Although there has been much angst over the last few months about the possible removal of wild horses from Theodore Roosevelt National Park, they have little historical significance.

The original wild horses of TRNP, thought to be descendants of Sitting Bull’s ponies, were removed by the Park Service over 20 years ago.

The herd you see today is only an exhibit.

Some of the horses were rescued by Frank and Leo Kuntz.  They called them Nokotas.

Their story was told in the 2011 film “Nokota Heart.”

Leo died in 2018.

Now, Frank, suffering from cancer as a result of serving in Vietnam, wonders who will care for his herd when he is gone.

One of the biggest problems is paying for hay, according to a story by INFORUM.

A GoFundMe has been started to help with expenses.

RELATED: Who Will Look After the Nokotas When Frank Is Gone?

The announcement, posted on the propaganda page hosted by Lucky Three Ranch, celebrates the fourth anniversary of the effort to snuff out new life on the Virginia Range, allowing the herd to die off at an increasing rate.

With a shrinking number of foals hitting the ground, the average age of the herd is increasing, along with the death rate.

Why are they doing this?

Nonsense!  Some land has been lost to development at TRIC, but not enough to justify a reduction in herd size from 3,000 to 600 or less, the whisper target mentioned in the March 7 SB90 hearing.

At a stocking rate of ten wild horses per thousand acres, the Virginia Range defies the carrying capacity narrative peddled by the bureaucrats and ranchers.

They want it erased and the advocates—their allies—are eager to comply.

How are they doing this?

They’re poisoning the mares with a restricted-use pesticide.

It’s not a vaccine.  It causes illness instead of preventing it.

It destroys the ovaries, usually within five years, resulting in sterility.  The damage begins with the first injection.

Effect on hormonal system?  Huge.

They are not keeping the horses wild and free.

They are not protecting them from removal.

They’re exterminating the herd with little if any fanfare, hoping you won’t notice.

What have they accomplished?

With the program moving into its fifth year, many of the mares are at risk of sterility.

They’ve enriched those in the PZP supply chain.

Their enmity toward the horses has caught the eye of the bureaucrats and ranchers.

With the current lull in gather activity, they’re leaders in the wild horse removal industry.

Nobody’s getting rid of more wild horses than CAAWH.

Not motorists, not tourists, not shooters, not helicopter pilots and wranglers, not drillers, miners and loggers.  Nobody.

RELATED: What’s So Important about the Virginia Range?

Horses have the day off.  At the Lake Pleasant HMA with Never2Late2Wander.

The Assateague Island Alliance counted 77 horses on the Maryland side of the island in April, including one new foal, down from 78 in February.

The Park Service reported 75 ponies in March.

The herd size has gone down since the safe, proven and reversible darting program was shut off in 2016.

RELATED: AIA Going Dark on Assateague Pony Census?

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses is now one of the major grazing rights holders in Douglas County, according to a story posted today by The Record-Courier of Minden, NV.

Christopher and Camille Bently and Bently Family LLC donated 757 acres.

Funding from others enabled the purchase 15 additional parcels amounting to 2,578 acres, for a total of 3,335 acres in the Pine Nut Mountains.

The article did not name the allotment to which the acreage is tied but Western Horse Watchers suspects it’s Buckeye.

It did not indicate if the group, a leader in the wild horse removal industry, would lease out the grazing preference to local ranchers, whose approval it seeks above all else.

Petitioning the BLM for a change in livestock type and season of use, to accommodate wild horses, is not compatible with its mission, which is to eradicate as many herds as possible with a restricted-use pesticide.

The following map from the National Data Viewer shows the Pine Nut Mountains HMA in orange, the HA in black and the Buckeye Allotment in green.

Contrary to what you read in the report, CAAWH has been working closely with the Pine Nut advocates for years, providing support for their safe, proven and reversible darting program, targeting the beloved mares of the Fish Springs herd.

The article did not say if Mary Cioffi, president of the group, real estate agent and PZP darter in the Fish Springs area, whose writings frequently appear in Horse Tales, brokered some or all of the deal.

