But they’re not bringing any babies with them.
Trailcams haven’t picked up much activity until recently.
Water system put back in service yesterday after the Carson City Rally.
Author: Western Horse Watchers
Weather Cooperates for Carson City Rally
One group demonstrated at the capitol and another in front of the legislature.
Both received strong support from passing motorists.
RELATED: Details Released for Wild Horse Freedom Rally in Carson City.
NPS Dissatisfied with Peaceful Valley Rescue, Orders Roundup?
The Park Service announced today that wild burros will be removed from Death Valley National Park starting on April 25, but did not specify the capture and removal goals.
Helicopters will drive the animals into the traps.
The news release did not indicate if the incident will be open to public observation.
Burros removed from the park will be taken to the off-range corrals at Ridgecrest.
The current population is thought to be around 4,000.
The animals are not federally protected according to the Q&A.
The rescue initially tasked with the removal is still involved.
Will Advocates Wear “Stay Wild” Caps to Wild Horse Rallies?
It’s how they signal to each other that they’re down with the Montana Solution.
Wild horses should be restricted to 20% or less of the authorized forage in their home range and if they’re consuming more than their allocated share of the resources, the best way to get rid of them is PZP, not helicopters.
RELATED: Wild Horse Freedom Rallies Set for Next Weekend.
Strangles Lingers at Wheatland Off-Range Corrals
Some horses are still showing signs of illness, according to a BLM news release, so an adoption event scheduled for May 6 has been postponed and the facility remains closed to the public.
‘Full Frontal’ Pulls Trigger on Wild Horses
You knew this story was DOA with the introduction of the PZP fanatics at 0:50.
Note the “Stay Wild” cap. Big red flag.
The woman interviewed at 1:57 claims the livestock industry drives most of the roundups, yet her organization is as eager to get rid of the horses as the ranchers.
Poorly researched and off the mark, the report gets an F.
And contrary to the advice in the video description, don’t give these people a penny.
RELATED: Virginia Range Darting Program Threatens All Wild Horses.
Foal-Free Friday, If We Get Rid of Them They Can Stay
At the Salt River with THE TRACK ENTHUSIAST.
Sun J and Cattoor, move over! The advocates want a larger share of the wild horse removal business.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Saving Wild Horses by Getting Rid of Them.
Litchfield Arsonist Pleads Guilty
The defendant pleaded guilty today to two counts of conspiracy to commit arson and one count of arson, twenty plus years after he participated in a series of attacks that damaged or destroyed environmental targets in Oregon and California.
One of the incidents occurred at the Cavel West meatpacking plant in Redmond, Oregon, where wild horses were slaughtered according to a report by The Oregonian, and another was at the BLM wild horse corrals near Litchfield, California.
RELATED: Litchfield Arsonist to Accept Plea Deal.
Virginia Range Darting Program Threatens All Wild Horses
Even now, three years after the Nevada Department of Agriculture allowed the PZP fanatics to resume their eradication of the herd, the Virginia Range contradicts the government narrative about the carrying capacity of western rangelands.
“There is attrition in the range and the foal numbers are down, and so we see a reduction in population,” an advocate told a reporter for Courthouse News in the article last August.
Indeed, trailcams installed by Western Horse Watchers only detected one foal in 2021, not seen in subsequent images and probably lost to predators.
Before the advocates got involved, the Virginia was supporting ten wild horses per thousand acres, maybe a bit more, compared to one wild horse per thousand acres on public lands managed by the BLM (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).
The total number of animals allowed by plan includes burros, so if you corrected for that the target rate would be less than one wild horse per thousand acres.
But the bureaucrats at NDA, an agency staffed by ranchers and ranching sympathizers, among others, claim that the Virginia Range can only support 600 wild horses and ideally no more than 300. The latter figure works out to—wait for it—one wild horse per thousand acres, in line with the BLM narrative!
So the bureaucrats are coordinating their efforts to deceive the public, with the full cooperation of the advocates.
If they achieve their goals on the Virginia Range, “they will provide a valuable template that can be reliably exported to other management areas throughout the American West,” as stated in the article.
RELATED: Move Over Cattoor, Advocates Want Larger Share of Market.
Details Released for Wild Horse Freedom Rally in Carson City
Minden resident Craig Downer, Dr. Don Molde and wild horse rescuer Elaina Deva Proffitt are expected to speak. Singer Jim Eaglesmith will perform and actress Fia Perera will serve as MC, according to a story posted today by The Record-Courier.
The event is set for Saturday in front of the state capitol, part of the Wild Horse Freedom Rally planned for all 50 states.
WHC Scrubs References to PZP?
The article last August by Courthouse News said the Nevada Department of Agriculture had contracted with Wild Horse Connection to implement the fertility control program on the Virginia Range, an area where 3,000 or so horses wander over a triangle-sized piece of desolate land that extends from Reno to Fernley in the east and to Carson City in the south.
A keyword search of their site for “PZP” yielded no results.
Additional searches for “fertility,” “dart” and “vaccine” produced no matches, while a search for “horse” yielded 21 hits.
Are they ashamed of what they’re doing to the horses? Probably not. But they know donations will dry up if the truth gets out.
Their home page features a mare and foal—exactly what they’re trying to prevent—and their projects page includes several photos of a cattle guard that can trap wild horses, as seen recently at the Salt River.
