The BLM sells about 12 million AUMs annually on 155 million acres.  At current prices, the government receives about $16 million per year, a small offset to the cost of the WHB program, which is operated mostly for the benefit of the public-lands ranchers.

A summary of grazing activity on Forest Service lands in 2016, the most recent year for which the agency has published data, shows sales of about seven million AUMs annually on 102 million acres, for an income of roughly $9 million per year at current prices.

In total, privately owned livestock receive 19 million AUMs per year on about 250 million acres of public lands, allowing for some overlap in jurisdictions.

The ranchers would have to place 3.2 million cow/calf pairs on those lands to consume 19 million AUMs in a six month grazing season, for a stocking rate of 12.8 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres.

At current herd sizes, wild horses and burros are consuming about one million AUMs per year on slightly more than ten percent of the land.

The current stocking rate is less than four animals per thousand acres.

The target rate is one animal per thousand acres, suggesting that resource availability and productivity improve dramatically when areas are designated for livestock.

That was before it was T-boned by a gravel truck, eleven miles north of the Mexican border.  How many of them were here legally?

UPDATE: A report dated March 3 says it was a migrant smuggling operation.

Many permittees own land and appurtenances known as a ‘base property.’  Grazing privileges on public lands are usually tied to base properties, which may include other assets such as water rights.

Where do livestock go during the off season?  Where would they go if AUMs on public lands had to be curtailed because of a fire or drought?  Back to the base property and/or rented pastures, where the ranchers would have to pay market rates to feed them.

The 4M Ranch, a sponsor of the Meeker Mustang Makeover and probable beneficiary of wild horses thus adopted, has almost 12,000 acres of deeded lands which, presumably, secure its grazing privileges on 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service lands.

Hay production on the ranch, about 1,200 tons annually, would support 240 cow/calf pairs, assuming they consume five tons per year per pair (25 to 30 pounds per day).

Forage on the deeded acres would support another 100 cow/calf pairs, assuming a stocking rate of eight pairs per thousand acres.

Additional food can be imported (at going rates) if a larger number of animals is desired.  No more dependence on government, no more slurping at the public trough.

Yes, it’s a radical idea—confining them to their own property.  Nobody has ever been expected to do that.

RELATED: Sponsor of Meeker Mustang Makeover or Beneficiary?.

It does not mean the carrying capacity of the land has been exceeded, not even close.

It means more horses than allowed by plan, too many resources lost to animals that bring in no economic return.

The resources are there.  In most cases there are no ‘excess’ horses.  There is no basis for a roundup or fertility control program.  Most of the ‘advocacy’ groups are clueless.

The problem is resource management—the plans—which typically allocate four to five times as much food to privately owned livestock as they do to wild horses, on lands identified for the horses.

One of the event’s sponsors is 4M Ranch.

The Operator Information report in RAS, for the State of Colorado, Northwest District, White River Field Office, gives an address in Meeker, along with authorization numbers 0505793 and 0505794.

The Allotment Information report ties the authorization numbers to the River and Little Toms Draw allotments.

The Allotment Master report puts Little Toms in the Improve category and River in the Custodial category (condition unknown).  Western Horse Watchers is unable to explain how it qualifies for Custodial.

The principal of 4M Ranch is Craig Macnab, according to a Bizapedia report.

A 1985 announcement in The New York Times suggests that he’s married to Deirdre Macnab, the woman who said that genetic viability of wild horses is threatened by increasing herd sizes.

A 2016 report by the Rio Blanco Herald Times says the ranch was purchased in 2015 for $9.5 million.  It covers 11,870 deeded acres and has grazing preference on more than 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.  The allotment master report accounts for only a small fraction of the total acreage.

The ranch has 800 acres of hay meadows and supports up to 1,000 cow/calf pairs, for a stocking rate of eight cow/calf pairs per thousand acres.  The aimed-at stocking rate across all HMAs is one wild horse per thousand acres.

To say that the Macnabs have only a passing interest in wild horses would be a gross understatement.

RELATED: Meeker Mustang Makeover Seeks Trainers and Adopters.

Cancellation of the project is not necessarily a bad thing, according to climate czar John Kerry, because the workers will be able to “make solar panels” instead of an oil pipeline.

The incident reflects a belief not in the primacy of the individual but in the preeminence of government.

Multiple samples failed to meet standards for rangeland health so the Designated Area was immediately placed into the Improve category.  No major problems are expected, however, as there are many such areas in the western U.S., even where horses have been zeroed out.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Livestock on Mars said an RMP and EIS are in the works but they will not be put out for public review because grazing is “too important” for the red planet’s fledgling economy.

He went on to say that retraining cattle ranchers for other roles, such as solar techs, would be “darn near impossible.”

The spacecraft carried the historic first doses of PZP to the surface, so the ranchers can get out in front of the horse problem before it even gets started.  Clipboards and darting rifles will be delivered in a subsequent mission.

RELATED: ‘Perseverance’ on Mars, Stakes Claim for Public-Lands Ranchers.

In a first-of-its-kind mission, an American spacecraft has designated a large swath of the Martian surface for livestock grazing, before any horses can escape or be turned loose by explorers from Earth.

The vehicle touched down in an area known as Ubiquitous Valley, aptly named for a practice that’s devoured hundreds of millions of acres in the western U.S.

Two ‘advocacy’ groups have asked DOI nominee Deb Haaland to stop the sterilization of mares from the Confusion HMA, according to a news release in Horse Nation, while concurring with her vision of ‘humane management’ of wild horse herds—code words for PZP fertility control.

Managing HMAs and WHTs primarily for livestock must be an acceptable practice to these people, perhaps the preferred practice.  Instead of pushing back against the ranchers, they push back against the horses.

Allowing four permittees to utilize most of the resources in the Piceance-East Douglas HMA does not conform to the mandates of 16 USC 30, an act of Congress, according to comment #69 in the appendices of the EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

Western Horse Watchers refers to the practice as ‘managing primarily for livestock.’

In response, the government stated that the ‘principally but not necessarily exclusively’ language of the statute applies only to areas known as Wild Horse Ranges, not to HMAs in general, pointing to 43 CFR 4710.3-2, a rule created by the unelected bureaucracy.

Areas that no longer qualify as HMAs are managed almost exclusively for livestock.

These are the defining issues of the wild horse world.

Can regulations override statutes?  Is the government trying to sidestep the law in favor of a special interest?  Where is the consent of the governed?

RELATED: Statutes and Regulations, Piceance Decision Record Signed.