Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
The incident started yesterday, according to the Day 1 report at the gather page, with 68 horses captured, none shipped and one death.
Foals represented 14.7% of the total.
If the report said that 68 horses had been taken off the range with the Montana Solution (in favor of privately owned livestock), the advocates would be delighted.
The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Improve category, with two authorizations attached, both to the same permittee.
The project addresses permit #0500682.
The allotment meets the following standard for rangeland health, according to a BLM report dated March 21:
The allotment does not meet these standards:
The report does not indicate if this standard has been achieved:
If permitted grazing is good for the land because of pasture rotation, rest periods and carefully chosen grazing seasons, why is the allotment in such poor condition?
The answer is obvious: It overlaps the Piceance HMA.
RELATED: Piceance Roundup Prompted by Public Comments?
The Committee on Appropriations designated the amount in the FY 2023 spending bill for Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, according to a report posted this morning by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
The move was applauded by the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a ranching advocacy group and leader in the wild horse removal industry.
A compilation of the effects of PZP on wild horses, assembled in 2015, appears in a report prepared by ISPMB, beginning on page 30.
The principle of operation touted by the advocates is not correct. The pesticide tells the immune system to attack the ovaries.
This explains why mares become sterile after five years of treatment: Their ovaries have been destroyed, or nearly so. The advocates refer to these animals as “self boosting.”
A district court judge ruled that the BLM does not have authority to issue wild horse roundup decisions that are valid for ten years, according to a July 1 news release by Friends of Animals.
It’s not clear if the decision applies only to the Twin Peaks HMA, subject of the case, or to all HMAs.
RELATED: Court Decides Two Wild Horse Cases in Favor of BLM.
Today’s sitrep will be the last, according to the update at the Colorado HMA page.
The mortality table excludes the June 23 death of a West Douglas mare, bringing the total back to 145, although the page still says 146.
A West Douglas mare was found dead on or after June 25 due to an intestinal twist.
A horse was put down on June 27 due to poor body condition.
Another was found dead on June 30 because of colic.
The losses will probably continue, but like the situation at Piceance, you’re not going to hear about them.
RELATED: Cañon City Incident, Day 63.
The BLM announced temporary closures and restrictions yesterday on public lands near the site of the festival, which runs from August 28 to September 5.
The area, about ten miles northeast of Gerlach, NV, is surrounded by HMAs and grazing allotments. The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.
Curiously, roundups are set for Twin Peaks and Blue Wing at that time, according to the latest schedule. Buffalo Hills starts today.
As stated in April, Western Horse Watchers believes the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses has been underreporting (lying about) the effects of their darting program on the Virginia Range mustangs.
The graphic included with the post indicated a 42% reduction in the foaling rate.
However, a few weeks earlier, during the scoping period for the new Cedar Mountain resource enforcement plan, this leader in the wild horse removal industry told the BLM that herd was approaching a near-zero growth rate.
This means that that foaling rate has been cut by 75% or more, corroborated by trailcam images over the past year, bringing the birth rate in line with the death rate.
Comments from the scoping period can be found in Appendix G of the Draft EA.
The appendix could be subtitled “Frauds on Parade,” given the number of comments supporting the Montana Solution and catch-treat-release.
The advocates are always eager to get rid of wild horses in favor of privately owned livestock, and to do whatever else is necessary to win the approval of their idols, the bureaucrats and ranchers.
They are fools. Don’t give them a penny.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, No Major Side Effects Edition.
The Nevada Department of Agriculture has entered into a fourth-year non-exclusive cooperative agreement with the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, running from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023, according to the Animal Industry Report from the June 8 board meeting.
The report said NDA continues to receive monthly updates from CAAWH regarding the program.
State lawmakers are working on legislation that will give local governments the power to deal with wild horses as they see fit, according to a story posted yesterday by The Santa Fe New Mexican.
The bill would not include wild horses that fall under federal oversight.
One of its sponsors said he sees the issue as a “county problem” for which local officials should have clear guidance on what they can do about the animals.
RELATED: More Protections for Wild Horses in New Mexico?
The group filed suit in Phoenix yesterday, according to a story by KPNX News, arguing that the agency is removing them from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests under the guise of “unauthorized livestock.”
The article did not indicate if the case was prompted by the “Jumping Mouse” roundup earlier this year.
UPDATE: Added video.
If the RMP assigns five times more forage to livestock than horses inside the HMA, the Proposed Action will ensure that livestock receive at least five times more forage than the horses, sometimes referred to as a thriving ecological balance.
