UPDATE: A BLM news release dated December 8 suggests that responses to the original announcement were sufficient to fill the opening for humane advocacy but not for livestock management and wildlife management. The selection process could end with a PZP fanatic, rancher and hunter seated on the Board, none of whom would be a voice for wild horses and burros.
Because they come after the land-use plans, and are inferior to them, they can only reinforce the status quo, which favors the public-lands ranchers and prolongs the misery of America’s wild horses.
Pay no attention to the advocates. They are clueless.
The writer of a column in today’s edition of The Nevada Independent argues the real problem is not too many horses but loss of habitat.
The lack of Herd Management Area Plans threatens all animals on the range, while allowing for a growing presence of profit-driven industries.
This is nonsense. The land is still there.
Nothing except Herd Management Area Plans will protect the habitats of wild horses and all the animals that live there, according to the author, who linked to a BLM Handbook that refutes her claim!
If privately owned livestock, not mentioned in the column, receive 80% of the authorized forage in an area set aside for wild horses, the driver of the roundups and downstream programs, including the stockpiling of captured animals, that specification, and the consequences thereof, will be reflected in the new HMAP.
HMAPs are useless without changes to the RMPs!
The writer also endorses HR 6635, the ridiculous helicopter ban, that won’t stop the flow of horses off the range because it doesn’t touch the RMPs and the beliefs, attitudes and priorities of those who write them.
Ann Souders, Community Engagement Coordinator for the Mustang Heritage Foundation, initially was a vocal opponent of wild horse adoption. according to a story by Cowboy State Daily but changed her mind after speaking with Wyoming horse expert Ken McNabb and is now focused on raising awareness, providing education and increasing the placement of wild horses and burros into private care.
Not mentioned in the report is McNabb’s side hustle: Running cattle on Himes Group, a BLM allotment managed by the Cody Field Office.
It’s a small operation but that does not absolve him from conflicts of interest when handing out advice about wild horses.
The aim of MHF is to increase the number of successful adoptions and placements into private care, through programs such as EMM and TIP, not to raise awareness about the mismanagement of resources in areas set aside for wild horses.
Defined by their unwavering support of the Montana Solution and management plans that assign most of the forage to public-lands ranchers, they are to be opposed at every opportunity.
This chart shows you what they’re trying to protect.
The cart also explains why you see capture, branding, harassment and death of wild horses, all prohibited in the original statute.
“You have to manage the numbers to fit what’s available for the horses.”
This chart shows you what Congress intended.
There was only one requirement for lands to be managed in this manner: Horses were found there when the legislation was signed into law.
If you’re thinking about a year-end donation to a group that talks about cruel and costly roundups, humane management, keep them wild and free, or protect our cherished horses, think again.
Long-term trends in resource management indicate greater need for helicopter roundups and population suppression.
Instead of turning the clock back, the advocates have bet their futures on population suppression.
And they want you to pay for it.
Whenever you see references to cruel and costly roundups, humane management, keep them wild and free, or protect our cherished horses, you know you’re being swindled.
Eight mares and four geldings will be ready for adoption in the next two weeks, according to a story by The Journal of Cortez, CO.
The program features a reverse incentive: You pay them $1,000.
Training consists of bribing them with alfalfa cubes. Traditional methods, such as release of pressure, apparently are foreign concepts to the staff at Mustang Camp.
How is that going to work when you bring one of them home and you’re not a subscriber to their methods?
