The meeting convenes at 3:30 PM in Carson City according to the agenda.
SB90 is not the only item on the agenda.
RELATED: Pesticide-Laced Darts Are Not the Perfect Symbol for Nevada!
Author: Western Horse Watchers
Mustang Monday
At the Pryor Mountain WHR with Lori’s Travels.
How Many Wild Horses Can the Onaqui Mountain HMA Support?
As noted last week, the overlapping allotments offer a weighted average 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on top of the 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres allocated to the horses.
The HMA covers 375,915 public acres.
The forage assigned to livestock dwarfs the forage assigned to the horses.
This is why True AMLs are so much larger than current AMLs. They represent the carrying capacities if HMAs were managed principally for wild horses, as specified in the original statute.
This also explains why the off-range corrals and long-term pastures are flooded with “excess” animals: Most HMAs are managed primarily for livestock.
All of the so-called solutions, including fertility control, adoptions, training and sanctuaries, not to mention the Wild Horse Fire Brigade, with which a growing percentage of the intelligentsia have been duped, ignore this basic truth.
The total estimated forage availability inside the HMA, neglecting wildlife, is (6.7 + 71.9) × 375,915 ÷ 1,000 = 29,547 AUMs per year, enough to support 2,462 wild horses.
That is your True AML, over ten times larger than the current AML.
The stocking rate at the True AML would be 6.5 wild horses per thousand public acres, a little more than half of the rate on the Virginia Range.
Onaqui is another counterexample that defies the carrying capacity narrative of the bureaucrats and ranchers, which the advocates support, not by words but by deeds.
Why are they silent about this? You’d realize that fertility control isn’t necessary and that the mares are being poisoned for the benefit of the ranchers.
RELATED: How Many Allotments Overlap Onaqui Mountain HMA?
More Wild Horses Lost This Winter Than Usual?
Storms that rolled across California over the past three months knocking down trees and dumping record-breaking snow in the Sierra also threatened cattle in Nevada, according to a story by the Elko Daily Free Press.
The animals drift with the wind, sometimes into rugged terrain where they can’t be reached.
Some operators are fearful of losing them. After flying over his spread, one rancher said, “I don’t know how I’m going to get to them.”
Although ranchers can bring hay to stranded cattle, wild horses are on their own.
Food and water may be hard to find for the same reason BLM staff can’t get on the range to assess the damage: Everything’s buried under several feet of snow.
Every Day Is April Fool’s Day in the Wild Horse World
The advocates think you’re the ignoramus.
They couldn’t convert an AML to AUMs to save their lives, much less compute a forage allocation for livestock in an area set aside for wild horses, yet they know exactly how much adjuvant to add to the PZP and how long to mix them.
Why are you still giving them money?
AIA Going Dark on Assateague Pony Census?
The lists are updated monthly, according to statement at their census page, but there was no update for March.
The herd has been ruined by the Montana Solution.
The Park Service no longer provides census results.
RELATED: Assateague Pony Census, February 2023.
Ego Has No Place in Wild Horse Advocacy?
Lies have no place in wild horse preservation and the advocates are famous for them.
What can you do right now to help America’s wild horses? Stop giving them money!
Horses in America Before Arrival of Europeans?
Oral histories of native peoples, dismissed as folklore, say they were.
Now, research suggests that horses were distributed across indigenous communities from Wyoming to Kansas generations before European accounts established their presence, according to a story dated March 31 by The Hill.
The team performed genetic and radiocarbon testing on previously untested horse skeletons in museums and held by tribal nations, finding dozens of examples of horses in these communities that had been ridden, fed by humans and even received veterinary care long before European accounts allow for them having horses at all.
One of the investigators argued in her 2017 thesis that there was no actual evidence “scientific or otherwise” to disprove Native American oral histories of horse cultures that predated Spanish arrival.
Empirical conclusions can’t be proven like theorems in geometry—they are always subject to the test of future experience—but to accumulate enough evidence to cast doubt on the prevailing narrative would have a devastating effect on the ranching agenda, where horses and other native animals have been pushed aside on public lands across the American west to accommodate millions of nonnative cattle and sheep.
American Prairie Acquires Another Base Property
This report by the Billings Gazette parallels a news release from American Prairie.
The property covers 4,960 total acres southwest of Malta, MT, including 3,075 deeded acres, 1,245 BLM acres and 640 state acres, according to the listing on Land & Farm.
The BLM land lies within the North Wild Horse Allotment, adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.
The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Custodial category, with 1,142 public acres and 143 active AUMs per year, enough to support twelve wild horses.
The Authorization Use Report shows a year-round grazing season.
American Prairie did not indicate if it would petition the BLM for a change in livestock type, to allow bison on the allotment instead of cattle.
RELATED: American Prairie Using Leverage to Achieve Conservation Goals.
Specialized Approach Dropped from Pryor Management Plan?
The preliminary plan noted that management of the WHR can be more specialized than that of most HMAs, but the concept has vanished from the preliminary EA now out for public review, according to a report dated March 30 by The Sheridan Press.
Strict adherence to BLM guidance has changed the document from specialized to standardized, similar to plans for wild horse areas across the country.
A woman interviewed for the story explained that all BLM lands are managed in accordance with RMPs, which establish how they will be used, a concept that eludes most advocates, especially those selling HMAPs as a solution to wild horse problems.
Comments on the EA will be accepted through April 14.
All documents have been posted to the project folder in ePlanning.
Foal-Free Friday, Barren in the Desert Edition
The herd is not dying off, it’s aging out.
