The WHB Act no longer affords the protections she sought, most of the resources go to privately owned livestock and the advocacy groups offer no meaningful resistance.

The Salt River horses live in the Tonto National Forest but are managed at the state level.  There is no Salt River WHT.

Human involvement, including darting and feeding, has, in effect, turned their range into a sanctuary.

Why can’t the horses fend for themselves?  If food is scarce, why don’t they move to greener pastures?  What’s on the other side of the fence?

A summary of grazing activity in Arizona forests during 2016, the most recent year for which the Forest Service has provided data, yields the following results:

• Forage to cattle: 924,099 AUMs
• Forage to sheep and goats: 25,129 AUMs
• Forage to wild horses and burros: 10,427 AUMs

Horses and burros receive 1.1% of the total, which may not include the Salt River herd.

Are the horses constrained by other mandated uses of public lands?  If so, why isn’t the ‘advocacy’ group talking about it?

RELATED: Saving the Salt River Horses by Getting Rid of Them.

In 2019, more than 100 foals were born.  Last year, only 16 were born and this year the ‘advocates’ hope for even better results, according to a story posted yesterday by FOX10 News of Phoenix.

The multi-dimensional program includes darting and feeding.

As usual, the effort focuses on the horses, not on the causes of their removal from their home range.

Contraceptives have short-term and long-term effects.  Unlike the Covid vaccines, where some acute effects have been documented while the chronic effects are mostly unknown, the short-term and long-term effects of PZP are known but are usually glossed over or dismissed by the PZP zealots.

With this much human involvement, the Salt River horses are no longer wild, they are a carefully curated exhibit.

Go see them before they’re gone.

RELATED: Success on the Salt River.

UPDATE: Added video.

Clear-cutting will not be needed in the Designated Area, according to the Bureau of Livestock on Mars, allowing the project to move to the next step, which is seeding.

The rover has identified some water sources but more will be needed.  With most of the grazing fees plowed back into the program for range improvements, the goal should easy to achieve.

“Although pinyons and junipers crowd out some forage,” said one rancher, “what we really want is access to areas previously off limits.”  He added that “Seeding boosts forage availability and stocking rates much more effectively than clear cutting.”

“Those fuels reduction programs are bogus,” said another.

As for the RMP, the ranchers want at least 95% of the resources assigned to livestock, with the balance reserved for wildlife, especially big game.

“The WHB Act should be restricted to Earth,” said one of the wranglers.  “Margins are paper thin up here and we can’t afford any losses to wild horses.”

RELATED: ‘Perseverance’ Tests Martian Soil.

The BLM sells about 12 million AUMs annually on 155 million acres.  At current prices, the government receives about $16 million per year, a small offset to the cost of the WHB program, which is operated mostly for the benefit of the public-lands ranchers.

A summary of grazing activity on Forest Service lands in 2016, the most recent year for which the agency has published data, shows sales of about seven million AUMs annually on 102 million acres, for an income of roughly $9 million per year at current prices.

In total, privately owned livestock receive 19 million AUMs per year on about 250 million acres of public lands, allowing for some overlap in jurisdictions.

The ranchers would have to place 3.2 million cow/calf pairs on those lands to consume 19 million AUMs in a six month grazing season, for a stocking rate of 12.8 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres.

At current herd sizes, wild horses and burros are consuming about one million AUMs per year on slightly more than ten percent of the land.

The current stocking rate is less than four animals per thousand acres.

The target rate is one animal per thousand acres, suggesting that resource availability and productivity improve dramatically when areas are designated for livestock.

That was before it was T-boned by a gravel truck, eleven miles north of the Mexican border.  How many of them were here legally?

UPDATE: A report dated March 3 says it was a migrant smuggling operation.

Many permittees own land and appurtenances known as a ‘base property.’  Grazing privileges on public lands are usually tied to base properties, which may include other assets such as water rights.

Where do livestock go during the off season?  Where would they go if AUMs on public lands had to be curtailed because of a fire or drought?  Back to the base property and/or rented pastures, where the ranchers would have to pay market rates to feed them.

The 4M Ranch, a sponsor of the Meeker Mustang Makeover and probable beneficiary of wild horses thus adopted, has almost 12,000 acres of deeded lands which, presumably, secure its grazing privileges on 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service lands.

Hay production on the ranch, about 1,200 tons annually, would support 240 cow/calf pairs, assuming they consume five tons per year per pair (25 to 30 pounds per day).

Forage on the deeded acres would support another 100 cow/calf pairs, assuming a stocking rate of eight pairs per thousand acres.

Additional food can be imported (at going rates) if a larger number of animals is desired.  No more dependence on government, no more slurping at the public trough.

Yes, it’s a radical idea—confining them to their own property.  Nobody has ever been expected to do that.

RELATED: Sponsor of Meeker Mustang Makeover or Beneficiary?.

It does not mean the carrying capacity of the land has been exceeded, not even close.

It means more horses than allowed by plan, too many resources lost to animals that bring in no economic return.

The resources are there.  In most cases there are no ‘excess’ horses.  There is no basis for a roundup or fertility control program.  Most of the ‘advocacy’ groups are clueless.

The problem is resource management—the plans—which typically allocate four to five times as much food to privately owned livestock as they do to wild horses, on lands identified for the horses.

One of the event’s sponsors is 4M Ranch.

The Operator Information report in RAS, for the State of Colorado, Northwest District, White River Field Office, gives an address in Meeker, along with authorization numbers 0505793 and 0505794.

The Allotment Information report ties the authorization numbers to the River and Little Toms Draw allotments.

The Allotment Master report puts Little Toms in the Improve category and River in the Custodial category (condition unknown).  Western Horse Watchers is unable to explain how it qualifies for Custodial.

The principal of 4M Ranch is Craig Macnab, according to a Bizapedia report.

A 1985 announcement in The New York Times suggests that he’s married to Deirdre Macnab, the woman who said that genetic viability of wild horses is threatened by increasing herd sizes.

A 2016 report by the Rio Blanco Herald Times says the ranch was purchased in 2015 for $9.5 million.  It covers 11,870 deeded acres and has grazing preference on more than 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.  The allotment master report accounts for only a small fraction of the total acreage.

The ranch has 800 acres of hay meadows and supports up to 1,000 cow/calf pairs, for a stocking rate of eight cow/calf pairs per thousand acres.  The aimed-at stocking rate across all HMAs is one wild horse per thousand acres.

To say that the Macnabs have only a passing interest in wild horses would be a gross understatement.

RELATED: Meeker Mustang Makeover Seeks Trainers and Adopters.

Cancellation of the project is not necessarily a bad thing, according to climate czar John Kerry, because the workers will be able to “make solar panels” instead of an oil pipeline.

The incident reflects a belief not in the primacy of the individual but in the preeminence of government.

Multiple samples failed to meet standards for rangeland health so the Designated Area was immediately placed into the Improve category.  No major problems are expected, however, as there are many such areas in the western U.S., even where horses have been zeroed out.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Livestock on Mars said an RMP and EIS are in the works but they will not be put out for public review because grazing is “too important” for the red planet’s fledgling economy.

He went on to say that retraining cattle ranchers for other roles, such as solar techs, would be “darn near impossible.”

The spacecraft carried the historic first doses of PZP to the surface, so the ranchers can get out in front of the horse problem before it even gets started.  Clipboards and darting rifles will be delivered in a subsequent mission.

RELATED: ‘Perseverance’ on Mars, Stakes Claim for Public-Lands Ranchers.