There are three layers of forage demand within the HMA: Horses, wildlife and livestock.
The 210 horses allowed by plan require 2,520 AUMs per year.
The HMA covers 507,681 total acres, including 375,915 public acres, according to the March 2022 HA/HMA Report.
The stocking rate allowed by plan is 0.6 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Recall that low stocking rates may indicate large amounts of forage assigned to privately owned livestock.
The land must be able to produce at least 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres to support the horses.
The forage assigned to wildlife inside the HMA is unknown, but is probably small, maybe 200 to 300 AUMs per year.
The HMA intersects twelve grazing allotments, as noted previously.
The National Data Viewer shows thirteen, but one, the Pony Express Trail, has no active AUMs. It appears as a gray strip across the HMA in the map below.
The Allotment Master Report at RAS provides acreage, management status and active AUMs (Salt Lake City Field Office | Fillmore Field Office).
About two-thirds of the land is in the Improve category.
The allotments provide 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on average, 10.7 times more forage than the land can produce for the horses. For the most part, it’s the same land!
As the advocates get rid of the horses, the ranchers can get enjoy more of what their allotments have to offer.
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Western Horse Watchers Association 