Sand Wash Partners Protect Ranchers Not Wildlife

When wild horse populations are within AML, other wildlife thrive, according to a BLM article about the 2024 roundup.

In the case of Sand Wash Basin, you cannot have more than 362 wild horses in the HMA or the land will degrade, but you can have livestock equivalent to 1,402 wild horses in the same area.

Curiously, those animals escaped the writer’s attention.

The permanent bait trap and ever-present footprints of the PZP darters are constant reminders that the horses are not a priority in their lawful home.

RELATED: Sand Wash Roundup Ends Early.

Thriving Ecological Balance-3

How to Build Support for Triple B Roundup

Call a press conference.

Announce that you’ve decided to get rid of the herd with PZP.

A sigh of relief will go up from the advocates.

In a few days, letters and emails will arrive offering to dart the mares for free.

Better Way 10-25-23

After five years they will be sterile and with no new foals hitting the ground, the herd will vanish.

The advocates, led by the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, will point to the Salt River and Virginia Range as examples of what can be done.

Mass Sterilization and Motorized Removal 08-10-24

You just need to be patient and let them show their true colors.

RELATED: Triple B Roundup Announced.

Large-Scale Roundups Good for Wildlife?

The Wind River roundup took about 7,600 wild horses off the reservation in 2023 and 2024.

Their disposition, not discussed in a report by WyoFile, is unknown.  The writer said they were “trucked away.”  Probably to Mexico or Canada.

An aerial survey in late 2022 found 5,500 animals on one million acres.

A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put the estimate at 9,000 or more, for a stocking rate of nine wild horses per thousand acres.

That is what they were trying to eradicate: An outlier that defied the carrying capacity narrative, namely, that western rangelands can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (27,000 animals on 27 million acres).

The Virginia Range in Nevada, another counterexample, had a stocking rate of at least ten wild horses per thousand acres before the advocates got involved.

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in mass sterilization and staunch opponent of principal use, was tasked with erasing that evidence.

The author did not indicate who paid for the roundup and if the decision to get rid of the horses had been influenced by outside interests such as hunting and ranching.

Antelope-Triple B HMAP Proves Advocates Are Ill-Informed About Wild Horses

Go back and read the recommendations published in September by Save Our Wild Horses, an affiliate of Wild Horse Education.

Item 1: Initiate HMAPs promptly, with at least two started per district by year-end, as mandated by 43 CFR 4710.1 with a deadline of 1-year for completion.  Enforce strict adherence to HMAP requirements to maintain ethical, humane, and legal standards in wild horse management practices.

For the Antelope and Triple B Complexes, this means

  • Forcible removal from their lawful homes
  • Application of fertility control pesticides
  • Adjustment of sex ratios in favor of males
  • Castration of stallions
  • Acceptance of forage allocations

Speaking about their conference in Reno and the ideas flowing therefrom, the president and founder of Wild Horse Education said in a news release “We were also able to dispel the long standing myth that advocates are ill-educated on the subject and, hopefully, our words will be taken into thoughtful consideration.”

You betcha.

Even the casual observer now realizes that they want the ranchers to win.

RELATED: Scoping Begins for Antelope-Triple B HMAP.

Advocates Aren’t Political?

If you’re a normal American, yesterday was Columbus Day.

If you’re a liberal, it was Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses has bought into the propaganda and no better place to show it than on socialist media.

Columbus Day at CAAWH 10-15-24

Is Suzanne Roy, executive director of the nonprofit and staunch opponent of principal use, management at the minimum feasible level and nature’s way, ashamed to be white?

Better Way 10-25-23

Is she an apologist for white European migration and the good it wrought?

Why not go all Rachel Dolezal and comport yourself as a person of color, not necessarily female?

Better yet, start another nonprofit that actually serves a charitable purpose and leaves wild horses alone.

RELATED: What Charitable Purpose Do the Advocates Serve?

Pesticide Pushers 07-17-23

They Should Fear the Executions, Not the Roundups

Here are some of the headlines on Drudge.  The link about roundups pointed to a story on Mediaite.

Headlines on Drudge 10-14-24

There may be a few acute injuries and deaths as the traitors are taken into custody but nobody will be dispatched for pre-existing conditions, such as being America-hating liberals who supported our enemies and tried to destroy everything that’s right and good in this country.  We have a justice system for that.

Twin Peaks Roundup Day 7 10-07-24

Kiger-Riddle Management Plan Breaks with Tradition

Due to their popularity, horses captured in these roundups had a very high adoption rate, 100% in some cases.

For this reason the BLM did not apply population suppression in the HMAs, such as fertility control pesticides, sex ratio skewing and castration of stallions.

