Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
At the Salt River with Magnificent Horses. Everything you’d expect to see except the youngsters.
Concerns about herd size, genetic diversity and inbreeding go away with the Montana Solution, because there is no breeding at all.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, No Guilt Edition.
The incident began on May 2. Gather stats through May 4:
The cumulative total includes 45 jacks, 58 jennies and 21 foals.
Youngsters represented 16.9% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 43.7% were male and 56.3% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 17% per year.
The location of the trap site within the HMA was not disclosed.
Day 3 ended with 68 unaccounted-for animals.
The number of burros removed to date is 124.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Black Mountain Roundup Begins.
The incident began on April 30. Gather stats through May 5:
A jack died on Day 5 trying to evade capture. The death rate is 0.7%.
The cumulative total includes 75 jacks, 67 jennies and 11 foals.
Youngsters represented 7.2% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 52.8% were male and 47.2% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 7% per year.
The location of the trap site within the HMA was not disclosed.
Day 6 ended with no unaccounted-for animals.
The number of burros removed to date is 153.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Sinbad Roundup Day 3.
Two more deaths were reported on May 5, bringing the total to 129. All fatalities have occurred in pens occupied by horses from the West Douglas roundup.
The May 5 sitrep includes results from additional lab tests.
RELATED: West Douglas Horses Hit Hardest at Cañon City Corrals.
Map 2 in Appendix A of the 2015 EA for resource enforcement actions indicates that the HA overlaps most of the Twin Buttes Allotment and a small part of the East Douglas Creek Allotment.
The HA covers covers 128,141 total acres, including 123,387 public acres, according to Section 1.2 of the EA.
The AML is zero. No resources have been assigned to the horses, although the area was identified for them in 1971.
The Western Watersheds map does not show herd areas but Western Horse Watchers added its boundary based on the map in the EA. Click on image to open in new tab.
West Douglas includes 113,790 acres from Twin Buttes and 9,530 acres from East Douglas Creek per Section 5.6.1 of the EA. These values determine the percentage of the allotments inside the HA.
The Allotment Master Report from RAS provides acreage, management status and active AUMs. All of the land is in the Improve category.
The average forage density in the two allotments is 79 AUMs per year per thousand acres, enough to support at least six wild horses per thousand acres.
Resources in the allotments must be considered when estimating the carrying capacity of areas designated for wild horses. They are routinely ignored by the advocates in their efforts to spread the Montana Solution across the American west.
The forage assigned to livestock inside the HA would support 9,991 ÷ 12 = 832 wild horses, for a True AML of 0 + 832 = 832.
The stocking rate at the new AML would be 6.7 horses per thousand acres.
The 832 horses displaced from the HA by permitted grazing represent about 1.5% of the animals in off-range holding. Every horse in short-term and long-term holding can be explained by this principle.
Most of the horses were removed from the area last August in an emergency roundup prompted by wildfire and drought but the allotment data suggest otherwise.
The incident was not necessary from a resource viewpoint and was likely carried out to protect the public-lands ranchers.
RELATED: West Douglas Horses Hit Hardest at Cañon City Corrals.
The incident began on April 25. Gather stats through May 3:
The cumulative total includes 73 jacks, 77 jennies and 20 foals.
Youngsters represented 11.8% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 48.7% were male and 51.3% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 12% per year.
The location of the trap site was not provided. Three HAs are involved.
Day 9 ended with -1 unaccounted-for animals, more animals disbursed than captured.
The number of burros removed to date is 170.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Death Valley Auxiliary Roundup Day 7.
Four more deaths were reported on May 4, lifting the total to 127.
The only change to the sitrep was the addition of those results.
A statement about vaccinations appears below the daily reports.
RELATED: Cañon City Virus Claims More Lives.
None of the big-name advocacy groups will claim responsibility for it.
They may have been upstaged.
The news release by Animal Wellness Action, a lobbying group for the PZP fanatics and presenter at the SOWH Conference, indicates that the legislation is endorsed by
The advocates’ plan to take market share from Cattoor and Sun J may now have a serious challenger.
Four deaths were reported in the May 3 update, boosting the total to 123.
The only change to the sitrep was the addition of those results.
RELATED: More Horses Lost to Cañon City Virus.
The incident started on May 2, according to the gather page, with 17 burros captured, none shipped and no deaths.
RELATED: Another Black Mountain Roundup Announced.
The bill, designated HR 7631, has been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources, according to the summary at Congress.gov.
Another stupid idea from your elected representatives.
Hopefully it terms out with its sponsors.
RELATED: Legislation Would Train Veterans to Dart Wild Horses.
A board member for the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses told The Colorado Sun in an article posted this morning that “We cannot continue to round up wild horses from their native habitats, cram them into holding pens and expect a good outcome for the wild horses or the taxpayers who are funding this broken system.”
Sounds great. Is he suggesting the animals would be better off on the range?
No! He’s suggesting that the BLM should be getting rid of them with PZP.
The advocates are always looking for new ways to sell old ideas.
RELATED: AWI Pushes Montana Solution in Wake of Cañon City Incident.
The incident began on April 30. Gather stats through May 2:
The cumulative total includes 56 jacks, 58 jennies and 9 foals.
Youngsters represented 7.3% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 49.1% were male and 50.9% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 7% per year.
The location of the trap site within the HMA was not disclosed.
Day 3 ended with no unaccounted-for animals.
The number of burros removed to date is 123.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Sinbad Roundup in Progress.
The incident began on April 25. Gather stats through May 1:
A jenny died on Day 7 due to a head injury. The number of animals shipped is usually less than the number of animals captured when deaths are reported.
The cumulative total includes 55 jacks, 64 jennies and 18 foals. The breakdown for Day 6 is not correct. The number of foals is probably zero.
Youngsters represented 13.1% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 46.2% were male and 53.8% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 13% per year.
The trap site was moved on Day 6 to an undisclosed location.
The maps in Appendix B of the project documents show the location of gather activity relative to the park. The Western Watersheds map does not show Herd Areas.
Day 7 ended with -1 unaccounted-for animals, more animals disbursed than captured.
The number of burros removed to date is 137.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Death Valley Auxiliary Roundup Day 5.
Two deaths were reported in the May 2 update, bringing the total to 119.
The sitrep indicates the virus is of the Florida Clade 1 sublineage.
He was sent to a wildlife sanctuary in Texas according to a report by WBOC News of Salisbury, MD because he had become aggressive toward park visitors and staff.
Stallions are in the minority on the Maryland side of the island, or at least they were a year ago. Western Horse Watchers has not seen a census report for 2022.
The island has been a test bed for the Montana Solution since 1995.
The advocates point to it as a model of wild horse management.
Better if they were not even born according to a column in today’s edition of The Gazette of Colorado Springs, CO.
Let the permittees have most of the food and water in areas set aside for wild horses.
Exactly what you’d expect from the advocates.
RELATED: RTF Pushes Montana Solution in Wake of Cañon City Deaths!
At the Ozark National Scenic Riverways with Tim Layton.
The number of horses lost at the off-range corrals between April 23 and April 29 was 102, roughly equal to the number of lives denied every year on the Salt River by the darting program.
These are horses that should have joined the herd to replace those who died, but didn’t because of the Montana Solution.
RELATED: Virginia Range Darting Program Dwarfs Losses at Cañon City.
Eleven deaths were reported in the May 1 update, bringing the total to 117.
The sitrep indicates all fatalities have occurred in the pens holding animals from the West Douglas roundup last August.
RELATED: Death Rate Slowing at Cañon City Off-Range Corrals?
Western Horse Watchers Association 