Author: Western Horse Watchers

Common Ground in the Wild Horse Debate?

Not when the other side wants you wiped off the map.  There is no two-state solution in the wild horse world.  Public-lands ranching has to go.

See also these remarks, published today by The Wildlife Society, one of the anti-horse groups that participated last week in the ‘Equid Summit.’

By the way, what happened to the Summit?  It was in the news on Wednesday but went dark after that.  The conference ran through Friday.

BLM Invites Comments on Twin Peaks Gather Plan

Refer to this news release dated 05/30/19.  Plan documents can be found at this page.

The HMA lies on the California-Nevada border, east of Highway 395.  It contains 758,128 acres and is managed for horses and burros.  The aimed-at population density is 1.15 animals per thousand acres (both species, upper end of AMLs).

Twin Peaks HMA Map-1

“The AML was determined based on an in-depth analysis of habitat suitability, resource monitoring, and population inventory data with public involvement,” according to the draft, but, curiously, it falls in line with the target density of one animal per thousand acres for public lands managed by the BLM in the western U.S.

Take the size of the HMA in acres and drop the last three digits.  There’s your AML.

Why spend millions of dollars on in-depth analysis?

The land can support way more than one animal per thousand acres so why are the horses and burros held to such tiny numbers?

The draft indicated there were 793 horses remaining on the HMA after the gather of 2010 and 3,506 horses on the HMA in 2019, for a compound average growth rate of 18 percent per year over the nine year period.  Both population figures are estimates.

There are an estimated 632 burros on the HMA this year, bringing the total to 4,138 animals and the pre-gather population density to 5.5 animals per thousand acres.

Surely they must be skin and bones by now, that’s five times too many!

The draft offers four alternatives for dealing with the ‘problem.’  Most are discussed in detail.  The following options were rejected:

  • Remove or reduce livestock within the HMA
  • Designate the HMA to be managed principally for WHB
  • Raise the AMLs

What a surprise.  Public-lands ranching is a disease that has spread across the western U.S., with an entrenched bureaucracy that resists every attempt to cure it.

The plan allocates 9,792 AUMs per year to horses and burros on the Twin Peaks HMA, which corresponds to the upper end of their AMLs.

Privately owned cattle and sheep receive 22,481 AUMs and 4,697 AUMs, respectively, for a total of 27,178 AUMs per year.

For purposes of comparison, let’s convert the AUM budgets to wild horses and cow-calf pairs, which are equivalent in their resource loading.

The AUM allocation for horses and burros yields 816 wild horses, assuming they graze twelve months per year.  The allocation for cattle and sheep yields 4,530 cow-calf pairs, assuming they graze six months per year.

The population densities, based on these figures, are approximately 1.1 wild horses and 6.0 cow-calf pairs per thousand acres, respectively.  (The grazing allotments fit neatly within the HMA, see map on page 95 of the draft.)

The results are summarized in these charts:

Twin Peaks AUM Distribution-1

The HMA can only support one wild horse per thousand acres but it can support six times as many cow-calf pairs, privately owned, of course.

Next time you hear the BLM say “The land can only support 27,000 wild horses and burros,” know that they mean it can only support that many horses and burros vis-à-vis the number of fee-paying animals they want to allow on it.

Latest Census Shows Major Problems in Assateague Herd

The National Park Service said earlier this week that 21 males were found on the island in May, along with 55 females, for a total of 76 ‘wild’ horses.  A report by WBOC News of Salisbury, MD did not indicate the change from a year ago and if the horses were subject to ‘humane management practices.’

The expected proportion of males (or females) is .50.  The actual proportion of males was .28 and the actual proportion of females was .72.

The range of variation in these values attributable to natural causes can be computed from basic statistical formulas, where p = .50 and n = 76.  The results show something unnatural is happening on the island.

Assateague Census May 2019 Rev-1

Are males being removed from the area by NPS?  Why would they die at a rate that far exceeds that of females?

How much of the variation is attributable to human involvement?  Is it still reasonable to call these horses ‘wild?’

RELATED: Three Assateague Mares Missing in Latest Census.

Mustang Monument To Reopen This Weekend

The eco-resort owned by Madeleine Pickens in eastern Nevada will reopen on June 1, according to a story published today by The Telegram, a British news outlet.

The BLM grazing allotment attached to the Spruce Ranch, which she owns, was the site of a wild horse shooting last year.  Like the Heber wild horse shootings, no arrests have been made in the case.

RELATED: Spruce-Pequop FOIA Request Yields Little New Information, Group Criticizes Forest Service for Response to Heber Shootings.

Wild Horse Hatefest Opens in Reno

It’s a reunion of miscreants and malcontents in the wild horse world, many of them signatories to—or cheerleaders of—the wild horse management plan announced on 04/22/19: public-lands ranchers, beef producers and their allies in government.

How many advocacy groups were invited?  You know, the ones who actually care about the horses?

Probably none.  (Many of them are fraudulent anyway, preferring to see wild horse numbers decline through application of contraceptives.)

So of course you’ll hear the conference billed as a success, a win-win, with so much common ground, when in reality it’s a cesspit of greed and deceit sponsored by the cattlemen and their overlords.

Group Criticizes Forest Service for Response to Heber Shootings

A representative of the Heber Wild Horses Freedom Preservation Alliance said yesterday in a letter to the White Mountain Independent that the investigative process was “slow and lackadaisical,” noting that in the latest incident, documented by a photographer, the Forest Service never even bothered to go out to the scene to interview the witness or suspect.

RELATED: Photographer Says LE Not Taking Heber Shooting Seriously.