Mount Vernon Base Property Available for $17.45 Million

Sproul Ranch covers 15,911 deeded acres in eastern Oregon, with grazing preference on five Forest Service allotments, for a total of 68,284 acres.

The allotments offer 3,058 AUMs per year on 52,373 acres according to the agent’s brochure, equivalent to 255 wild horses.

The stocking rate would be 4.9 wild horses per thousand acres.

The ranch meets the basic requirements for a wild horse refuge.

The brochure includes a map of each allotment, all within the Malheur National Forest.

Wild horses can be placed on public lands not identified for their use by acquiring base properties tied to one or more grazing allotments and flipping the preference to horses.

BLM Could Change Course at Salt Wells Creek

What if they decided to get rid of the herd with PZP?

A sigh of relief would go up from the advocates.

They might offer to do it for free.

The ranchers would have to be patient.

But the horses would be gone for good, a result that can’t be achieved with helicopters.

Mustang Monday

At the Salt River with Mark Storto.

The image at 0:45 tells you why there are no foals.

Axtell Public Tour Set for July 7

The event runs from 9 AM to noon according to the BLM news release.

The privately owned facility gained media attention earlier this year when burros taken in the Canyonlands roundup died while in custody.

The facilities report indicates that 921 burros and 1,119 horses were present as of June 22.

If Wild Horses Had Principal Use of Independence

The allotment is on the east side of Independence Mountain in northern Colorado.

The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Custodial category, condition unknown.

The permittee receives 809 active AUMs on 2,610 public acres. equivalent to 67 wild horses, or 25.7 wild horses per thousand public acres.

Your faithful public servants claim that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (25,500 animals on 25.6 million acres).

The advocates, allies of the bureaucrats and ranchers, bolster the narrative with their darting programs.

The allotment is too small to be an HMA but if it was, the AML would be 3 and 64 wild horses would be consigned to off-range holding because of permitted grazing.

BLM allotments in the state support livestock equivalent to 49,546 wild horses on 7,448,367 public acres, or 6.7 wild horses per thousand public acres.

Wild horses can be placed on public lands not identified for their use by acquiring base properties associated with grazing allotments and flipping the preference to horses.

Foal-Free Friday, Lowering the Bar Edition

The advocates are trying to sell mass sterilization as a humane alternative to motorized removal.

On the Virginia Range, they’re using PZP to shrink the herd by 80% because 10% of their land has been identified for development.

The stated reason is habitat loss but the real reason is to bring the herd in line with the carrying capacity narrative on public lands: No more than one or two wild horses per thousand acres.

Instead of acting as guardians of wild horses, the advocates have thrown in with their enemies.

The inevitable result is extermination.

Should Hearings on Motorized Removal Include the Reasons for Motorized Removal?

Apparently not.

A keyword search of a BLM blog post about the May 6 hearing yielded these results:

Allotment – No occurrences
Permit – 0
Grazing – 0
Livestock – 0
Forage – 0
AUM – 0
RMP – 0

Some individuals argued for greater use of fertility control, which the agency recognizes as an important management tool for slowing population growth but not for reducing wild horse and burro overpopulation.

An area is said to be overpopulated when the herd exceeds the low end of AML but is far from the carrying capacity of the land.

Kiger/Riddle Dropped from Latest Schedule

Muddy Creek and Piute Mountain have been added to emergency/nuisance section of the July 1 update but Kiger and Riddle Mountain have been removed from 4Q25.

Advocates Setting the Standard for Herd Management?

Their method is flawed and they know it.

You cannot use PZP for population reduction without sterilizing the mares, yet they want it to become the standard for herd management.

How stupid do you have to be to accept this as wild horse conservation?

Montgomery Pass Foal Found Dead Near Mono Lake

Investigators determined that it died from a gunshot wound.

A $7,000 reward has been offered according to a BLM news release.

The nonprofit pledging $5,000 routinely shoots mares with pesticide-laced darts.

Another Muddy Creek Emergency Roundup?

The incident will begin on July 10 according to the news release.

The capture and removal goals are 150 each.

The current population is thought to exceed 400.

Horses will be pushed into the trap by a helicopter.

Operations will be open to public observation.

Captured animals will be taken to the Axtell off-range corrals.

There are no plans to treat any of the mares with fertility control pesticides and return them to the range.

A link to the gather page was not given.

The HMA is subject to permitted grazing.

The announcement did not indicate if the grazing season would be curtailed and if any AUMs would be moved from active to suspended as a result of the drought.