Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
The evidence does not support the BLM’s claims, according to a report posted yesterday by Aspen Public Radio.
If you’re taking wild horses off the range while leaving the cattle alone, or allowing more livestock back on the land after the horses are gone, the issue was resource enforcement, not rangeland health.
RELATED: Piceance Assessment Finds Ample Forage for Wild Horses?
Mares with normal immune function respond to the Montana Solution, so the trait is not passed on to future generations.
Mares with depressed immune function do not respond to the treatments and can pass that trait to their offspring.
Thus, PZP selects for horses with low immune function, which can be destructive to the herds in the long run.
A routine infection could wipe out a population compromised by the advocates.
If the goal is preservation, the use of PZP constitutes a worst management practice.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Putting Them Out of Their Misery Edition.
The incident began on July 17. Gather stats through July 21:
A filly died on Day 4 due to pneumonia. The death rate is 1.6%.
The total includes 77 stallions, 124 mares and 47 foals.
Youngsters represented 19.0% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 38.3% were male and 61.7% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 19% per year.
If the death rate is 5% per year, 14% would be a better estimate.
The sex ratio is abnormal, a pattern seen in herds subject to the Montana Solution.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The Complex and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 5 ended with 85 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Triple B Roundup, Day 3.
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 21:
The death rate is 0.4%.
The total, based on the daily reports, includes 184 stallions, 218 mares and 92 foals.
The 18 horses taken in Part 1 were omitted.
Youngsters represented 18.6% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 45.8% were male and 54.2% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 19% per year.
If the death rate is 5% per year, 14% per year would be a better estimate.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 7 ended with 128 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Piceance Roundup, Part 2 Day 5.
The wild horse alarmists get top billing in an article published yesterday by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Rome is burning, wild horse populations are ballooning and fertility controls are needed.
Terms not found in the story:
Lands that carried around two million wild horses a hundred years ago can only support a tiny fraction today. What changed?
From Section 2.5.2 in H-4700-1, Wild Horses and Burros Management Handbook:
HMAPs tier to and must be in conformance with the applicable LUP. If the proposed management strategy is not consistent with the LUP, then the LUP should be amended, or the proposal should be modified or rejected.
If the land-use plan assigns 86% of the authorized forage to privately owned livestock, do you think you can write a new HMAP that allocates 98% of the resource to wild horses, with 2% to wildlife, and put it into practice?
Pay no attention to the advocates, they are full of crap.
The problem is in the planning and decision documents that determine how HMAs are managed, as well as the statutes and regulations that precede them.
RELATED: The Three R’s of HMAPs.
The scoping period began last November, sort of, with a solicitation for research proposals on fertility control and climate change involving wild horses and burros.
A driver of the research is the desire to reduce the number of animals that must be gathered and removed from the range, according to Section 1.2 of the EA, which is misleading.
The goal is to identify new ways of taking them off the range, given historical and current logistical constraints and funding levels that limit removals with traditional methods.
The Proposed Action includes an Oocyte Growth Factor vaccine study, a SpayVac study and an IUD study, as explained in Section 2.2.2.
The EA was posted with other project documents.
Comments will be accepted through August 22.
You can have your wild horse and burro program as long as it doesn’t interfere with the grazing program.
RELATED: Wild Horse and Burro Research Initiative Announced.
1. Review the planning and decision documents that determine how the HMA is managed.
2. Ratify those provisions by copying them into the HMAP. If the RMP assigns 86% of the authorized forage to privately owned livestock, then so shall the HMAP. Describe how the horse population will be controlled to achieve the resource allocations on a continuing basis.
3. Reinforce the mismanagement of the HMA by putting the new HMAP out for public review, followed by minor revisions and approval.
RELATED: HMAPs Are Not the Answer.
The incident began on July 17. Gather stats through July 19:
Three horses were put down on Day 3 due to pre-existing conditions, lifting the death rate to 2.2%. They would be alive if there was no roundup.
The total includes 45 stallions, 63 mares and 30 foals.
Youngsters represented 21.7% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 41.7% were male and 58.3% were female.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The Complex and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 3 ended with 55 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Triple B Roundup in Progress.
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 19:
The death rate declined from 0.7% on Day 3 to 0.5% on Day 5.
The total, based on the daily reports, includes 143 stallions, 176 mares and 73 foals.
