In the January 4 article by SFGATE about horse-car collisions near Reno, Nevada Department of Agriculture Director J.J. Goicoechea put the carrying capacity of the Virginia Range at 500 to 600 wild horses, even though it’s been supporting around 3,000 for years.
At roughly 300,000 acres, the stocking rate is ten wild horses per thousand acres.
That’s what the bureaucrats don’t like about it. The area defies their carrying capacity narrative, namely, that western rangelands can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).
They repeat the lie to conceal their mismanagement of said rangelands: For every AUM assigned to wild horses, livestock receive three to five.
Let’s take a look at Goicoechea’s home range, the Newark Allotment. It’s a few miles east of Eureka, NV and overlaps the Triple B and Pancake HMAs.
The National Data Viewer shows the arrangement. Click on image to open in new tab.
Goicoechea receives a very modest 158 AUMs per year, a symbolic gesture that gins up support of the public-lands ranchers.
But the allotment offers 9,867 AUMs per year on 218,105 acres, or 45.2 AUMs per thousand acres, equivalent to 3.8 wild horses per thousand acres.
That’s almost four times higher than the carrying capacity lie!
The NDV does not show pastures within the allotment but given that it’s surrounded by HMAs, Goicoechea’s financial interests are likely affected.
In the old days we called that a conflict of interest.
RELATED: NDA Program to Reduce Horse-Car Collisions on Virginia Range?
Western Horse Watchers Association 