You might conclude that the answer is ‘No’ based on this story by 9News of Denver.

An emergency roundup, set to begin on September 1, will remove 733 wild horses from the area, according to the latest schedule.  Not enough food and water.  Pay no attention to the condition of the horses in the story.

The horses share the land “with Sage Grouse, Elk, Deer, Pronghorn, Coyotes, Mountain Lions, Badgers, Golden and Bald Eagles, along with Dirt Bikes and ATV Riders,” according the local advocacy group.  No PZP darting either.

Clearly a wild horse heaven.

RELATED: Sand Wash Basin Can Support More Wild Horses?

A case brought by the American Wild Horse Campaign, Skydog Ranch & Sanctuary, Evanescent Mustang Rescue and Sanctuary Inc., Clare Staples and Carol Walker has been transferred from the District of Columbia District Court to the District of Colorado, where a similar case filed by Friends of Animals is pending, according to a report posted today by Law Street Media.

Adoptions and financial incentives are downstream programs.  They help the ranchers, not the horses.

Nevada is getting as nutty as California.  NV Energy is expanding its use of power outages to reduce the risk of wildfires in Humboldt County, Lyon County, Storey County, Elko County, Washoe County and Carson City, according to a report posted today by Carson Now.

This will affect the water station for the mustangs.

When you’re on a well and need water most—during a fire—you won’t have any.

Good job, guys.  Great time to be in the generator business.

Should humans try to break up these fights?  No, they’re natural behaviors, noted one of the advocates in a story published this morning by The Charlotte Observer.

So is breeding but that doesn’t stop them from intervening.

The current herd, consisting of 800 to 900 horses, looks healthy, according to a report posted yesterday by 9News of Denver.

So why are they going to be removed in an emergency roundup?

All together now: Because most of the resources have been assigned to privately owned livestock.  It’s not about saving the horses, it’s about protecting the ranchers, an obsession of the federal government.

Most of the horses won’t be adopted.  By the end of the year, the system will be flooded with ‘excess’ animals, whose fate we’ll never know.

RELATED: Management Priorities at Sand Wash Basin HMA.

This letter to the Herald Times of Meeker, CO may be a little over the top but it points to an important concept: Consent of the governed.

The writer states that the West Douglas roundup is “currently taking place without allowing timely input from the public, who legally own these public lands.”

Public comments are usually invited on new/proposed resource enforcement actions, sometimes referred to as wild horse gathers and removals, but those projects don’t address—and can’t change—the resource allocations and management priorities that drive the actions.

Yes, the American people have a voice in their government through their elected representatives.  But do those representatives call the shots on America’s public lands?

Not necessarily.  They may establish a framework through the legislative process, such as the WHB Act, but the grunt work is carried out by the unelected bureaucracy that operates with another set of rules that they invent, known as federal regulations.

Those rules fill in the gaps or correct perceived deficiencies in the statutes.

Can the bureaucracy be influenced by special interests?  Of course.

The rules for wild horse management seem to reflect that.

For example, the statute defines a range as the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the public lands.  No change from 1971.

But a regulation says they are at the discretion of government: Herd management areas may also be designated as wild horse or burro ranges to be managed principally, but not necessarily exclusively, for wild horse or burro herds.  Only four out of roughly 200 are.

The writer makes a good point.  Can regulations override statutes?  Can the bureaucracy put special interests above the will of the people?

That is the case that should be taken to court.

The job posting still appears at Idealist.  With so many advocates down with the program, the position should have been filled by now.

Ability and willingness to go on camera and lie to the American people about your intent, loyalties and methods will put you in the driver’s seat.

What about someone from the Maryland side of Assateague Island?  That program was shut off five years ago and, as of this year, the herd has only been able to produce a 7.8% birth rate.  Excellent qualifications.

RELATED: Candidate for Virginia Range Darting Program Coordinator?

Refer to this photo of the Dragon Trail gas plant taken by fire crews on June 28.

The burned area included lands in the West Douglas HA.

The facility’s footprint is probably less than five acres, enough to displace 1/200th of a wild horse at typical stocking rates.

If the area is subject to permitted grazing, how many wild horses have been displaced by those operations?  Dozens?  Hundreds?

Suppose it’s 50.  The impact of grazing on wild horses would be 10,000 times greater than the gas plant.

Yet the advocates would have you believe that drilling and mining are the greatest threats to America’s wild horses.

Undeniable Truth #3.

Refer to this guest column appearing today in The Bulletin of Bend, OR.

What was the source of the writer’s enlightenment?  A letter to The Salt Lake Tribune by a BLM retiree?

In describing her treatment of a “non-responder,” the author of a column in the July edition of Horse Tales said “I darted this mare aggressively with birth control.  I re-primed her and darted her with a new booster.”

Ruthlessness.  Highly desirable.  Especially in a woman.

This person may be an excellent match for the position described last week.

The Virginia Range is only a few miles north of the Fish Springs area (Pine Nut Mountains HA), where the story takes place.

RELATED: Advocates Tout Nevada Darting Achievements.

Table 3-4 in the 2017 Final EA for resource enforcement actions in the HMA provides acreage, grazing seasons and forage allocations for three allotments inside the HMA.

The Allotment Master report shows management status, public acres and active AUMs.

If managed grazing is better for the land than free-roaming horses, as the BLM and its retirees claim, why don’t any of the allotments meet standards for rangeland health?

Approximately 62% of the BLM grazing land in Oregon does not meet standards for rangeland health.

There is no category for blaming these conditions on wild horses.  Not yet, anyway.

