AUMs per year, while livestock receive 1,188 + 1,618 + 1,396 = 4,202 AUMs per year.
Would you say the HMA is managed principally for wild horses? Would you call this a thriving ecological balance? Livestock receive 5.5 times more forage than the horses.
Are the advocates trying to convince you that the horses are the problem and that the government should be getting rid of them with PZP, not helicopters?
If so, you might want to find a better source of information about wild horses.
RELATED: Palomino Buttes Emergency Roundup Starts Next Week.
An estimated 220 wild horses will be removed from the HMA, starting on August 30, due to inadequate food and water.
A helicopter will push the horses into the traps. The incident will be open to public observation, according to the news release.
The HMA covers 71,554 acres near Burns, OR and has a forage allocation is 768 AUMs per year, as shown on page 2-43 of the Three Rivers RMP (page 71 in the pdf). The AML is 64 and the stocking rate allowed by plan is 0.9 wild horses per thousand acres.
The pre-gather population is thought to be around 427.
The map on page 2-34 of the RMP (page 62 in the pdf) suggests that the HMA intersects two grazing allotments, #7019 and #7021.
An EA was not prepared for the roundup and Western Horse Watchers could not find an older one in ePlanning, so more research will be needed to assess the forage allocations and allotment conditions.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Hines.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
You are a serf. Obey your masters. Take the vaccines. Do not use Ivermectin.
Even if the stores in North Carolina can’t keep it in stock.
RELATED: Ivermectin Sells Out in Oklahoma.
The incident ended on August 21 with 213 horses captured, 211 shipped and one death, according to figures at the gather page.
The final number of unaccounted-for animals was one.
The goal was 320 horses captured and 296 removed.
The incident began on August 2. Gather stats through August 23:
Three foals were put down on Day 21 due to pre-existing conditions, raising the death rate to 0.6%.
Foals accounted for 18.4% of the horses gathered. Of the adults, 42.2% were male and 57.8% were female.
Body condition scores were not reported.
Day 22 ended with 8 unaccounted-for animals.
The gap between males and females continues to increase. The observed percentages can’t be produced by a random process centered at 50% males / 50% females with n = 1,285 adults. The expected range of variation is found with basic statistical formulas.
To date, 542 stallions have been taken from the Complex, with 743 mares. The sex of the foals was not provided.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Antelope Roundup Day 20.
When the roundup ended, the government admitted that its narrative was false.
Was it an attempt to shield the public-lands ranchers from the effects of a temporary change in the weather?
Refer to this column in today’s edition of CounterPunch.
Western Horse Watchers believes the forage allocation to livestock—19,592 AUMs per year—represents a resource assigned to the ten allotments that intersect the HMA, not the amount of that resource inside the HMA. Some of those AUMs are outside, and, technically, off limits to wild horses.
Unfortunately, the BLM did not provide the percentages of the allotments inside the HMA, so a ‘Short End of Stick’ report is not possible.
A guesstimate of the horses displaced by livestock, and the True AML, were computed in this post about the Onaqui allotments.
The True AML represents the number of wild horses or burros that an area can support if it was managed principally for those animals, as specified in 16 USC 30.
RELATED: Onaqui Debate Simmers.
Refer to this story by KFOR News of Oklahoma City, posted today.
The one-horse pony and his illicit administration want you to take the clotshots instead.
RELATED: Ivermectin Flying Off Shelves?
The incident began on August 15. Gather stats through August 21:
Western Horse Watchers misread the report for August 19: It said gather operations ended early, not that they were over. The final day was August 21.
A stallion was put down on Day 6 due to blindness, lifting the death rate to 0.7%.
Foals accounted for 25.7% of the horses gathered. Of the adults, 44.6% were male and 55.4% were female.
Body condition scores were fours and fives.
Day 7 ended with no unaccounted-for animals.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Stinkingwater Roundup Day 5.
How many wild horses have been displaced from the Antelope Complex, now subject to a massive roundup, by privately owned livestock?
A few dozen? Maybe a couple hundred? No, over 6,000.
Did your favorite advocacy group tell you that? Why not? Who are they protecting?
Are they telling you that the government should be getting rid of the horses with PZP, not helicopters?
If so, you might want to find a better source of information about wild horses.
Did they tell you that over 1,500 wild horses have been denied a spot on Beatys Butte HMA because of privately owned livestock?
