Nearly 120 million acres according to the Public Lands Council, with grazing privileges on more than 250 million acres managed by the USFS and BLM.
Consider the new off-range corrals north of Winnemucca.
If a private owner can care for 4,000 horses on 100 acres, the ranchers should be able to maintain 4.8 billion (4,800,000,000) cow/calf pairs on their deeded acreage.
There’s no need for permitted grazing!
Why do they want access to public lands? Why do they view it as their birthright?
Profit, greed. It’s a gravy train, a government giveaway.
They pay pennies on the dollar to feed their animals, compared to the Winnemucca corrals, which are subsidized by taxpayers.
Solution? Confine the ranchers to their (multi-million-dollar) base properties, which they’re already doing, but make the off-season twelve months per year and let them pay the going rate to feed their animals.
As a result, AMLs can be increased and the landmass identified for wild horses and burros in 1971 (around 53 million acres) can be managed principally for them, as specified in the original statute.
RELATED: Winnemucca Base Property Hits Market for $11.2 Million.
Western Horse Watchers Association 