As noted last week, the overlapping allotments offer a weighted average 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on top of the 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres allocated to the horses.
The HMA covers 375,915 public acres.
The forage assigned to livestock dwarfs the forage assigned to the horses.
This is why True AMLs are so much larger than current AMLs. They represent the carrying capacities if HMAs were managed principally for wild horses, as specified in the original statute.
This also explains why the off-range corrals and long-term pastures are flooded with “excess” animals: Most HMAs are managed primarily for livestock.
All of the so-called solutions, including fertility control, adoptions, training and sanctuaries, not to mention the Wild Horse Fire Brigade, with which a growing percentage of the intelligentsia have been duped, ignore this basic truth.
The total estimated forage availability inside the HMA, neglecting wildlife, is (6.7 + 71.9) × 375,915 ÷ 1,000 = 29,547 AUMs per year, enough to support 2,462 wild horses.
That is your True AML, over ten times larger than the current AML.
The stocking rate at the True AML would be 6.5 wild horses per thousand public acres, a little more than half of the rate on the Virginia Range.
Onaqui is another counterexample that defies the carrying capacity narrative of the bureaucrats and ranchers, which the advocates support, not by words but by deeds.
Why are they silent about this? You’d realize that fertility control isn’t necessary and that the mares are being poisoned for the benefit of the ranchers.
RELATED: How Many Allotments Overlap Onaqui Mountain HMA?
Western Horse Watchers Association 