You won’t find any remarks about that at the HMA pages [Kiger | Riddle] but you can still see them at the 2015 gather page:

Kiger Population Control Statement 10-13-24

That has changed in the new plan, issued in July.

The Decision Record authorized Alternative A, the Proposed Action, discussed in Section 2.2 of the Final EA.

The option, titled “Remove Excess Wild Horses and Implement Intensive Fertility Control Management over a Ten-Year Period,” includes the use of Zonastat-H and GonaCon Equine—a practice that’s been avoided for many years.

More troubling, however, are the inconsistencies in the discussion of these pesticides, starting at the bottom of page 149 in the EA (156 in the pdf).

Like the Buffalo Hills EA, the citation for GonaCon Equine is out of date:

“The EPA required product label associated with the registration for ZonaStat-H is cited in the EA as EPA (2012).  That label states that ‘For maximum efficacy, ZonaStat-H is administered as an initial priming dose followed by a booster dose at least two weeks later.’  The EPA-required product label associated with the registration for GonaCon-Equine is cited in the EA as EPA (2013).  That label states that ‘If longer contraceptive effect is desired, a second vaccination may be given 30 or more days after the first injection or during the following year with no known adverse health effects to the vaccinated animal.’”

The registration was amended in 2015 and 2017.

In 2013 (and 2015) GonaCon was a restricted-use pesticide.  In 2017, that designation was dropped.

In 2013 the shortest interval between treatments was 30 days.  In 2017, the EPA increased it to 90 days.

Zonastat-H is still a restricted-use pesticide, meaning it’s not available for retail sale and you must be certified to apply it.  That’s why the advocates spend three days at the Billings School of PZP Darting and Public Deception.

The EA acknowledges the certification requirement on page 158 of the pdf: “In keeping with the EPA registration for ZonaStat-H (EPA 2012; reg. no. 86833 1), certification through the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana is required to apply that vaccine to equids.”

But there is no such statement for GonaCon Equine, which should be there if they’re referring to the 2013 (or 2015) registrations!

The absence of that remark suggests they’re following the 2017 amendment but violating the 90-day interval between treatments.

Apparently, they want the 30-day interval of the old registrations and the certification-free policy of the new registration.

You can’t have it both ways!

These errors invalidate the EA in this writer’s opinion and the court should halt the roundups as the coalition requested.

RELATED: Coalition Tries to Block Kiger, Riddle Mountain Roundups.

Coalition Tries to Block Kiger, Riddle Mountain Roundups

The plaintiffs, consisting of the Oregon Wild Horse Organization, Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition and Western Watersheds Project, argue that the BLM must demonstrate that wild horse removals will restore an ecological balance on public lands but failed to do so, according to an October 11 report by Capital Press.

The claim will likely not hold water once the court realizes that achieving a thriving ecological balance means ranchers accessing most of the food in the lawful homes of wild horses, a result the agency seeks consistently across ten western states.

The advocates, defeated a long time ago, underscore the philosophy with their darting programs.

The final planning documents covering the roundups were copied to the project folder on July 22 and they are on the October 7 schedule.

The wild horse and burro program is a grazing program ancillary, protecting ranchers by minimizing the pests and enforcing resource allocations already on the books.

Other such functions include predator control (mostly at the state level), wildfire recovery, sagebrush restoration and pinyon/juniper eradication.

RELATED: Pest Control Plan for Kiger and Riddle Mountain HMAs Stalled?

Thriving Ecological Balance-3

Virginia Range Darting Update for September 2024

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in nonmotorized removal and staunch opponent of principal use, reported today that 91 mares received 93 doses of PZP during the month, 13 given as primers and 80 as boosters.

Over the life of the program, which began in 2019, the advocates have pummeled 2,064 mares with 9,860 doses of the pesticide, for an average of 4.8 doses per mare.

The epicenter of the program is in and around the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, listed as USA Parkway in the page 3 chart.

Since the beginning of the year, 161 foals have been born and 54 died.

The current population is thought to be 3,501 with 299 horses listed as missing, compared to 3,515 with 302 horses listed as missing in August.

The population was 3,548 with 311 listed as missing in July and 3,521 with 302 listed as missing in June.

The Year 6 agreement with NDA has not been posted to the darting resources page.

The Year 5 summary has not been posted to the monthly reports page.

A goal for October is to maximize booster treatments so the herd will continue to shrink and to complete the training of newly certified darters.

Not discussed in the September update:

  • Long-term population goal
  • Number of viable mares
  • Size of breeding population
  • Loss of genetic diversity
  • Changes in death rate and sex ratio
  • Unlawful use of pesticides

The report will be submitted to the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

RELATED: Virginia Range Darting Update for August 2024.

Adjectives for Pests 12-01-23