Youngsters represented 18.6% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 44.8% were male and 55.2% were female.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 5 ended with 95 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Piceance Roundup, Part 2 Day 3.
The incident will begin on July 23, according to the BLM news release, with a capture goal of 2,000 wild horses and 339 wild burros. The removal goal is 1,800 and 339.
Up to 110 mares with be treated with fertility control and returned to the HMA.
Helicopters will push the animals into the traps and operations will be open to public observation.
The HMA covers 758,128 acres on the California-Nevada border and is managed for horses and burros. The AMLs are 758 and 116, respectively.
The combined AML expressed in horses only would be 817 and the stocking rate allowed by plan would be 1.1 wild horses per thousand acres.
The current population, thought to be approximately 3,300 horses and 400 burros, is equivalent to 3,500 horses.
The HMA is subject to permitted grazing and livestock receive and estimated 27,178 AUMs per year, 2.8 times more than the horses and burros.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Litchfield, CA, Palomino Valley, NV and Bruneau, ID.
A link to gather stats and daily reports was not provided.
The roundup appears on the latest schedule.
Celeste Carlisle and Eric Thacker lead the Population Management Working Group.
Carlisle serves as Biologist and Science Program Manager for Return to Freedom.
Thacker, Rangeland Extension Specialist for Utah State University, explained his role in a lecture last December that was covered in this post.
Carlisle also leads the Outreach and Communication Working Group.
Collaboration with the FREES Network, a ranching advocacy group hosted by Utah State University Extension, further undermines the credibility of Return to Freedom, signatory to the ill-advised “Path Forward.”
RELATED: FREES Conference Announced.
It’s in the Triple B Complex according to Table 2 of the 2017 Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein, but it’s not included in the 2022 Triple B roundup.
The Western Watersheds map puts it at the northwest corner of the Triple B HMA.
The WHT has an AML of 58 according to the Forest Service but Table 2 says 68.
The map indicates that it’s overlapped by three allotments and is probably subject to permitted grazing.
The EA was posted with other project documents in ePlanning.
RELATED: Triple B Roundup in Progress.
Refer to this news release dated July 11.
They’d have to cure themselves of Trump derangement syndrome and put their January 6 show trial on the back burner.
The Wild Horse and Burro program would receive $156 million in FY 2023, according to the summary for Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, including $11 million for research on reversible immunocontraceptive fertility control and its administration.
How much of the funding will actually go to research, including the long-term effects of the Montana Solution?
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 17:
Horses were put down on Days 2 and 3, presumably, due to pre-existing conditions but no details were given. The death rate is 0.7%.
The total includes 106 stallions, 132 mares and 54 foals.
Youngsters represented 18.5% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 44.5% were male and 55.5% were female.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 3 ended with 118 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
The incident started today, according to the gather page, with 43 horses captured, none shipped and no deaths.
How can the Complex be overpopulated with 3,475 wild horses when the government authorizes privately owned livestock equivalent to 4,099 wild horses in the same area, on top of the 821 horses allowed by plan?
RELATED: Triple B Roundup Announced.
The Pine Nut advocates did some unplanned bait trapping to remove a small tire caught on a mare’s leg, as explained in the July edition of Horse Tales by the real estate agent and PZP darter in the Minden/Gardnerville area.
The account begins on on page 16 and continues on page 19.
The listings are on page 24.
The incident could have been avoided by a more aggressive darting program that would take more horses off the range, leaving more food and water for the permittees (who are never mentioned in these stories).
APN 1322-00-002-041, a 161.8 acre parcel, has been marketed with an image of the animals she’s trying to eradicate.
Same for APN 1322-00-002-050, 80 acres. No youngsters allowed.
As stated previously, the advocates have no scruples.
Support for the Pine Nut darting program comes in part from the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses.
Of course it did. Read the report for yourself.
Horses in good condition? Of course they are.
HMA managed principally for them? Not exactly.
As the second half of the FY 2022 gather season ramps up, here are two provisions from the current statute to keep in mind as the action unfolds.
§1331. Wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands
§1332. “Range” means the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the public lands
The undefined concept of Appropriate Management Levels was not in the original statute, nor were there any provisions for privately owned livestock, yet today the land that remains is managed primarily for livestock and AMLs correspond to a tiny fraction of the available resources.
What you are seeing on the range could be described as lawlessness, yet the advocates are consumed with HMAPs, drilling and mining, and the Montana Solution.
Western Horse Watchers Association 