Author: Western Horse Watchers

What PBS Didn’t Tell You About America’s Wild Horses

The wild horse and burro program has been a drag on the grazing program for fifty years.

Nearly half of their land is managed principally for livestock.  The remainder is managed primarily for livestock, with few exceptions.

AMLs are low relative to the available resources.  Most of the forage has been assigned to privately owned cattle and sheep, with a small amount reserved for wildlife.

Pest control programs, the subjects of numerous environmental assessments, do not allocate resources.  They cannot change resource allocations.  They enforce resource allocations already on the books, in the land-use plans.

Findings of no significant impact don’t apply to the horses.

Roundups shift resources back to the ranchers in just a few weeks.  Darting programs accomplish the same thing over a much longer timeframe but with the added benefit that the herds don’t bounce back.

Protect Wild Horses from Advocates 08-29-21

Most of the advocates are frauds.  Next to the federal government, nobody’s getting rid of more wild horses than they are.

At the Salt River and Virginia Range, they operate almost exclusively of the bureaucrats and ranchers, whose approval they seek at all costs.  Residents, tourists, motorists, campers, hikers, predators and shooters can’t even come close.

RELATED: Story of ‘American Horses.’

Black Mountain Wild Burro Removal Continues

Operations resumed on February 12, according to the gather page.  No activity has been reported since February 16.

Fifty five animals have been trapped to date, with none shipped and no deaths.

The capture and removal goals are identical, 80 each.

The cumulative total includes 38 jacks, 14 jennies and three foals.

Youngsters represented 5.5% of the burros captured.

Of the adults, 73.1% were male and 26.9% were female.

Body condition scores were not provided.

The location of the trap site was not specified.

Black Mountain HMA Map 02-25-22

Roughly half of the HMA is subject to permitted grazing, as shown on the Western Watersheds map, and the AML corresponds to about 28% of the authorized forage.

The incident was not announced at the BLM news site but it does appear on the FY 2022 roundup schedule.

Animals outside the HMA on private lands are targeted.

Last year, 481 animals were removed from the area, according to figures at the gather page.  The event has not been marked complete and no such announcement has been posted by the BLM.

New Resource Enforcement Plan for Bible Springs Complex?

The project appeared today at ePlanning.  No documents have been posted and there are no opportunities for public comments at this time.

An announcement soliciting public input for the scoping phase of the project may or may not be posted to the BLM news site.

The Complex includes three HMAs in western Utah.

Bible Springs Complex Map 02-24-22

The HMAs are subject to permitted grazing, as shown on the Western Watersheds map.

The Proposed Action would remove excess horses until the herds are at the low end of their AMLs and apply fertility control to reduce growth rates thereafter, according to the project description.

Challis Roundup Day 4

The incident began on February 20.  Gather stats through February 23:

  • Target: Horses
  • Type: Planned
  • Method: Bait
  • Captured: 15
  • Average daily take: 3.8
  • Capture goal: 70
  • Removal goal: 39
  • Returned: None
  • Deaths: None
  • Shipped: 13

The cumulative total includes 5 stallions, 8 mares and 2 foals.

Youngsters represented 13.3% of the horses captured, consistent with a growth rate of 8% per year.  Land managers often use a rate of 20% per year to predict herd sizes.

Of the adults, 38.5% were stallions and 61.5% were mares.

Body condition scores ranged from three to five.

The location of the trap site within the HMA was not provided.

Challis HMA Map 11-11-21

Day 4 ended with two unaccounted-for animals.

The number of horses removed to date is 15.

Mares returned to the HMA will be treated with fertility control of unspecified type.

Other statistics:

  • AML: 253
  • Forage assigned to horses: 3,036 AUMs per year
  • Pre-gather population: 224
  • Forage liberated to date: 180 AUMs per year
  • Water liberated to date: 150 gallons per day
  • Forage assigned to livestock: 9,756 AUMs per year (estimated)
  • Horses displaced from HMA by permitted grazing: 813
  • True AML: 1,066
  • Stocking rate at new AML: 6.9 wild horses per thousand public acres
  • Horses displaced from HMA by drilling and mining: Ask the advocates

RELATED: Challis Roundup in Progress.

Shackleford Herd Grows Slightly in Latest Census

The Park Service said in a news release yesterday that 121 horses were living on the barrier island at the end of 2021, up from 117 at the end of 2020.

The growth rate was 3.4%.

Eleven foals were counted and seven deaths were reported.

