Story by KRNV News.
The facility is flooded with wild horses and burros because most of their food has been assigned to the public-lands ranchers.
RELATED: Challenge to SOWH Conferees.
Author: Western Horse Watchers
If PZP Is Reversible, Why Is the Assateague Herd Still Shrinking?
The rate of decline (slope of line) in the last few years is almost as great as when the pesticide was applied for population reduction.
RELATED: How to Find the 2024 Census Report for Assateague Island.
Caliente Trapping Begins
The incident started on April 16 with 29 horses captured, none shipped, none released and none dead.
RELATED: Caliente Roundup in Progress?
Public Lands in Wyoming Can’t Support 9,435 Wild Horses?
That’s the estimated population in the state according to the 2024 HA/HMA Report.
The land-use plans allow 3,795 wild horses on 3,644,013 public acres, or approximately one wild horse per thousand public acres.
BLM allotments in the state offer 1,902,445 active AUMs on 17,312,214 public acres, according to the Allotment Information Report at RAS.
That means they’re supporting privately owned livestock equivalent to 158,537 wild horses on 17,312,214 public acres, or 9.2 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Why is this important?
The bureaucrats and ranchers 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).
Given that the HMAs are a subset of the allotments, they should be able to support 10.2 wild horses per thousand public acres, or approximately 37,000 wild horses, four times higher than the current population.
For every wild horse allowed on Wyoming public lands, nine have been consigned to off-range holding because of permitted grazing.
The advocates use this disparity to peddle their fertility control programs, helping the bureaucrats realize their goal of ranching superiority in the lawful homes of wild horses.
NOTE: The active AUMs in the allotments can be found by adding the values in column Q of the unfiltered dataset. The total public acres can be found by filtering the list for duplicate entries in column A and adding the remaining values in column E.
RELATED: Why Are There So Many Wild Horses in Off-Range Holding?
If Beaver Creek Was Managed Principally for Wild Horses
The AML would be 1,188 and the stocking rate would be 15.8 animals per thousand public acres.
The allotment, located northwest of Wells, NV, offers 14,258 active AUMs on 75,139 public acres, according to the Allotment Master Report.
Why is this important?
The bureaucrats and ranchers 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 reinforce the story with their darting programs.
If it was an HMA, the AML would be 75 and 1,113 horses would be consigned to off-range holding because of permitted grazing.
RELATED: The Allotments Tell the Story: They’re Lying, All of Them.
A Penchant for Pesticides
We know from Assateague Island the fate of every wild horse herd where the advocates are involved, especially those identified for population reductions.
At the Salt River, the advocates need a zero percent birth rate and six percent death rate for ten consecutive years to achieve the goal.
The mares will be ruined after five years, setting the stage for collapse.
On the Virginia Range, the advocates need similar conditions for 30 years.
They can walk away after five years and let the herd implode.
This is the insidiousness of nonmotorized removal, attrition by pesticides.
Irreversible decline after the tipping point is reached.
The advocates won’t tell you the truth about PZP any more than they’ll talk about Assateague Island, an area they once praised as a paragon of wild horse management.
Don’t be confused if they refer to themselves as conservationists, influencers or experts.
They are phonies, allies of the ranchers, leaders of the blind.
RELATED: Latest Census Shows Assateague Herd Imploding.
Mustang Monday
At the southwest corner of the Virginia Range with Jennifer Fairbairn.
Colorado’s Wild Horse Refuge Seeks Ranch Hands
Two full-time openings exist according to the job posting at AgHires:
- General care of property, repairing fences, field/hay work, building gates/pens
- Monitoring herds, leading tours, cleaning rental house after visitors, photography
A husband-wife team would be ideal.
The facility, formerly Rio Ro Mo Ranch, covers approximately 22,500 acres near Craig.
Caliente Roundup in Progress?
Sort of. The incident started on April 2 but no horses have been captured.
They are currently adapting to the presence of the traps.
RELATED: Caliente Roundup Announced.
How to Find the 2024 Census Report for Assateague Island
It’s not at the wild horse page, which, as of today, still shows the report for 2023.
It does not appear on the Assateague news page.
It was buried among thousands of articles by NPS.
Go to the search page, type in Assateague and hit “Go.”
Then set the “Sort by” field to “Recently Updated.”
The report says the population is close to the goal range of 80-100 individuals, which is not true.
The herd has passed through the target range and continues to decline because too many mares have been ruined by the ovary-killing pesticide PZP, which the advocates peddle as a safe, proven and reversible vaccine.
They are the old guard, leaders of the blind, irrelevant.
RELATED: Latest Census Shows Assateague Herd Imploding.
Rhyolite Ridge Mine to Affect Silver Peak Burros, Livestock?
Today the BLM announced the start of a 45-day public comment period on a draft EIS for a proposed lithium mine in Nevada’s Silver Peak Range.
As of this evening, no new documents have been copied to the project folder.
The 2022 scoping overview puts the mine in the Silver Peak HMA, which overlaps the Silver Peak Allotment.
The HMA allows six wild burros on 239,801 public acres.
The allotment offers 1,530 active AUMs on 281,489 public acres, equivalent to 255 wild burros, on 281,489 public acres.
The land is not very useful from an agricultural viewpoint.
Lithium is used in batteries for electric vehicles, utilities, computers and mobile phones.
