On the Virginia Range with Western Horse Watchers.

As noted previously, privately owned livestock in the Stone Cabin HMA, the lawful home of wild horses, receive 3.3 times more forage than the horses.

A statement at the end of Section 1.1 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Stone Cabin Complex says the AML of 364 must not be exceeded to achieve progress toward standards for rangeland health established by the Mojave-Southern Great Basin RAC.

The current horse population is 651.

Permitted grazing is equivalent to 1,192 wild horses.

Reducing livestock would take more pressure off the land and have a greater effect in achieving the stangards.

Perhaps the statement is a ploy to protect ranching interests at the expense of wild horses?

If you put the question to the advocates, they will defend the bureaucrats and ranchers, arguing that excess animals (of which there are none) should be removed with the Montana Solution, not helicopters.

“We’re changing the way wild horse herds are managed, not their land.”

Seems like they’re not playing for the home team.

Ever notice that?

RELATED: Too Many Wild Horses at Stone Cabin HMA?

Bidders paid an average of $31.36 per AUM on six grazing units between Alamogordo, NM and El Paso, TX, according to a BLM news release, compared to $1.35 per AUM on public lands covered by term grazing permits.

If the ranchers are paying 4.3 cents on the dollar for the privilege, the American people are not receiving a fair return for their use of the public lands.

This also explains why they want wild horses off the range.

The auction was announced on September 6.

Table 1 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Complex shows more horses than allowed by plan.

The current population is thought to be 651, compared to an AML of 364.

Are there more horses than the land can support?

The advocates aren’t even curious.  Defeated a long time ago and now solidly in the ranchers’ corner, they are lost in their darting paradigm.

To answer the question, you have to look at a map and the data in Table 3 and do a few simple calculations.

The HMA overlaps two allotments according to the Western Watersheds map, Willow Creek and Stone Cabin.

The Allotment Master Report puts them in the Improve category.  The report provides a check on the data in the table.

The management plan assigns 1,990 + 11,973 + 338 = 14,301 AUMs per year to livestock inside the HMA, enough to support an additional 14,301 ÷ 12 = 1,192 wild horses.

How can the HMA be overpopulated with 651 wild horses when the BLM authorizes privately owned livestock equivalent to 1,192 wild horses in the same area, on top of the 364 horses allowed by plan?

The current population is not even close to the True AML of 364 + 1,192 = 1,556, so there are no excess animals.

The BLM collects 14,301 × 1.35 = $19,306 per year in grazing fees from ranchers inside the HMA while it spends 1,192 × 5 × 365 = $2,175,400 per year to care for the horses in off-range holding that could be returned to the HMA if livestock grazing was stopped.

The savings are huge but why would you change anything when you can prolong the scam and lay the costs off on American taxpayers?

RELATED: Stone Cabin Pest Control Plan Out for Public Review.

Students enrolled in Arizona State University’s pre-veterinary medicine program traveled to the Salt River this month for a challenging assignment: Determine if the herd exhibits the full range of wild behaviors in a natural setting, as the advocates claim.

An obvious indicator of trouble, not mentioned in a story by ASU, is the absence of foals.

A representative of the Salt River Wild Horse Darting Group, a partner of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, noted that after the herd was protected by state law, they were given an ultimatum to have the horses rounded up or reduce their population.

The advocates decided to get rid of them with the Montana Solution, the same approach used by professionals to protect ants, roaches and other cherished pests.

The report said the current population is around 430 animals on 19,000 acres.

The average herd produces fifteen to twenty percent foals every year, which means the advocates got rid of 65 to 85 horses in 2022, given that few if any foals have been born this year, twice as many as the Alpine shooters.

Who’s the greater threat to America’s wild horses?  The advocates or the shooters?

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Predecessor to Horse-Free Friday.

The subtitle of a column in Deseret News paints a dire picture of the American west:

“The rangelands can’t sustain the overlarge population of wild horses.  New homes is the next best option.”

Anyone with a basic understanding of the situation knows the writer is full of crap, a shill for the public-lands ranchers.

“A population crisis is spiraling out of control and resulting in tens of thousands of horses enduring starvation, extreme thirst, disease and death.”

