Everybody knows the issue is competition for resources not wrangler safety.
RELATED: New Mexico Legislature Passes Wild Horse Bill.
Author: Western Horse Watchers
HB25-1283 Hearing Next Week
The Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee will consider the bill on April 3.
A form for submitting testimony was not provided.
RELATED: HB25-1283 Moves to Senate.
Adobe Town DNA Out for Public Review
The Proposed Action would gather and remove excess horses from the Adobe Town HMA and apply fertility control treatments of unspecified type.
The current population is thought to be 2,438.
No other documents were copied to the project folder.
The description does not indicate when the roundup would occur.
The deadline for submitting comments is April 28.
RELATED: Adobe Town Confusion.
UPDATE: A map of the project area was not included in the DNA but the BLM news release suggests it applies to the portion of the HMA that will not be zeroed-out by the Rock Springs RMP Amendments.
Foal-Free Friday, Cycle of Dependency Edition
The advocacy groups rely on their misguided followers to sustain their ruinous agenda.
They’re constantly inventing new gimmicks to keep them engaged and their donations rolling in.
Their followers depend on the advocacy groups to validate their ill-informed notions about wild horses and the way public lands are managed.
Together, they support legislation that marginalizes the horses in favor of hunters and ranchers.
Some try to masquerade as independent voices but they arrive at the same conclusions and promote the same policies as the advocates, a phenomenon known as groupthink.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Thinking Outside the Box Edition.
New Wild Horse and Burro Corrals in Montana?
The facility would be built with government-furnished materials on private land in Hamilton according to the Section B of the CX.
The BLM will pay for services such as maintaining, feeding, sorting, marketing, training and trimming of hooves. Veterinary care would be provided as needed.
The capacity is 110.
There are no other documents in the project folder and there were no opportunities for public comment. A news release was not provided.
The address of the ranch was not given but appears to be 736 Alvista Loop.
The aerial image shows a horse setup with a barn, arena, corrals and pastures.
Google Maps labels it “Hamilton Training Center/Mustang Matt Facility.”
Leadership Needed at Salt River
Consider two approaches to herd management:
A. Obtain grazing privileges on one or more allotments in the Tonto National Forest and flip the preference to horses, as Wild Horse Refuge did in Colorado.
B. Sterilize the mares with PZP.
Which one requires a long-term strategy, some diplomacy and tact, a solid donor base and a sincere desire to protect the horses?
Which one can be done by trained monkeys?
RELATED: Salt River Herd Doomed?
Salt River Herd Doomed?
Consider two options for wild horse management. One was announced by the Forest Service, the other proposed by the advocates.
Can you tell which is which?
Alternative A
- Initial population: 400
- Final population: 0
Alternative B
- Initial population: 400
- Final population: 0
Let’s add headings and change the numbers to reflect the way they were sold to the public.
Alternative A – Motorized Removal
- Initial population: 400
- Final population: 0
Alternative B – Nonmotorized removal
- Initial population: 400
- Final population: 200
Now can you tell the difference?
The bureaucrats decided to implement Alternative B, the plan submitted by the advocates.
Why is it a hoax?
Because the volunteers are sterilizing the mares.
The final population will be zero.
RELATED: Advocates, Not Forest Service, Destroying Salt River Herd
House Adopts SCR 4006
The resolution passed 87-4-3 in today’s session.
The measure urges Congress to establish federal protections for the wild horse herd at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
RELATED: Agriculture Committee Approves SCR 4006.
HB25-1283 Moves to Senate
It was referred to the Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee on March 24 according to the bill history.
RELATED: House Passes HB25-1283.
New Mexico Legislature Passes Wild Horse Bill
It’s headed to the governor’s desk according to a story by The Sandoval Signpost.
The bill targets free-roaming herds in Placitas and Ruidoso.
A similar measure passed in the Senate two years ago but did not advance.
Curiously, Placitas is surrounded by BLM grazing allotments.
RELATED: New Mexico Lawmakers Tackle Wild Horse Problem?
UPDATE: Placitas in Sandoval County is not surrounded by allotments although there are a few to the north and east.
Advocates to Discuss Salt River Wild Horse Sterilization Project
The puppet show will take place on March 29 at the Chandler Museum with Suzanne Roy pulling the strings.
The event is open to the public and there is no charge for admission. according to an undated announcement.
RELATED: Advocates, Not Forest Service, Destroying Salt River Herd.
Mustang Monday
At or near the Liggett Table HMA with Double T Rancher.