Bently is the only son and heir of Don Bently, founder of Bently Nevada, manufacturer of sensors that monitor the condition of rotating equipment, among other things.

The Mount Lewis Field Office authorized the Proposed Action, according to a Decision Record dated April 7, clearing the way for an initial roundup of approximately 1,000 wild horses, followed by removal of 954.

Mares returned to the Complex would be treated with pesticides and/or IUDs.

Stallions would be released in numbers that skew the sex ratio in favor of males.

The Complex consists of three HMAs northwest of Eureka, NV and is subject to permitted grazing.

Curiously, one of the ranchers who testified against SB90 runs cattle in the area.

The Final EA and other related documents have been copied to the project folder.

The BLM’s response to comments begins in Section 17.0 of the Supplemental Information Report.

Approximately 3,600 form letters were received from followers of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, demanding the use of PZP, among other things, an indication of the malice of its leadership and brainwashing of its supporters.

Note that they didn’t refer to it as reversible.

Concerns about forage allocations, although valid, were outside the scope of the project, which was a resource enforcement decision, not an RMP amendment.

RELATED: Roberts Mountain Pest Control Plan Goes Public.

Near the Quik Stop in Fernley, NV, northeast corner of the Virginia Range.

The advocates rely on predators to take out any foals that slip through their darting programs, but the risk of encounter may be lower in populated areas.

The numbers are changing minute by minute.  What are the advocates up to now?

The comment period has been extended for two weeks.

The project will deliver a new HMAP for wild horse management, not wild horse preservation, effective for ten years.

RELATED: Specialized Approach Dropped from Pryor Management Plan?

The reference to the Virginia Range darting program was dropped from the preamble in yesterday’s work session.

The definition of wild mustang was also removed, suggesting that the state would continue to view the Virginia Range herd as estray livestock, with few if any protections.

The amended bill was posted to NELIS for public review.

The bill overview does not indicate the next step in the legislative process.

RELATED: SB90 Work Session Tomorrow.

The Park Service announced in an undated report that there were 75 wild horses on the Maryland side of the island last month, down from 76 a year ago.

The Assateague Island Alliance reported 78 animals in February.

The safe, proven and reversible darting program was shut off in 2016, and in the seven years since, the herd should have doubled in size, at least.

But the curve has been flat for the last five years, and slightly off aim.

The report did not indicate how many of the mares were sterile.

It did indicate an abnormal sex ratio, another byproduct of the Montana Solution, with mares outnumbering stallions 1.7 to 1.

The birth rate was 7.9%, barely enough to keep up with the death rate.

No new foals have hit the ground in 2023.

Like the advocates for the Currituck herd, park staff are pleading with visitors to keep their distance and protect expectant mares from undue stress, hopefully resulting in live births, a last-ditch effort to save the herds they ruined with a restricted-use pesticide.

RELATED: AIA Going Dark on Assateague Pony Census?

The meeting convenes at 3:30 PM in Carson City according to the agenda.

SB90 is not the only item on the agenda.

RELATED: Pesticide-Laced Darts Are Not the Perfect Symbol for Nevada!

At the Pryor Mountain WHR with Lori’s Travels.

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?

Storms that rolled across California over the past three months knocking down trees and dumping record-breaking snow in the Sierra also threatened cattle in Nevada, according to a story by the Elko Daily Free Press.

The animals drift with the wind, sometimes into rugged terrain where they can’t be reached.

Some operators are fearful of losing them.  After flying over his spread, one rancher said, “I don’t know how I’m going to get to them.”

Although ranchers can bring hay to stranded cattle, wild horses are on their own.

Food and water may be hard to find for the same reason BLM staff can’t get on the range to assess the damage: Everything’s buried under several feet of snow.

The advocates think you’re the ignoramus.

They couldn’t convert an AML to AUMs to save their lives, much less compute a forage allocation for livestock in an area set aside for wild horses, yet they know exactly how much adjuvant to add to the PZP and how long to mix them.

Why are you still giving them money?