The average lifespan was eleven years and no mares were treated with contraceptives in 2021, according to the annual report.  Fertility control was introduced in 2000.

The herd was 39% male and 61% female, a characteristic observed in other areas where the Montana Solution has been applied for an extended period.

RELATED: Shackleford Herd Grows In Latest Census.

Advocates Working Tirelessly to Support Public-Lands Ranchers

The February edition of Horse Tales has been published.

You can still help the Pine Nut permittees by purchasing a calendar from the advocates, as indicated at the bottom of page 3.

Fifteen fun facts about burros are presented at the top of page 4.  Fact #16 might be their disdain of coyotes.

The column written by the real estate agent and PZP darter in the Minden/Gardnerville area follows immediately, continuing on page 18.  Listings appear on the back cover.

Some of the properties may be related, directly or indirectly, to a Pine Nut permittee, perhaps on the Buckeye Allotment.  Who knows?  But it would explain why she’s so eager to get rid of the horses.

An article by the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses on page 19 discusses the Onaqui roundup and the rescue of a mom-baby pair.  Don’t be fooled by the image, they despise youngsters and are only trying to separate you from your money.

Wednesdays are darting days at the HMA, where volunteers trained in the Montana Solution use Gen 2 projectors to keep the resource scales tipped in favor of the ranchers.

Stop the Roundups, Get Rid of the Horses with PZP

The BLM says roundups are necessary and humane, but more and more members of Congress aren’t buying it, according to the communications director of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses in a column posted this evening by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Western Horse Watchers hopes that more and more Americans aren’t buying their anti-horse agenda, aimed at replacing helicopter roundups with fertility control programs.

They don’t oppose the removals, only the way they are carried out.  They, and their army of volunteers, are stooges for the public-lands ranchers.

RELATED: Group Uses Pancake Deaths to Sell Montana Solution.

How Many Wild Horses Can the Cedar Mountain HMA Support?

The forage assigned to livestock inside the allotments is known but the forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA is not known.

The preliminary EA is still months away, as noted yesterday, so how do you answer the question?

The management plan assigns 26,337 AUMs per year to livestock across four allotments covering 398,222 public acres, as computed in the post, or 66.1 AUMs per thousand acres per year.

That resource would support 66.1 ÷ 12 = 5.5 wild horses per thousand acres, on top of the 0.9 wild horses per thousand acres allowed by plan.

The total authorized forage inside the HMA, neglecting wildlife, should be able to support 0.9 + 5.5 = 6.4 wild horses per thousand acres, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the parcels.

The HMA covers 411,636 acres, which may include some non-BLM lands, but a quick estimate of the True AML, the number of animals the HMA could support if it was managed principally for wild horses, is 6.4 × 411,636 ÷ 1,000 = 2,634.

The number horses displaced from the HMA by privately owned livestock is 5.5 × 411,636 ÷ 1,000 = 2,264, about 4.5% of those in off-range holding.

The difference between the two figures, 2,634 – 2,264 = 370 is slightly less than the current AML of 390 due to rounding errors.

In general,

True AML = Current AML + Horses displaced by permitted grazing

RELATED: Cedar Mountain Allotments.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Western Horse Watchers agrees: The numbers show that many areas set aside for wild horses are managed primarily, if not principally, for livestock.  That’s why the animals are being forced off their home range at a record pace.

Data from the Pancake roundup, discussed in a BLM blog post, indicate five horses lost (0.24%) due to injuries sustained in the incident.  Not mentioned are the 21 horses put down (shot dead?) due to physical defects.

The number of horses that would be lost if the roundup didn’t occur?  Zero.

Ten horses were lost in the Rock Springs roundup due to injuries sustained in the incident (0.24%), plus 27 put down due to physical defects, compared to zero if the incident didn’t occur.

The number of horses shipped from the Rock Springs HMAs was not provided, so the results cannot be checked for balance and the number of unaccounted-for animals cannot be determined.

Thus, it is true, the figures don’t lie—if you can get them.

On Day 4 of the Jackson Mountains roundup, not considered in the post, a foal was put down because it was an orphan.  That was its only shortcoming.  The government has since tried to cover it up.

Links to roundups in 2021 have been removed from the Nevada gather page, but the daily reports for Jackson Mountains can be found here.  The final death rate was 5.9%!

The writer(s) of the blog post indicated that the Pancake herd boomed as food and water dwindled, suggesting that other factors may be more important for the support of life on western rangelands.