The writer of a column in today’s edition of The Nevada Independent argues the real problem is not too many horses but loss of habitat.
The lack of Herd Management Area Plans threatens all animals on the range, while allowing for a growing presence of profit-driven industries.
This is nonsense. The land is still there.
Nothing except Herd Management Area Plans will protect the habitats of wild horses and all the animals that live there, according to the author, who linked to a BLM Handbook that refutes her claim!
If privately owned livestock, not mentioned in the column, receive 80% of the authorized forage in an area set aside for wild horses, the driver of the roundups and downstream programs, including the stockpiling of captured animals, that specification, and the consequences thereof, will be reflected in the new HMAP.
HMAPs are useless without changes to the RMPs!
The writer also endorses HR 6635, the ridiculous helicopter ban, that won’t stop the flow of horses off the range because it doesn’t touch the RMPs and the beliefs, attitudes and priorities of those who write them.
RELATED: The Three R’s of HMAPs.
Western Horse Watchers Association 