The allotment offers 3,325 AUMs per year on 186,083 public acres, as noted last week.
Is that good or bad?
Forage availability works out to 17.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, enough to support 1.5 cow/calf pairs, or 1.5 wild horses, per thousand public acres.
That’s not very much, when you realize the Virginia Range is carrying ten, or at least it did before the advocates got involved.
For comparison, the allotments in Sand Wash Basin HMA offer a weighted average 117.6 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, enough to support an additional 9.8 wild horses per thousand public acres, on top of the 2.4 wild horses allowed by plan.
This is what sinks the overpopulation narrative, repeated constantly by the advocates, not by what they say but by what they do.
The limited amount of forage on Majuba explains why the Antelope Range HA was zeroed out and why the doctrine of multiple use goes out the window in such cases.
Western Horse Watchers Association 