Consider the Eighteen Mile Allotment, located within the Little Colorado HMA, which offers 18,994 active AUMs on 228,494 public acres according to the Allotment Master Report.
A simple way to compare the management of the HMA with the management of the allotment is with these relationships:
Equivalent horses = Active AUMs ÷ 12
Equivalent stocking rate = Active AUMs ÷ 12 ÷ (Public acres ÷ 1,000)
The allotment, a subset of the HMA, supports livestock equivalent to 1,583 wild horses.
Equivalent horses = 18,994 ÷ 12 = 1,583
The HMA, consisting of 525,421 public acres according to the 2024 population dataset, can only sustain 100 wild horses.
The allotment carries livestock equivalent to 6.9 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Equivalent stocking rate = 18,994 ÷ 12 ÷ (228,494 ÷ 1,000) = 6.9
The HMA can only sustain 0.2 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Stocking rate = 100 ÷ (525,421 ÷ 1,000) = 0.2
Land that can only support 0.2 wild horses per thousand public acres supports livestock equivalent to 6.9 wild horses per thousand public acres.
You cannot have more than 100 wild horses in the entire HMA but you can have livestock equivalent to 1,583 wild horses in an area corresponding to 43% of it.
How is this possible?
They’re lying.
They tell us 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 advocates bolster the narrative with their HMAPs and darting programs.
They want the ranchers to win.
The allotment accounts for 1,583 wild horses in off-range holding.
The roundups and stockpiling of wild animals in government feedlots are symptoms of resource mismanagement, not inadequate carrying capacity.
The problem is man made.
RELATED: Thriving Ecological Imbalance at Little Colorado HMA.
Western Horse Watchers Association 