The bay horse in the river beginning at 0:15 seems to be foraging for the roan, who won’t put his head in the water to pull out eelgrass. Filmed July 13 by Mark Formo.
Author: Western Horse Watchers
Studs Outnumber Mares 2:1 in Jackson Mountains Roundup
The bait has drawn 49 studs, 27 mares and 9 foals into the traps as of July 14, according to the daily reports. Body condition scores were not given and no deaths have occurred.
RELATED: Jackson Mountains Roundup in Progress.
Colorado Fire Restrictions Include Two HMAs
BLM announced this morning the beginning of Stage 1 fire restrictions in Moffat and Rio Blanco counties, among others, which contain the Sand Wash Basin and Piceance-East Douglas HMAs, respectively. The restrictions are explained in the news release.
The Wolf Fire, started yesterday by lightning, appears to be burning at or near the southern border of Piceance.
Exploring Oatman
Kathryn in Christ spends the day with family in Oatman, AZ, an old mining town in the Black Mountain HMA frequented by wild burros.
RELATED: Oatman of the North.
Rush Hour at Water Tanks
There was frost on the ground a few hours earlier. In June!
No Horses Just Frost
Trailcam photos from the Virginia Range. Elevation 6,200 feet.
Exploring Assateague
Filmed on the Maryland side of the island just before the arrival of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019 by Here Then Gone.
RELATED: Assateague Car Tour.
Court Decides Two Wild Horse Cases in Favor of BLM
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the BLM in its analysis of the effects of releasing a limited number of geldings onto public lands as part of its wild horse management efforts, according to a news release issued today.
In another case, the Court reaffirmed the use of wild horse and burro management plans that cover ten-year periods.
The terms ‘livestock’ and ‘multiple use’ appear nowhere in the announcement, as if the horses and burros have full use of the resources in their home range and are now far beyond its ability to support them.
The problem is most of the resources have been diverted to privately owned livestock.
Roundups may be necessary when the capacity limit of an area is reached, as seen earlier today in the Sheepshead HMA, but they can’t be justified when the forage assigned to livestock could support all of the ‘excess’ horses in an area, and more, as seen last week at the Coyote Lake HMA.
Currituck Wild Horse Chokes on Apple
The colt died Friday after suffering for several days with an apple stuck in its esophagus, according to a report by WTKR News of Norfolk, VA.
Swasey Wild Horse Roundup Starts This Week
Approximately 800 horses will be removed from the HMA, starting on Wednesday, according to a BLM news release. The incident will be open to public observation.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page, although it was generating an error message at the time this post went live.
Sheepshead Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick
Up next in the Barren Valley Complex is the Sheepshead-Heath Creek HMA, an area set aside for wild horses. The current population is 949, according to the Final EA for management actions in the Complex. If no action is taken, per Alternative 5, the poor ranchers would continue to suffer “undue hardship” because they can’t “fully use the forage they are authorized.”
In the original WHB Act, lands where horses were found were to be managed principally but not exclusively for wild horses. Today, some HMAs are ‘Horse Minimization Areas,’ because they’re managed primarily for livestock. Is this the case for Sheepshead?
The management plan allows 302 wild horses on 204,500 acres. The forage demand is 3,624 AUMs per year and the aimed-at stocking rate is 1.5 horses per thousand acres.
The target stocking rate across all HMAs is one wild horse or burro per thousand acres.
Unlike Coyote Lake, reviewed on these pages a few days ago, Sheepshead does not have a fractional stocking rate, so the proportion of forage diverted to privately owned livestock may not be as large as Coyote Lake.
The Sheepshead HMA intersects two grazing allotments. Table 5 in the EA provides data on allotment size, authorized forage and grazing seasons. Herd sizes and stocking rates are computed for cow/calf pairs, as their resource requirements are said to be equivalent to those of wild horses. One AUM will sustain one wild horse or one cow/calf pair for one month.
The total estimated forage for livestock inside the HMA, determined in the same manner as Coyote Lake, is 7,276 AUMs per year. The total estimated number of cow/calf pairs inside the HMA is 662. The total allotment acreage falling inside the HMA exceeds the size of the HMA, suggesting that it’s 100% subject to permitted grazing. The area available to livestock inside the HMA was set to 204,500 acres.
The estimated stocking rate allowed by plan is 662 ÷ 204,500 × 1,000 = 3.2 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres, twice the rate set for horses but a much smaller disparity compared to other HMAs in the ‘Short End of Stick’ (SES) series.
The weighted average grazing season is 11 months (7,276 ÷ 662).
These management indicators are compared in the following charts.
The pie chart tells you the HMA is not managed principally for wild horses, but it’s one of the milder cases of forage misappropriation in the SES series.
