As noted last year, 4M Ranch covers nearly 12,000 deeded acres in western Colorado and has grazing preference on more than 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.

The remark at 2:10 by the executive director of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses about tax dollars funding a broken and inhumane system is a reference to the Montana Solution, a better way of taking wild horses off the range according to her and her supporters.

Why would you want to take horses off the range?  Who benefits?

RELATED: Piceance Roundup Prompted by Public Comments?

This urgent message from The Cloud Foundation asks its supporters to oppose a plan that will zero-out the Blawn Wash herd.

NEWS FLASH: Blawn Wash was zeroed out in 2005.  A 2001 land exchange shifted 43% of the acreage and 70% of the forage from the BLM to the State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.  Forage in that portion of the HA is managed by SITLA.

The AML has been zero for 17 years.  Refer to Section 1.1 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Bible Springs Complex.

The comment period for the new EA closes tomorrow.

The project can never lead to meaningful changes for the horses and can only improve conditions for the public-lands ranchers.

RELATED: Draft EA for Bible Springs Complex Out for Review.

The procedure occurs much more frequently in adopted and pedigreed horses, but that wasn’t a finding of a study cited in a March 18 blog post by the BLM.

About 40% of the stallions in the Conger HMA were gelded in 2017 to test for differences in behavior and habitat use as well as effects on survival and foaling rates.

Researchers found that geldings tended to lose their harems three years after surgery and there was no long-term reduction in foaling rate.

A 1992 study showed that 80% or more of a herd’s stallions would need to be sterilized to substantially reduce growth rates.

RELATED: Wild Horse and Burro Research Initiative Announced.

This story by AP News has already been picked up by some news outlets and will likely be picked up by others in the next 24 hours.

RELATED: Piceance Roundup Prompted by Public Comments?

A spokesman for the BLM indicated in yesterday’s news release that they were getting quite a bit of feedback from the public about the poor condition of the horses.

They’re in a remote area, did those concerns come from campers, hikers and tourists?

The HMA was established in an area occupied by grazing allotments, as shown on the Western Watersheds map.  The gather area will likely extend beyond the HMA and will include some of the outlying allotments.

Given that most people want to see horses running wild and free on their home range, it seems unlikely that comments from the public would lead to their removal.

A more plausible explanation would involve complaints from the ranchers and concerns from the advocates.

RELATED: Piceance Roundup Starts This Week, Not an Emergency.

The advocates have filled that role.

The incident was scheduled for late August but will begin on June 16 due to the poor condition of some animals, according to today’s news release.

Initially, horses will be captured by traps baited with food and water, with the remaining animals forced into the traps by helicopter starting on July 15.

The HMA covers 190,130 total acres in western Colorado, including 158,310 public acres managed by the BLM.  The AML is 235 and the stocking rate allowed by plan is 1.2 wild horses per thousand acres.

The current population is thought to be 1,385, six times higher than the bureaucrats and ranchers are willing to tolerate.

The HMA intersects four grazing allotments.  Livestock receive 2.4 times more forage than the horses, one of the milder cases of wild horse mismanagement.

Captured animals will be taken to an unspecified holding facility in Utah.

A link to the gather stats and daily reports was not provided.

The HMA is subject to the Montana Solution according to the roundup schedule.

RELATED: Ten Weeks to Go: Piceance-East Douglas Pre-Game Report.

In Breathitt County, KY with AmeriPino Journey.  Refer to this history brief by the Appalachian Horse Project for more information.

If a herd goes from 200 to 100 as a result of your darting program, no wild horses were removed from the range?

Let’s look at this mathematically.

Final population = Initial population – Horses removed

100 = 200 – x

If you’re an advocate, x = 0.

If the herd was growing at a rate of 15% per year, the population would reach 800 in ten years, the time you needed to cut it to 100, which means you actually got rid of 700.

The land may be able to support many more wild horses but those resources have been assigned to privately owned livestock.

The ranchers appreciate your hard—but misguided—work very much.

Images will be disturbing to viewers wearing “Stay Wild” caps.

Did you think the Montana Solution could be applied sitting down?

They’re telling you that they’re protecting wild horses while they’re telling the ranchers and bureaucrats that they’re getting rid of them.

Are you as stupid as they think you are?  Why are you still giving them money?

RELATED: Standing Up for Wild Horses.

Illness can spread like wildfire in the cramped conditions of the off-range corrals, according to a report by KLAS News of Las Vegas.

The infection, which has taken 13 horses at Wheatland, has been found at Cañon City.

The reporter does not ask why the horses aren’t on their home range.

RELATED: Cañon City Incident, Day 48.

The project has been blessed by the Washington State Energy Site Evaluation Council and the Tri-Cities union trades have an agreement with Scout Clean Energy to build it, according to a report by FOX News in Yakima.

The wind turbines, which can never compete with traditional energy sources unless they have been sabotaged by leftists—which you are seeing now—would be erected in an area once inhabited by free-roaming horses.

RELATED: Support for Horse Heaven Wind Farm Falters on Earth Day.

With four volunteers up for sainthood on the Virginia Range, now is a great time to be a wild horse advocate.

You can tell your supporters that you’re protecting the horses while you’re telling the bureaucrats that you’re getting rid of them.

You can tell the regulators that the Montana Solution is safe, humane and reversible when you know it isn’t.

You could dart stallions, trees, deer—anything to get the numbers up.

You can tell your donors that you’ve reduced the birth rate by 42% when the actual figure is closer to 100%.

Best of all, you can look down your nose at the common folks while flaunting your high-visibility vest and Stay Wild cap.

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Putting the Montana Solution into Practice.

Virginia Range mustangs chill in the midday sun, wary of the advocates.

Normally they’d be standing watch over their young.

Several new cases of respiratory illness have been observed across the facility in the past three days, according to the June 9 sitrep.

Most have been identified as equine strangles although one appeared to be similar to the pneumonia seen in the West Douglas horses.

A horse in the general population died today with nonspecific signs and a post-mortem exam was inconclusive.  Samples have been taken and submitted for laboratory testing.

The mortality table still shows 145 deaths.

Last week a horse was lost to colic.  Another died this week.  How many actually survive these death camps, which are operated for the benefit of the public-lands ranchers?

Updates are posted to the Colorado HMA page.

RELATED: Cañon City Incident, Day 42.

The BLM Colorado State Office will hold a one-hour informational meeting about wild horse management in the state on June 15 from 5 to 6 PM MDT, according to a news release dated June 9.

Questions can be submitted during the meeting, at registration or online prior to the meeting.

Public comments will not be taken.

Topics such as permitted grazing, resource allocations and current management practices are probably off limits.

A roundup is planned for the Piceance-East Douglas HMA in latest August, with a capture goal of 1,050 and removal goal of 750.

RELATED: What Makes Colorado’s HMAs So Special?