Like the Salt River Wild Horse Darting Group, WHC is a surrogate of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses.
RELATED: Advocates Have Answer to Wild Horse Problem?
Don’t Approach Wild Horses!
The BLM issued that reminder this week after the equids approached cars at Discovery Park in Pahrump, NV, according to a story by KTNV News of Las Vegas.
You are to view wild horses from a significant distance and you shall not feed them, unless you are a trained PZP darter and acolyte for the Department of Agriculture.
Media Silence on Save Our Wild Horses Conference?
This news release on EIN, titled “Supporters of Wild Horses to Gather Next Week in Washington D.C.,” has been out for over a day, but a Google search for “Wild Horses” over the past 24 hours yielded no articles with that tagline.
RELATED: National ‘Save Our Wild Horses’ Conference Debuts in April.
Grazing Service Alive and Well at BLM
This article in the Daily Camera of Boulder, CO refers to the anti-horse bias at the BLM, which dates back to its predecessor, the Grazing Service.
But it’s not just horses. Anything that interferes with public-lands ranching is targeted.
Examples include wildlife, invasive weeds and trees that crowd out forage.
The article includes a post-roundup photo of Sand Wash Basin showing hundreds, if not thousands, of sheep dotting the landscape.
But it does not mention the BLM’s partners in the management process, who protect the ranchers after the fact with the Montana Solution.
In the case of Sand Wash Basin, it’s SWAT, a group that helps the agency enforce the RMP that assigns 79% of the available forage to livestock while guaranteeing that the 1,402 horses displaced from the HMA by permitted grazing never come back.
Good job guys, a fine example of the Love Triangle on America’s public lands.
Mustang Monday
At or near the Heber WHT with Paul Kiely.
Surprises at Sands Basin HMA
The HMA lies mostly within the Sands Basin Allotment according to the Western Watersheds map.
The 64 horses allowed by plan require 768 AUMs per year and the HMA covers 11,724 acres, so the aimed-at stocking rate is 5.5 wild horses per thousand acres, considerably higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres.
The land must be able to produce at least 65.5 AUMs per year per thousand acres to support the Sands Basin horses.
The allotment, in the Improve category, covers 13,565 total acres, including 10,883 public acres, and currently offers 558 AUMs per year for livestock, according to the Allotment Master Report.
This means the horses receive more forage than the ranchers!
The percentage of the allotment occupied by the HMA is unknown and the Draft EA may be months away but the forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA has to be less than or equal to 558 AUMs per year.
The allotment must be able to produce at least 41.1 AUMs per year per thousand acres to satisfy the ranchers, enough to support 3.4 wild horses per thousand acres.
The carrying capacity of the HMA, neglecting wildlife, would be 5.5 + 3.4 = 8.9 horses per thousand acres, assuming that forage is evenly distributed across the allotment.
The True AML would be 8.9 × 11,724 ÷ 1,000 = 104, the number of horses the HMA could support if it was managed principally for them.
The horses displaced from the HMA by permitted grazing would be the difference between the True AML and current AML, 104 – 64 = 40, or 3.4 × 11,724 ÷ 1,000.
The current size of the herd is unknown.
RELATED: New Resource Enforcement Plan Coming to Owyhee Mountains?
Marauders on Assateague Island
Horses being horses. No foals, might be a bachelor band? Or maybe the Montana Solution was a bit more effective than advertised?
Census results for 2022 still not known.
Film by Jim Wagner.
How to Help Three Fingers and Jackies Butte Horses
Like other HMAs, their AMLs are small relative to the available resources because most of them have been assigned to privately owned livestock.
This is a condition that the PZP fanatics won’t even acknowledge, let alone challenge.
Their mission is to protect the ranchers, not the horses, which is why you shouldn’t be giving them money.
Would Herd Management Area Plans (HMAPs) help?
The BLM allocated forage for livestock in the 2002 Record of Decision for the Southeastern Oregon Resource Management Plan, which was carried forward from the 1984 Southern Malheur Rangeland Program Summary, according to Section 3.2.2 of the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the HMAs.
If the HMAPs did not alter the specifications of the RMP, they could only ratify and reinforce current practices, which are biased in favor of the ranchers.
RELATED: How Many Wild Horses Can Jackies Butte HMA Support?
CAAWH Marks Three Years on Virginia Range
There is no column in the current edition of Horse Tales by the real estate agent and PZP darter in the Minden/Gardnerville area but there is an acknowledgement by the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses at the bottom of page 18 about the outpouring of support for their work.
Their goal is to convince the bureaucrats that PZP darting is a viable alternative to helicopter roundups and that there is better way of enforcing the lopsided resource allocations that put ranching interests far above those of the horses.
Water Improvements Help Heber Hunters and Ranchers
The following video by the Arizona Game and Fish Department discusses the use of habitat enhancement funds on the Heber Allotment, which overlaps the WHT.
The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.
The ranchers also benefit from mining operations, in a way you might not expect, as noted at 1:49.
As for the horses, they weren’t considered in the analysis.
The forage assigned to livestock in the allotment is not known and Western Horse Watchers has not yet discovered an equivalent to RAS for the Forest Service.
Forage density (AUMs per year per thousand acres), is a better indicator of carrying capacity than AMLs.