Timeless Ideas for Reducing Government Waste
This commentary in High Country News was written 30 years ago.
Remarks pertain mostly to allotments in Arizona, including Sunflower, from which the Salt River horses were removed.
If the figures were updated, the memo could be sent to DOGE.
RELATED: Repurposing Sunflower.
Another ORP in Oklahoma?
A new project has been opened in ePlanning but no documents have been posted for public review.
The former cattle ranch would have a capacity of 500 wild horses according to the description.
RELATED: BLM Seeks More ORPs?
Advocates, Not Forest Service, Destroying Salt River Herd
As you read this article about the fertility control program, think of Simone Netherlands as a marionette with Suzanne Roy pulling the strings.
The events leading to the current situation are discussed in a 2019 report to the Arizona Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service.
In a nutshell, the Forest Service announced that it would be removing wild horses from the Tonto National Forest and the advocates stepped in and said “Let us do that.”
Recalling the early days, Netherlands said “At that time, we narrowly escaped removal of the Salt River Wild Horses and offered our way of management to both the state and the federal government.”
What she meant was their way of removal.
One of her most outrageous statements involves birth rates and breeding patterns: “If we do want the mare to have a baby, we just don’t dart her that year,” as if conception can be switched on and off like a light bulb—a reference to the sperm-blocking theory.
The longer a mare has been treated with PZP, the longer she takes to regain fertility, about a year per year.
After five years of treatment, she won’t recover. She’s said to be self-boosting, a codeword for sterile.
Clearly, the horses are not in control of their future.
The management plan allowed ten years for birth control and natural attrition to reduce the herd to 100-200 head, from an initial size of around 400.
Do you think after a decade of nonstop darting the herd will come in for a soft landing, finally in balance with its surroundings?
That’s what they tried at Assateague Island and the herd was still shrinking eight years after the darting program was shut off.
Fighting Wild Horse Extinction?
Don’t be fooled by the advocates.
If it’s done with pesticides, they fully support it.
If the BLM announced it will zero-out the Rock Springs HMAs with PZP, the advocates would drop their lawsuits and offer to do it at no cost to the government.
They are phonies, allies of the ranchers, leaders of the blind.
RELATED: Court Hears Arguments in Rock Springs Grazing Appeal.
Virginia Range Census Results Pending?
An aerial count was carried out December 9 – 11 according to the Animal Industry Report for the March 19 Board of Agriculture meeting,
A BLM statistician is analyzing the data to provide a population estimate.
Foal-Free Friday, Thinking Outside the Box Edition
A 2020 post by the advocates explains habitat loss at the Salt River.
The prescribed course of action, which they were happy to fulfill, was to beat the numbers down with PZP until the population reached an acceptable size—even if it means sterilizing the mares.
How can that be good for the herd?
Why not start a war chest that could be used to buy a base property tied to one of the neighboring allotments and give the horses more space?
Appendix 5 in a 2018 report on forage availability said the Goldfield, Bartlett, St. Clair and Sunflower allotments were most similar in vegetation, soil and topography to the Salt River horse zone.
The horse zone is mostly in Goldfield, which has been closed to livestock grazing.
Sunflower contains Butcher Jones, one of areas where the horses roamed.
It is active while Bartlett and St. Clair are vacant.
Why don’t the advocates have their eyes on these parcels instead of the scopes of their darting rifles?
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Minimally Invasive Edition.
Agriculture Committee Approves SCR 4006
The resolution survived a roll call vote 11-1-2 in today’s hearing.
RELATED: SCR 4006 Hearing Next Week.
ASU Professor to Speak About Compassionate Conservation
Would you attend a lecture based on lies and propaganda?
Consider this statement, taken from the undated announcement:
Wild horse populations grow at a rate of 15-20% per year and compete with cattle, deer, elk, and bighorn sheep for valuable forage and water resources, which threaten fragile riparian ecosystems through soil compaction and overgrazing. While most U.S. policies advocate for the removal of these “non-native” horses, horse advocates continue to push for more territory and rights.
Cattle are the nonnative species and on public lands they outnumber wild horses by a huge margin.
Growth rates of 15-20% per year require birth rates of at least 20-25% per year and this is rarely seen in roundup data.
In discussions of wild horses, conservation is a codeword for eradication, make sure ranchers get most of the resources.
BLM allotments in Arizona support livestock equivalent to 53,662 wild horses on 10,090,546 public acres, or 5.3 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Western Horse Watchers Association 