Helicopter Ban Rises from Ashes

The co-chair of the House Pesticide Caucus has reintroduced a bill that would stop the roundups but not the removals according to a report by KLAS News.

Predictably, the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in mass sterilization and fierce opponent of principal use, endorsed it.

Originally known as the Save a Horse, Hire a Cowboy Act, the bill supports three tenets of rangeland management, forcing a change in methods but not the goals.

It will likely go nowhere in a Republican-controlled Congress.

BLM Could Change Course at Divide Basin

Why should the Virginia Range get all the glory?

The advocates have a better way to get rid of wild horses.

Why not use it to zero-out the HMA?

The ranchers will need to be patient but the advocates will be so relieved they’ll probably offer to do it for free.

BLM Could Change Course at Adobe Town

They could keep the helicopters on the ground and eradicate the herd with PZP.

The advocates might offer to do it for free.

Mass sterilization, the inevitable result of humane population reduction, is key to wild horse conservation.

If we get rid of them they can stay.

BLM Could Change Course at Salt Wells Creek

What if they decided to get rid of the herd with PZP?

A sigh of relief would go up from the advocates.

They might offer to do it for free.

The ranchers would have to be patient.

But the horses would be gone for good, a result that can’t be achieved with helicopters.

Advocates Setting the Standard for Herd Management?

Their method is flawed and they know it.

You cannot use PZP for population reduction without sterilizing the mares, yet they want it to become the standard for herd management.

How stupid do you have to be to accept this as wild horse conservation?

Who’s Setting the Standard for Mass Sterilization?

A. Senators from Nevada.

B. Advocates from Nevada.

RELATED: What Makes Wild Herds Vanish?

What Makes Wild Herds Vanish?

A. Proceedings in the Senate.

B. Pesticides on the range.

Which Does More Harm to Our Wild Horses?

A. Talk.

B. Action.

Who’s the Greater Threat to America’s Wild Horses?

A. Politicians wrangling over the language in a bill.

B. Bitter and unsuccessful women poisoning the mares with PZP.

Those who sound the alarm about wild horses are often among their worst enemies.

Senate Drops Public Lands Sale from Budget Reconciliation Bill

The last-minute change leaves one topic for the ‘Call of the Wild’ event on July 1.

Suggestions for ‘Call of the Wild’

Go off script. Ask for something that helps wild horses stay on public lands.

Raise the federal grazing fee to at least $30 per AUM
Restore the WHB Act to its original form
Put labels on range-fed beef

Advocates, Not Congress, Greater Threat to Wild Horses

Yes, they have a pesticide caucus but they get their information from the advocates, who have sensationalized language in current legislation regarding slaughter—referring to it as a bullet to the head of wild horses—and the sale of public lands, without providing screen images or links to the offending material.

Meanwhile, they spend their days on the range, shooting the mares with pesticide-laced darts.

The advocates, not your elected representatives, are a clear and present danger to America’s wild horses.

‘Call of the Wild’ Set for July 1

Handout provided as a public service.

Western Horse Watchers believes no action is necessary.

Those who organize these appeals are often among the most gullible and least informed about wild horses and burros.

Foal-Free Friday, Ratifying the RMPs Edition

If you’re thinking about HMAPs, you’re right, but there are other ways the advocates tell you they want the ranchers to win.

Forage allocations for wild horses and livestock are specified in resource management plans, sometimes referred to as land-use plans.

The plans are usually enforced by motorized removal.

If horses are consuming 40% of the authorized forage when the plan gives them 20%, a roundup is ordered to protect the ranchers.

The advocates don’t like roundups but concur with the idea of resource enforcement.

Fertility control is a better way of ensuring the ranchers receive 80% of the authorized forage in the lawful homes of wild horses, as specified in the RMPs.

There are no low-flying helicopters and no roping of fatigued animals.

In its extreme form there are no horses—exactly what the ranchers want.

Wyoming Cheatgrass Mitigation Project Leaves Readers Hanging

As usual, the news release does not include a map of the project area or link to the NEPA analysis.

Permit holders, among others, were urged to be aware of treatment operations.

Ironically, the agency that routinely ignored the 2017 labeling amendment for GonaCon Equine, which extended the interval between primer and booster from 30 days to 90 days, said in the announcement that “Strict adherence to the pesticide label restrictions and instructions is followed as required by law.”

Permitted Grazing: Government Benefits with No Means Testing

Imagine having a net worth of several million dollars and being eligible for food stamps.

That’s permitted grazing.

The ranchers pay almost nothing for the forage they consume and the services rendered on their behalf by the government.

And it’s a lifestyle, not temporary public assistance.

AZDA Complicit in Salt River Sterilization Program?

What did they know and when did they know it?

You cannot use the Montana Solution to reduce a herd from 450 to 200 without sterilizing the mares.

You need a diploma from the Billings School of PZP Darting to apply it.

To claim ignorance implies gross negligence of the instructors.

Will the guilty parties please step forward?

BLM Biologist Helping Advocates Ruin McCullough Peaks Mares?

He’s one of the greatest proponents of the herd according to a story posted yesterday by the Powell Tribune.

The 2025 population dataset put the size at 149 and he’s already darted 45, which may be close to 100% of the breeding-age mares. Any left for the advocates?

His efforts are not mentioned at their darting page.

The HMA is a curated horse exhibit. There’s nothing natural about it.

Sterilized mares
Tiny breeding population
Lack of genetic diversity
Abnormal sex ratio
Massive human involvement
Habitat fragmented by allotments
Selection for faulty immune systems

All of this to prop up a failed industry, referred to in the article as the folks with stock.

Foal-Free Friday, Passing the Torch Edition

An article by The Colorado Sun points to a long-term challenge in the management of the state’s wild horses: Many of the advocates are growing older and there is not much interest among young people in taking over.

Given that wild horse management generally equates to beating the numbers down with ovary-killing pesticides, that’s a good thing.

Don’t let the door smack you on the way out.

AZDA Should Hold Pre-Bid Hearing for Salt River Contract

Simone Netherlands of the Salt River Wild Horse Darting Group and Suzanne Roy of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses should be ordered to appear before the Board—if there is one—and put under oath to discuss the condition of the herd.