That roughly 700 wild horses have been cheated out of a place at Stinkingwater HMA by privately owned livestock?
Did they mention that 1,400 wild horses at Sand Wash Basin HMA have been forced into off-range holding by privately owned livestock? Do they even acknowledge that livestock graze in the HMA?
Do they know how to compute these numbers? Do they talk about environmental assessments, resource allocations and land-use plans? Or do they tell you there isn’t a good way to calculate the number of wild horses an area can support?
Do they distinguish between cause and effect, between upstream and downstream parts of the management process?
Did they tell you that all of the horses in off-range could be returned to the range if public-lands ranching was stopped in just a few dozen HMAs? That the off-range pastures and corrals could be emptied three to five times over if permitted grazing was stopped on all HMAs?
If not, you might want to find another source of information about wild horses.
RELATED: Keeping Wild Horses in Check While Livestock Proliferate.
The management plan for Beatys Butte HMA allows a stocking rate of 0.6 wild horses per thousand acres at the upper end of AML. Anything above that will degrade the land.
The management plan at Stinkingwater HMA allows 0.9 wild horses per thousand acres but anything more will degrade the range, or so we’re told.
The management plan at Sand Wash Basin HMA allows a generous 2.3 wild horses per thousand acres but anything higher is not sustainable.
The target rate across all HMAs is one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres). The on-range population of 85,000 must be reduced immediately to save the land from total destruction. The stocking rate has exceeded the limit by a factor of three!
The management plan at Beatys Butte allows a stocking rate of 6.9 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres, twelve times higher than the rate for horses, as shown in this report.
The management plan at Stinkingwater allows a stocking rate of 15.5 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres, sixteen times higher than the rate for horses, as shown in this report.
The management plan at Sand Wash Basin allows 16.2 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres, seven times higher than the rate for horses, as shown in this report.
Given that livestock usually don’t graze on entire allotments but in subsets known as pastures, the short-term rates are even higher.
Wild horses are destroying the range at stocking rates in the low single digits, but double-digit stocking rates for livestock are not?
You can’t have it both ways.
This would explain why almost 60% of the BLM grazing land in ten western states, most of it off limits to wild horses, does not meet standards for rangeland health.
In Dayton, NV with Desert Explorer 302.
The incident began on August 2. Gather stats through August 21:
The death rate is 0.4%.
Foals accounted for 18.2% of the horses gathered. Of the adults, 42.7% were male and 57.3% were female.
Body condition scores were not reported.
Day 20 ended with 18 unaccounted-for animals.
The gap between males and females has increased. The observed percentages cannot be produced by a random process centered at 50% males / 50% females with n = 1,219 adults. The range of expected variation is found with basic statistical formulas.
To date, 520 stallions have been taken from the Complex, with 699 mares. The sex of the foals was not provided.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Antelope Roundup Day 18.
The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses is not a signatory in fact, but a signatory in principle, along with thousands of Kool-Aid drinkers across the country.
They’re working diligently to get rid of as many wild horses as possible with PZP, which helps the public-lands ranchers.
Of interest in the following video is the remark at 6:44 that there isn’t a good way to calculate the number of wild horses an area can support.
The government has already told you what resources are available and has assigned them to multiple users.
Divide the forage assigned to livestock by twelve and add the result to the AML. That’s the True AML, the number of horses an area could support if it was managed principally for horses, as specified in the statute.
The calculation often shows that the area is not overpopulated, and has no excess horses, which undercuts their business model.
RELATED: Wild Horses Have Targets on Their Backs?
This article by KXAN News of Austin, TX looks at the tablet form of the drug, although it shows a photo of the paste.
The bureaucrats want to you to wear a mask and take the clotshots.
For an alternative view, search for ‘barnhardt ivermectin’ and follow the link.
RELATED: Ivermectin Flying Off Shelves?
The incident began on August 11. Gather stats through August 21:
The death rate is 0.5%.
Foals accounted for 23.0% of the horses gathered. Of the adults, 43.9% were male and 56.1% were female.
Body condition scores were not reported.
Day 11 ended with one unaccounted-for horse.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Conger Roundup Day 9.
The price has gone from $19 per bale three weeks ago to $22 per bale today, a 16% increase. The weight has decreased as well.
A horse would need five such bales per month, equivalent to $110 per AUM.
Public-lands ranchers currently pay $1.35 per AUM.
RELATED: Price of Hay Going Up?
Western Horse Watchers Association 