The advocates complain about habitat loss attributable to mining even though they, as believers in man-made climate change, vote for it.
Return of Caisson Platoon Delayed Indefinitely?
The commander of the Military District of Washington hesitated to use the term but would not commit to a specific timeframe, according to a story dated April 12 by AP News, saying only that the Army has every intention to resume operations of the horse-drawn carts during burial services at Arlington National Cemetery.
RELATED: Caisson Platoon Going on Hiatus.
Foal-Free Friday, More Bang for Your Buck Edition
A report distributed by ISPMB indicates that administration of the first dose of PZP before sexual maturity may cause infertility, according to a study by Knight & Rubenstein discussed on page 35. If you can’t access the file, click here.
Can you think of an easier way to make your darting resources go farther?
Females who have not yet reached puberty, which occurs 12 to 15 months after birth, could be sterilized with one injection.
You don’t have to stalk them for five years to finish them off.
This idea helps you to do more with less and will certainly get you noticed by the bureaucrats and ranchers.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Shooting the Messenger Edition.
Litmus Test for Wild Horse Advocacy Groups
If they cover the report by the Park Service about the condition of the herd on Assateague Island, they’re legit.
If they ignore it, they’re frauds.
Lake Pleasant Roundup, Day 63
The incident started on February 5. Results through April 7:
- Scope: Lake Pleasant HMA
- Target: Burros
- Type: Planned
- Method: Bait
- Goals: Gather 400, remove 400
- Captured: 247, up from 183 on Day 51
- Shipped: 180, no change from Day 51
- Released: None
- Deaths: 4, up from 3 on Day 51
- Average daily take: 3.9
- Unaccounted-for animals: 63
The figures above are based on the daily reports.
A jenny died on Day 55 after colliding with the trap.
The death rate is 1.6%.
The capture total includes 95 jacks, 124 jennies and 28 foals.
A freeze-marked horse was caught on Day 61 and returned to its owner.
Youngsters represented 11.3% of the animals gathered.
Of the adults, 43.4% were male and 56.6% were female.
The HA and HMA are the same size. The area is subject to permitted grazing.
- Forage liberated to date: 1,482 AUMs per year
- Water liberated to date: 1,235 gallons per day
There are no plans to treat any of the jennies with fertility control pesticides and return them to the range.
The roundup targets animals that are damaging private property and creating a public safety hazard, purposes for which PZP was not authorized.
The incident supports three tenets of rangeland management.
RELATED: Lake Pleasant Roundup, Day 51.
Assateague Island Prefigures Salt River, Virginia Range
The Save Our Wild Horses conference starts next week in Reno against a backdrop of the largest wild horse sterilization effort in the nation.
Volunteers with the Campaign Against America’s Wild horses are driving the breeding population into the single digits, with 11 foals born this year to a herd of almost 3,500.
Many of the mares are at risk of sterility.
The same is true at the Salt River in Arizona, where CAAWH facilitates another wild horse eradication program.
Both herds will reach the tipping point this year, a threshold passed by the Assateague herd over ten years ago.
With too many nonviable mares, the herd is imploding and the only way to save it is to bring in horses from other areas.
RELATED: If PZP Is Reversible, Why Hasn’t Assateague Herd Rebounded?
Latest Census Shows Assateague Herd Imploding
An undated report by the Park Service indicates the population in March was 73, including 30 stallions and 43 mares, down from 75 in March of last year and 76 in March 2022.
Ten deaths and eight births were recorded since the last report.
For years the advocates pointed to the herd as a model of wild horse management.
Now they’ve swept it under the rug because it contradicts their lies about PZP.
The herd exhibits characteristics for which the pesticide is famous:
- Sterile mares
- Abnormal sex ratio
- Tiny breeding population
- Increasing death rate
- Irreversible decline
This is what the advocates want for all wild horse herds.
RELATED: No Growth for Assateague Herd in Latest Census.
Why Are There So Many Wild Horses in Off-Range Holding?
Because most of their food has been assigned to the public-lands ranchers, not because the advocates haven’t implemented enough darting programs.
WITHOUT DARTING PROGRAMS
- Goal: Ranching superiority in the lawful homes of wild horses
- Forage allocations: 20% to horses, 80% to livestock
- Result: For every wild horse allowed on public lands, four have been consigned to off-range holding
- Who foots the bill: Taxpayers
WITH DARTING PROGRAMS
- Goal: Ranching superiority in the lawful homes of wild horses
- Forage allocations: 20% to horses, 80% to livestock
- Result: For every wild horse allowed on public lands, four have been consigned to off-range holding
- Who foots the bill: Taxpayers
Darting programs change the method of removal, with the added benefit that the herds don’t bounce back.
Thus, the advocates do a better job of achieving the long-term goal than the helicopter pilots and wranglers.
Advocates Anxious to Renew VR Darting Agreement?
Absolutely! This is the year they push the herd over the cliff.
The Campaign Against America’s Wild horses said in its March update that a goal for April is to renew the cooperative agreement with NDA to continue reducing the wild horse population on the Virginia Range.
As the effort moves into its sixth year, many of the mares are at risk of sterility.
This is the point of no return, the time when the herd begins to shrink, irreversibly.
Mustang Monday
Horses have the day off. At the Lake Pleasant HMA with Randy Donahoo.
Western Horse Watchers Association 