The bureaucrats and ranchers will be slobbering over each other today in a luncheon hosted by the Public Lands Council.
The event is part of the 2023 PLC Annual Meeting.
The winners of the Rangeland Stewardship Award, Permittee Category, divided the Apex Slope Allotment into ten pastures and implemented grazing practices better adapted to changing conditions and pasture rotations based on rangeland health, according to a BLM news release dated September 5.
Although the work contributed to improved watershed function, wildlife habitat, forage diversity and habitat resilience, the Allotment Master Report puts it in the Improve category, failure to meet standards for rangeland health.
The allotment offers 622 active AUMs on 12,953 public acres, or 48 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, equivalent to four wild horses per thousand public acres.
These same individuals insist that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).
The winners of the Rangeland Innovation Award, Permittee Category, have used holistic resource management for over thirty years, consistently adjusting livestock numbers to changes in climatic and vegetative conditions, and have implemented temporary non-renewable grazing suited for positive resource conditions, higher precipitation years and increased biomass.
The allotment, not named in the announcement but determined through RAS, is MT04903-HRM, managed by the Billings Field Office.
The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Maintain category, meeting standards for rangeland health.
The allotment offers a whopping 1,752 active AUMs on 6,734 public acres, or 260 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, equivalent to over 21 wild horses per thousand public acres!
It’s a gold mine.
And how much does the BLM collect in royalties? Five cents on the dollar or less.
Like Cinderella, some advocates, especially those affiliated with the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in nonmotorized removal, yearn to attend an event like this and be respected and admired by the cattlemen and their allies.
Perhaps they will.
They might be invited guests.
Western Horse Watchers Association 