The forage allocated to livestock would support an additional 606 wild horses (7,276 ÷ 12), for a new AML of 908 (302 + 606).
The current wild horse population exceeds the capacity limit of HMA (949 > 908), which doesn’t include livestock.
The situation may not be as dire as it sounds because the BLM usually imposes a safety factor on forage consumption, meaning there’s more out there than authorized by plan, and the horses migrate between the HMAs in the Complex as stated in the EA. But it’s not a pattern that you’d want to maintain. Next year may bring a drought, or wildfire.
A higher percentage of forage has been diverted to livestock on Coyote Lake, compared to Sheepshead, which is not ideal for free-roaming horses in search of food. The forage allocation at Sand Springs, the third HMA in the Complex, is not known at this time but will be assessed in the near future.
RELATED: Barren Valley Gather EA Comes and Goes, No News Release.
Mustang Monday
Assateague Wild Horse Census Temporarily Halted?
Where are the results for May and July? Field work not performed or are the findings being hidden from public view?
The most recent results, from March, were not posted at the Assateague news site, but released via local media.
The census reveals the long-term effects of PZP, which its adherents don’t want you to know. The fertility control program (Maryland side of the island) was shut off in 2016 but the herd is only now starting to recover.
Scorcher Today?
Better find a shady spot where you can ride it out until sundown.
A Lesson from Industrial Quality Control
One day the QC manager at a manufacturing plant said “Starting tomorrow we shall have no more defects.”
Nonsense!
You can’t achieve a desired result by exhorting the workers.
You have to study the system that produces the defects and fix those causes. Off-spec materials, worn out machinery, inadequate training, outdated procedures, etc.
Workers can do nothing about those things.
Defects are downstream, the system is upstream. The behavior of a system as a function of time is called a ‘process.’ A process takes certain inputs and delivers certain outputs, days, weeks or months later.
A major-league hitter gets paid millions of dollars to turn out 70% defective work.
A stable process can turn out 100% defective results, day in and day out.
To solve problems, you have to look upstream and improve the process.
Another Documentary on Wild Horses in the Works?
Free-roaming horses on western rangelands. Then the helicopters come. Many people already know this.
What will be the point of the new film? To break new ground by looking upstream in the wild horse management process? Or will it be a rehash of the same old propaganda about overpopulation, no natural predators, etc?
Will it treat symptoms or identify causes?
Will it promote contraceptives, sanctuaries, adoption and training? Who’s behind it?
Links in the video description point to socialist media except this one. Comments are not allowed.
RELATED: Stop the [Causes of] Roundups!
Adoption Excitement in Lubbock
An adopted horse escaped from its trailer earlier today and ran free for about two hours, according to a report by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
The horse was captured in a field and placed into another trailer.
Why Do Some Wild Horse Advocates Bash Oil Companies?
From page 97 in the Final EA for wild horse management actions at the Barren Valley Complex in southeast Oregon:
Q. Can the EA disclose water usage of each oil and gas rig, wind turbine and geothermal plant; the number of acres designated for buildings/equipment associated with them; and their effects on sage-grouse, wildlife and wild horses?
A. This issue is outside the scope of the analysis as there are no oil/gas rigs, wind turbines or geothermal plants within the vicinity of the HMA.
The EA actually considers three HMAs so perhaps the answer should say “within the vicinity of the Complex?”
Wind turbines make electricity from (OMG) wind. Hydroelectric plants make electricity from falling water, which is clean, dependable and affordable but gets no traction in the media. Wind turbines are better because they don’t chop up fish.
Geothermal plants might need water for cooling tower makeup, if they use water-cooled condensers. Some of these plants use fin-fan condensers, which reject heat to the air.
These plants are often closed loop—whatever comes out of the ground as steam goes back in as condensate, but some water may be needed to make up for system losses.
Maybe we’ll take these people more seriously when they can provide an estimate of the number of wild horses that can be returned to the range if drilling was stopped.
The amount of land needed to set up drilling rigs is miniscule compared to the amount of land (and forage) devoured by public-lands ranching.
Implementation of ‘Path Forward’ Delayed?
In the report that accompanied yesterday’s spending bill for the Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency and related agencies, the Committee said of the plan submitted by the BLM for effecting the rancher-friendly ‘Path Forward’ that “a well-defined action plan for actually implementing this strategy is still to be presented.”
The Committee also noted the loss of the WHB division chief, program officer, and budget officer, among others, possibly related to BLM’s move to Grand Junction.
RELATED: Review of New WH Population Control Plan Almost Complete?
Oatman of the North
At Custer State Park with This Adventure Family.
RELATED: Everything You Wanted to Know About Oatman.