“The BLM estimates 82,000 wild horses and burros endure horrendous struggles to survive on a landscape that can only sustain roughly 27,000 of them.”

“Horses are malnourished with their ribs and hip bones protruding.”

“The wild horse and burro overpopulation crisis is also detrimental to other wildlife.”

More horses than allowed by plan does not necessarily mean more horses than the land can support.

AMLs are small because most of the resources have been assigned to privately owned livestock.

Herd sizes doubling every four years?  Data from roundups don’t support that claim.

Foals typically represent fifteen to twenty percent of the horses captured, consistent with herd growth rates of ten to fifteen percent per year.

Horses starving?  The BLM usually doesn’t report body condition scores during roundups but if they did the numbers would show the horses are in good condition overall, corroborated by eyewitness accounts.

Too many animals in off-range holding?  Every one of them could be returned to their lawful homes by ending permitted grazing.  Several times over.

HR 9154, which would alter the AIP, will die in committee.  It is of no concern.

The goal remains the same: Get the horses off the range by any means necessary.

A statement at the end of Section 1.1 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Stone Cabin Complex says the AML of 40 must not be exceeded to achieve progress towards the Standards for Rangeland Health in accordance with the Mojave-Southern Great Basin RAC.

How can that be true when the BLM authorizes privately owned livestock equivalent to 134 wild horses in the HMA, on top of the 40 allowed by plan?

RELATED: How Many Wild Horses Can the Saulsbury HMA Support?

The HMA, part of the Stone Cabin Complex, consists of two parcels separated by the Monitor WHT.

Each parcel intersects one grazing allotment.  The northerly portion overlaps Hunts Canyon, on which cattle are permitted, and the southerly portion overlaps Ralston, which is idle.

The HMA covers 135,081 total acres, including 134,508 public acres.

The forty horses allowed by plan require 480 AUMs per year.

The stocking rate allowed by plan is 0.3 wild horses per thousand public acres, compared to a target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres

The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.

The Allotment Master Report provides acreage, management status and active AUMs for the two allotments.

Table 3 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Complex indicates that 72% of Hunts Canyon, and the forage assigned thereto, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the allotment, falls within the HMA.

The forage assigned to Hunts Canyon livestock inside the HMA is 1,611 AUMs per year, also shown in Table 3.

The forage shifted from horses to livestock in the Ralston portion of the HMA is zero.

The total estimated forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA is therefore 1,611 AUMs per year, enough to support and additional 134 wild horses, for a True AML of 174.

The current population is thought to be around 280, meaning that 106 excess horses are present, not 256 as indicated in Table 3.

With cattle receiving 3.4 times more forage than the horses, the HMA is managed primarily for livestock.

The government collects $2,175 per year in grazing fees from ranching activity inside the HMA, while it spends $244,550 per year to care for the 134 horses in short-term holding that could be returned to the range if the public-lands ranchers were confined to their base properties and expected to pay (OMG) the going rate to feed their animals.

RELATED: Stone Cabin Pest Control Plan Out for Public Review.

A new project has been created in ePlanning and the Draft EA has been copied to the document folder.

A letter soliciting public input for the scoping phase could not be found.

The project targets the Stone Cabin Complex in central Nevada, consisting of the Saulsbury and Stone Cabin HMAs, but not the Monitor WHT which lies in between.

The Proposed Action would remove excess animals with cruel and costly helicopter roundups, adjust sex ratios in favor of males, and apply population growth suppression such as safe, proven and reversible fertility control, gelding of stallions and IUDs, over a ten-year period.

The Complex is subject to permitted grazing.  Livestock in the Stone Cabin HMA receive 14,301 AUMs per year according to Table 3 of the EA, compared to 4,368 AUMs per year for the horses, at least on paper.

As the herd grows, the horses reclaim more and more of their food from the ranchers, upsetting the thriving ecological imbalance established by the bureaucrats.

The Proposed Action will shift resources back to the ranchers and keep them there.

The Complex has no HMAP.  If it did, livestock in the Stone Cabin HMA would still receive 3.3 times more forage than the horses.

The problem is resource management, not humane management.

The BLM news release said comments will be accepted until November 23.

A new project has been created in ePlanning but no documents have been posted.

The Proposed Action would conduct a bait trap removal of wild horses to reach the AML during the late fall/winter months, according to the description.

