How Many Horses Can Jackson Mountains HMA Support?

The HMA lies in a area occupied by six allotments, described in Section 3.3.3 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.

The easterly border of the HMA no longer crosses the Desert Valley Allotment, as indicated on page 18 of the Nevada HMA maps.

The 217 horses allowed by plan require 2,604 AUMs per year.

As noted previously, livestock receive an estimated 7,394 AUMs per year inside the HMA, enough to support 616 wild horses.

The True AML, the number of animals the HMA could sustain if it was managed principally for horses—as specified in the original statute—would be 217 + 616 = 833.

The current population, thought to be 451 according to Table 1 in the EA, is well within this range, so there are no excess animals, the HMA is not overpopulated and there is no basis for a roundup or fertility control program. The problem is public-lands ranching.

The 616 horses displaced from the HMA by permitted grazing account for roughly one percent of the animals in off-range holding.

An emergency roundup last year took 526 horses off the range with a death rate of 5.9%, including a foal that was put down because it was an orphan.

The HMA does not appear in the latest roundup schedule.