The mares are not sterile, they’re self-boosting.
The sex ratio is not abnormal, females are living longer.
Removals aren’t necessary, the advocates are getting rid of them with PZP.
And they want you to pay for it.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, All Roads Lead to Billings Edition.
New Reg Would Treat All Public Lands Like Grazing Allotments?
The proposed rule would apply standards for rangeland health to all BLM-managed public lands and uses, including watershed function, ecological processes, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
According to the definitions, land enhancement means any infrastructure or other use related to the public lands that is designed to improve production of forage, improve vegetative composition, direct patterns of use to improve ecological condition, provide water, stabilize soil and water conditions, promote effective wild horse and burro management, or restore, protect, and improve the condition of land health or fish and wildlife habitat.
The term includes, but is not limited to, structures, treatment projects, and the use of mechanical devices or landscape modifications achieved through mechanical means.
Wild horse and burro management was not defined, but generally equates to population reduction, to be achieved by helicopters, baited traps, wranglers and/or pesticides, so the regulation could provide the authority to reduce AMLs and zero-out more HMAs.
The rule would direct land managers to identify and prioritize lands and waters through the land management process that require habitat restoration work, such as removing invasive species or restoring streambanks, according to today’s news release.
Publication in the Federal Register will initiate a 75-day public comment period, accompanied by five information forums to discuss the details of the rule.
What the Onaqui Advocates Are Trying to Protect
There are three layers of forage demand within the HMA: Horses, wildlife and livestock.
The 210 horses allowed by plan require 2,520 AUMs per year.
The HMA covers 507,681 total acres, including 375,915 public acres, according to the March 2022 HA/HMA Report.
The stocking rate allowed by plan is 0.6 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Recall that low stocking rates may indicate large amounts of forage assigned to privately owned livestock.
The land must be able to produce at least 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres to support the horses.
The forage assigned to wildlife inside the HMA is unknown, but is probably small, maybe 200 to 300 AUMs per year.
The HMA intersects twelve grazing allotments, as noted previously.
The National Data Viewer shows thirteen, but one, the Pony Express Trail, has no active AUMs. It appears as a gray strip across the HMA in the map below.
The Allotment Master Report at RAS provides acreage, management status and active AUMs (Salt Lake City Field Office | Fillmore Field Office).
About two-thirds of the land is in the Improve category.
The allotments provide 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on average, 10.7 times more forage than the land can produce for the horses. For the most part, it’s the same land!
As the advocates get rid of the horses, the ranchers can get enjoy more of what their allotments have to offer.
RELATED: Onaqui Herd Struggling?
Beatys Butte Roundup Over?
It didn’t even start, but a statement at the gather page says it concluded on March 27, with zero horses captured, none shipped and none returned.
The capture goal was 50 and the removal goal was 25.
The pre-gather population was around 463.
The HMA is managed primarily for livestock.
Currituck Herd Grows by One?
Between four and six foals are born each year and the herd now numbers less than 100, according to a story dated March 27 by The Virginian-Pilot.
This is frightening.
The on-range population was 106 a year ago.
A herd of that size should produce 15 to 20 foals per year.
“We cannot afford to lose horses due to human-caused problems,” wrote herd manager Meg Puckett in a post on socialist media. “They face so many challenges to their survival that are beyond our control…”
Nonsense! She is the greatest threat to the herd, and her ruinous darting program, which was suspended in 2022 due to concerns about the long-term effects of PZP, a restricted-use pesticide that destroys the ovaries of mares in four to five years.
You only need to look at the herd on the Maryland side of Assateague Island to see where this is going.
RELATED: Advocates, Not Climate Change, to Destroy Currituck Herd.
BLM Expands Wild Horse and Burro Outplacement Program
The agency has awarded two grants totaling more than $4.7 million to accelerate the placement of excess animals into private care, according to today’s news release.
The Mustang Heritage Foundation received approximately $4 million and Mustang Champions received $750,000.
Use of the term “excess” reinforces the overpopulation narrative.
If ranchers operating in areas identified for wild horses and burros were confined to their base properties, all of the off-range corrals and long-term pastures could be emptied, several times over.
Huge savings can be realized by ending public-lands ranching, not by removing these animals from their lawful homes.
RELATED: New Grants Available for Wild Horse and Burro Management.
‘Path Forward’ Was Brainchild of Chris Stewart?
So says the writer of a column in today’s edition of The Intercept.
The ill-advised plan for achieving and maintaining AMLs, which are small relative to the available resources, was a bonanza for the public-lands ranchers.
Contrary to what you read in the article, the BLM knows how much food and water are available on the acreage it manages, and most of these have been assigned to privately owned livestock through the planning process, even in areas designated for wild horses.
Although many advocacy groups opposed the idea, today they are fierce supporters of tenet #3: Apply proven, safe and humane population growth suppression strategies to every herd that can be reached utilizing trained volunteers, Agency staff, and animal health professionals, as individual HMAs dictate to prevent repeated gathers.
RELATED: Chris Stewart: The ‘Horse Guy.’
UPDATE: Link to Path Forward fixed.
Beatys Butte Roundup Delayed
A gather page has been created but no activity has been reported.
The HMA covers 438,140 total acres in southern Oregon, according to the March 2022 HA/HMA Report, including 399,725 public acres.
The AML is 250, which is small relative to the available resources.
Livestock receive six times more forage than the horses.
The incident was set to begin in December according to the latest schedule.
Mustang Monday
At the Valley of Thundering Waters, Navajo Nation, with Ron Toahani Jackson.
Western Horse Watchers Association 