The HMA, in northern Wyoming, is subject to permitted grazing.

Efforts by the advocates to limit herd growth and keep the ranchers in the driver’s seat apparently have not been as successful as planned.

RELATED: McCullough Advocates Protect Livestock Not Wild Horses.

A Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trustee said today in a meeting of the Legislature’s Travel, Recreation and Cultural Resources Joint Committee that the animals can be particularly hard on forage and water supplies upon which other wild animals rely, according to a story provided by Cowboy State Daily.

Western Horse Watchers thought the reference was to privately owned livestock, but a keyword search of the article yielded these results:

• Cattle – 0 occurrences
• Sheep – 0
• Allotment – 0
• Permit – 0
• Grazing – 0
• AUM – 0
• Pasture – 0

Hunters must be the injured party, not ranchers!  Better luck next time.

The total now stands at 35, with 15 still missing and presumed dead, according to a report by KPHO News of Phoenix.

The increase was reported yesterday by The Epoch Times but the story was in their premium section so Western Horse Watchers didn’t link to it.

The loss is small compared to the number of wild horses eliminated each year by the advocates, especially the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses and its offshoots.

The article said the Forest Service continues to remove horses from the area with bait traps, a process that received attention in March with the Jumping Mouse roundup.

RELATED: Alpine Reward Jumps to $35,000.

The remains were found on the McCracken Wash Allotment, one of three such parcels between Bluff and Montezuma Creek, according to a story posted today by KSL News of Salt Lake City.

The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office is leading the investigation.

The allotment offers 950 AUMs per year on 15,323 public acres.  The resource can be accessed by one permittee.

Forage availability works out to 62 AUMs per year per thousand acres, enough to support five wild horses per thousand acres.

The BLM has maintained that public lands in the American west can only support one wild horse per thousand acres, on average.

RELATED: Wild Horses Found Dead in Southeast Utah.

In western Utah with Bob Quick’s Journey, might be Onaqui or Cedar Mountain.

The incident began on September 12.  No updates have been posted since October 12.

If this is the final report, 383 horses were captured, with three dead and two returned.

The number of horses shipped was not specified.

The death rate was 0.8%.

The number of horses removed was 381.

The percentage of foals is not known.

The percentages of males and females are not known.

The capture and removal goals are unknown.

The WHT is managed primarily for livestock.

RELATED: Fifth Annual Devil’s Garden Roundup Starts Next Month.

No, of course not, the advocates support it.

In the current edition of Horse Tales, page 7, the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses said the original Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act has been weakened by amendments that benefit private interests.

No disputing that.

But the proposed revamp, a thinly veiled attempt to substitute the Montana Solution for helicopter roundups, serves its interests!

Instead of tossing out “Appropriate Management Level,” an undefined term introduced in 1978 that favors the public-lands ranchers, the bill ratifies it.

Were you expecting something better from the advocates?

AMLs are small relative to the available resources because most of the food and water have been assigned to privately owned livestock.

The bureaucrats, and now the advocates, refer to the arrangement as a thriving natural ecological balance.

In the original statute, areas designated for wild horses were to be managed principally but not exclusively for them.  There was no provision for livestock.

This should be the goal of any new legislation, to be achieved by confining the ranchers to their base properties in a year-round off season.

There’s nothing natural about livestock grazing on public lands.  They’re not, and never were part of the North American ecosystem.

As for HR 9154, the advocates are extremely proud of the bill, according to the writer, and now they need the support of other members of Congress to protect these innocent animals (with a restricted-use pesticide).

RELATED: Whose Fingerprints on HR 9154?

The text defines surgical sterilization as a procedure involving an incision and either the removal of reproductive organs, or the alteration thereof, that makes an animal permanently incapable of producing offspring.

“Nothing in this Act authorizes the Secretary to surgically sterilize any wild free-roaming horse or burro for the purposes of on-range population management.”

Nothing in the bill prohibits the chemical sterilization of said animals, as may occur with four to five consecutive years of treatment with the Montana Solution.

Why?

Because that is the plan!

The advocates backing the self-serving bill want the ranchers to succeed, not the horses.

RELATED: HR 9154 Text Released, Finally.