Clan Alpine Pest Control Plan Out for Public Review

A story dated June 16 by KOLO News indicated that the project had moved to document review and that a Draft EA had been released for public consumption.

Western Horse Watchers was unable to find an announcement at the BLM news site.

Table 3 describes four options for wild horse management.

The Proposed Action, Alternative 1, features gathers and removals in and around the HMA to achieve low AML, sex ratio skewing in favor of males and poisoning of females with ovary-killing pesticides, over a ten-year period.

The final decision, the last major step in the process, could authorize the Proposed Action or a combination of elements from other alternatives, such as castration and ovariectomy.

The goal of this and other such projects is to ensure that ranchers receive their allocated share of the food and water on a day-in/day-out basis.

The HMA covers 302,226 total acres in central Nevada, including 298,064 public acres, according to the latest HA/HMA Report.

The AML, representing the number of horses allowed by plan, not the number of horses the land can support, ranges from 612 to 979.

Forage demand at the upper end of AML works out to 11,748 AUMs per year.

The stocking rate at the upper limit is 3.3 wild horses per thousand public acres, considerably higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).

The HMA intersects three allotments, described in Table 1 of the EA.

The “Livestock AUMs” column shows headcounts, not authorized forage.

The National Data Viewer shows the arrangement. Click on image to open in new tab.