He did not imply that drillers and miners were the greatest threat to said animals
He did not try to sell mass sterilization as wild horse conservation
However, he did give considerable airtime to Christi Chapman, co-founder of the Wyoming Wild Horse Improvement Partnership, who, according to an undated brochure posted by the state legislature, was raised in a ranching lifestyle, received a formal education in soils and livestock production and has worked in the agriculture industry for over 20 years.
Volunteers with WYWHIP are certified in the remote delivery of PZP and are active in the Stewart Creek HMA, earning the nonprofit a spot on the list of charlatans.
He was taken off the beach and treated for colic but last week his condition went south so they put him down according to a report by The Outer Banks Voice.
They said he lived the kind of life they want for every foal born on the beach but did not mention the declining number of foals born on the beach or anywhere else, thanks to their use of PZP, so the long-term prospects for the herd remain uncertain.
Your faithful public servants claim that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (25,600 animals on 25.6 million acres according to the last page in the 2025 population dataset).
A simple way to apply this rule is to round the acreage to the nearest thousand and drop the last three digits.
For example, Thirty Mile Spring, an allotment in eastern Nevada, covers 178,716 public acres.
If it was an HMA, the AML would be 179.
Acreage rounded to the nearest thousand = 179,000
Remainder after dropping the last three digits = 179
The permittee receives 8,405 active AUMs (per year), equivalent to 700 wild horses.
Thus, the horse population would be held to approximately 25% of carrying capacity, with 75% devoted to livestock, which means 700 – 179 = 521 wild horses would be consigned to off-range holding because of permitted grazing.
The advocates like the arrangement and want it enforced with ovary-killing pesticides, not low-flying helicopters.
The Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act would phase out the use of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft for rounding up free-roaming horses and burros, a practice that leads to population growth according to the advocates.
The alternative would likely be long-term use of immunocontraceptives, sometimes referred to as mass sterilization, a service they provide.
The bill would not link Appropriate Management Level, an undefined concept in the statute, to principal use.
The allotment covers 81,960 public acres but there is only one pasture so it may operate as a general use area shared by two permittees, with cattle and sheep moving across the land as specified in the AMR.
The actual arrangement is unknown.
If free-roaming horses replaced cattle, the other permittee would still be entitled to graze sheep.
The advocates may never make such a request as they have been working for years to cement their relationship with the bureaucrats and ranchers.
Thus, the land ratio is very good. Up to 81,960 public acres can be accessed through the acquisition of 944 deeded acres.
Unfortunately, the allotment overlaps the Pine Nut Mountains HA, an area that could be returned to the horses not by spending millions of dollars on a base property but by purging the bureaucracy of ranchers and ranching sympathizers and overturning the planning process that zeroed it out.
A refuge should increase territory for wild horses while decreasing lands occupied by livestock.
In summary, the allotment satisfies two of four requirements for a refuge:
If the project moves ahead and the cattlemen are howling, along with their cheerleaders, it might be worthy of your support.
The Authorization Use Report shows their portion is still permitted for cattle with a 5.5 month grazing season.
Western Horse Watchers does not know if the advocates have asked the BLM to change the livestock type to horses and the grazing season to 12 months, turning the area into a refuge for up to 122 equines.
Western Horse Watchers Association 