The EA looks for adverse impacts in carrying out this multiple-use mandate, which will be substantial for the horses but those don’t count.
RELATED: New Resource Enforcement Plan for Cedar Mountain Announced.
Its founders are certified PZP darters who seek cooperative relationships with ranchers in the state, according to remarks in the June 27 Wyoming wild horse roundtable hosted by Wyoming Public Media.
Should you support them? Probably not.
Western Horse Watchers could only find links to pages on socialist media in a search for information about the group.
A February 12 post by Warmblood News in 2020 indicated that they received a boost from The Cloud Foundation and that their goal was manage Wyoming’s Red Desert HMAs with humane, reversible fertility control, eliminating the need for large-scale roundups—which means the herds have been minimized and livestock are the primary consumers of resources in the area.
File under: Chartalans.
RELATED: Panelists Find Common Ground in Wyoming Wild Horse Debate.
Refer to the video transcript in this recap by Wyoming Public Media.
Test everything, keep what is good.
The Draft EA and supporting documents have been posted for public review.
A 30-day comment period begins today.
The Proposed Action, discussed in Section 2.2 of the EA, features roundups, fertility control, intrauterine devices and GPS tracking over a ten-year period.
The HMA intersects four grazing allotments, as noted in February. The forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA is not known at this time.
As stipulated in Section 1.2.1 of the EA, the project will not adjust the AML or livestock use, including forage allocations, as these were set through previous land-use planning and implementation decisions reflected in the January 1990 Pony Express Resource Management Plan and Record of Decision (RMP/ROD), as amended (BLM 1990).
Curiously, the HMA has an HMAP, which can only ratify and reinforce the resource allocations of the RMP.
Comments will be accepted through July 28 according to the BLM news release.
RELATED: Scoping Begins for Cedar Mountain Pest Control Plan.
The BLM currently authorizes 4,114 AUMs per year on 440,982 public acres, according to the Allotment Master Report at RAS.
The Buffalo Hills HMA coincides roughly with the Buffalo Hills pasture, as noted in Table 5 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions in the Smoke Creek Complex.
The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement. The EA was posted with other project documents in ePlanning.
The allotment is in the Improve category and the active AUMs have declined slightly from the amount authorized when the EA was published. Refer to Table 6.
Forage availability works out to a paltry 9.3 AUMs per year per thousand acres, enough to support 0.8 wild horses per thousand acres.
The HMA intersects 27.6% of the allotment according to Table 5, so the forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA should be around 1,135 AUMs per year, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the parcel.
If it was shifted back to the horses, the AML could be increased by 94, for a total of 408.
Unfortunately, the current population exceeds that value.
The BLM will capture 383 wild horses, remove 353 and treat up to 30 mares with GonaCon Equine before returning them to the HMA, starting on or about July 1.
Helicopters will push them into the traps and the incident will be open to public observation, according to today’s news release.
The HMA covers 131,861 total acres and the 314 horses allowed by plan require 3,768 AUMs per year. The stocking rate allowed by plan is 2.4 wild horses per thousand acres, larger than the target rate of one wild horse per thousand acres across all HMAs.
The current population is thought to be 541.
The HMA lies within the Buffalo Hills Allotment, as shown in the Western Watersheds map, and coincides roughly with the Buffalo Hills pasture, per Table 5 in the Final EA for resource enforcement actions in the Smoke Creek Complex.
Captured animals will be taken to the Indian Lakes off-range corrals in Fallon.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
RELATED: 2022 Roundup Season Resumes This Week.
A public tour of the facility will take place on July 1 from 9 AM to 12 PM local time, according to a BLM news release.
The feedlot covers 32 acres with more than 40 holding pens and can provide care for up to 2,250 wild horses, an indication of what the public-lands ranchers could be doing if confined to their base properties.
They’re now at Skydog Sanctuary according to a story by WCSH News in Portland, ME.
RELATED: Idaho Wild Horses Leaving Maine for Oregon.
Helicopters have been grounded for a few months so the foals can grow and gain some strength before they’re taken off the range in favor of privately owned livestock.
The advocates want the horses removed with the Montana Solution but they’ll tolerate the losses associated with helicopters if they lead to greater use of the pesticide.
The action kicks off on July 1 at Buffalo Hills, according to the latest schedule, with 353 horses targeted for removal and 30 to be treated with fertility control.
The plan between now and the end of September calls for 8,793 animals to be gathered, 8,062 removed and 480 treated with fertility control.
Operations may or may not be announced and progress reports may or may not be posted, given the dearth of information at Piceance in Colorado.
At or near South Steens HMA with Joan Martelli.
