How Many Wild Horses Can the East Range HA Support?

It’s the second of three areas identified for wild horses in the East Pershing Complex that’s now managed principally for livestock.

Table 9 in the Final EA for pest control and resource enforcement indicates seven allotments that intersect the HA.

The figures for overlap in the last column seem reasonable based on inspection of the parcels in the National Data Viewer.

The NDV indicates that the northern half of the HA is mostly checkerboard lands while the southern half is mostly public lands.

The Allotment Master Report provides management status, acreage and active AUMs.

Around 55% of the public lands are in the Improve category.

The condition of Klondike is unknown.  The custodial category is usually reserved for allotments covering a small percentage of public lands.

Low forage density in Star Peak and Dolly Hayden suggests they are not very useful from a grazing viewpoint.  Rawhide may be recovering from overuse, wildfire or some other deficiency.

The forage assigned to livestock inside the HA is 15,356 AUMs per year, equivalent to 1,280 wild horses.  The current AML is zero so the True AML would be 1,280.

The HA covers 451,904 total acres, including 321,328 public acres, so the stocking rate at the new AML would be four wild horses per thousand public acres.

This brings great embarrassment to land managers who for years have stated that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).

These same managers collect 15,356 × 1.35 = $20,730 per year from ranching activity inside the HA, while spending 1,280 × 5 × 365 = $2,336,000 per year caring for the horses displaced thereby.

Would you say that’s a wise use of the public lands?

A 160-acre checkerboard parcel inside the HA and Dolly Hayden allotment was offered for sale earlier this year.  The listing included photos of wild horses.

The EA and related documentation can be found in the project folder at ePlanning.

RELATED: How Many Wild Horses Can the Sonoma Range HA Support?