If livestock are confined to certain pastures, which they don’t re-graze according to the retirees, is there anything left for the horses when the animals are rotated to the next area?  Is the previous pasture now off limits, “providing opportunity for undisturbed regrowth, reproduction and recovery of desirable forage plants?”  How are the horses supposed to survive in this mess?

They can’t.  That’s why they’re being removed.  Meanwhile, the advocates are screaming “Get rid of them with PZP not helicopters!”

The horses allowed by plan receive 960 AUMs per year, while the plan assigns almost nine times as much to privately owned livestock.  Would you say that the HMA is managed principally for wild horses?

The government must be following the law, otherwise you wouldn’t see such a lopsided forage distribution.

The HMA contains about 72,000 acres of public lands according to the EA.  Curiously, it can only produce 13 AUMs per thousand acres for wild horses, but if you’re talking about livestock, it can produce 117 AUMs per thousand acres.  How is that possible?

RELATED: Stinkingwater Roundup Starts in Two Weeks.

They must be, otherwise the Onaqui roundup could not occur, according to the writer of a letter to The Salt Lake Tribune published on July 30.

Current events do not confer legality.

The usurper and his illicit administration must be following the law, otherwise tens of thousands of illegal aliens wouldn’t be pouring across the southern border every month.

Well, they’re not.  That’s why it’s called illegal immigration.  And why should lawbreaking be confined to that part of the country?

Meaningful comparisons between wild horses and privately owned livestock are not possible according to the writer, because you don’t know the acreage and grazing seasons.

Those things don’t matter if you know the resource allocations, but they can be easily found in RAS.  The allotment names can be found in ePlanning.

The Onaqui allotments are reviewed in this post.

Management priorities in a given HMA can be easily assessed by comparing the forage allocation for livestock to that of wild horses.

This guy is a 30-year BLM veteran.  He should know that.

The comparisons often show that HMAs are managed primarily for livestock.  He should know that too.

He says that wild horses re-graze certain areas, thwarting the recovery of forage, but implies that cattle do not because they’re rotated between pastures.  Is he suggesting that livestock start on one side of a pasture and move uniformly across the area without retracing their steps?  Seriously?

What about reallocation of resources from livestock to horses?  Amendments to the Wild Horse and Burro Act and the Taylor Grazing Act are needed, according to writer.

Curiously, the environmental assessments for wild horse roundups usually say that such changes are only possible if the BLM first revises the land-use plans.  For example, go to the last paragraph on page 20 in the Final EA for resource enforcement actions in the Calico Complex (page 24 in the pdf).

The writer did not mention the effect of federal regulations—rules invented by the unelected bureaucracy—which may play a much larger role in the way public lands are managed than the statutes.

The writer mentions competition with livestock but does not explain how far the government has tipped the scales in favor of the ranchers—on land identified for horses.

The story includes remarks from the turncoats and allies of the ranchers, along with the usual pablum about wild horses.

• They’re non-native (status of livestock ignored)
• They’re overpopulated
• They’re destroying western rangelands
• Better to get rid of them with PZP than helicopters
• Not enough food and water for horses and other local animals

As for the recent Onaqui roundup, the BLM gave fertility control injections to just over a hundred mares and stallions, according the story, before returning them to the wild.

Refer to this story by CBS News.  Includes video.

The article said the photos are sold at art shows, with some of the proceeds going to charities that protect wild horses, but did not indicate who the beneficiaries were and what is meant by ‘protect.’

Nowadays, when the advocates talk about the brutality of helicopter roundups they’re really trying to convince you that attrition by PZP is better, when in reality there is no overpopulation, no excess horses and no justification for either.

The problem is public-lands ranching, not free-roaming horses.

The advocates are aligned with the ranchers and eager to do their dirty work, as outlined in this commentary by FOA.

Western Horse Watchers does not agree with the remark about fragmentation of habitat, damage to the environment and exacerbation of climate change caused by oil, gas and mineral extraction projects.

RELATED: How Will Advocates React to New Rock Springs Gather Plan?

No, your abusive husband (or boyfriend) is.  Stop treating the symptoms and focus on the causes!

Here’s a guess based on recent experience:

• Don’t question any statements about how many horses the HMAs can support
• Don’t talk about resource allocations and land-use plans
• Don’t oppose the removals, only the way they are carried out
• Ask the government to get rid of the horses with PZP, not helicopters
• Make sure the cattlemen and sheepherders get most of the horses’ food
• Tell the public that more donations are needed to achieve these objectives

Why don’t they just come out of the closet and declare their fealty to the ranchers?

RELATED: Rock Springs Wild Horse Gather Plan Approved.

The timeline at InciWeb now starts on July 16, not July 4, when the fire was touched off by lightning and nobody did anything about it for 12 days.

The story has not hit national headlines but does the one-horse pony, failed presidential candidate of 2020 and usurper of the White House sense that he’s about to get burned by the flames?

RELATED: Tamarack Fire Approaching Nevada State Line.

Refer to this story by the Jackson Hole News & Guide of Jackson, WY.

Another example of native species displaced by non-native species on public lands, with taxpayers picking up the tab.  Nice work if you can get it.

RELATED: Grazing Program Ancillaries.

Imagine a parking lot with room for 1,500 cars.

One day, when the lot contains almost 500 cars, the government says that it can only support 200.

“That’s strange,” you think to yourself, “I can see that the capacity is much larger than 200, they’re lying!”

The next day, the government announces a plan to remove the excess cars.  A towing company has been hired to do the job in five days.

When the story breaks, a parking-rights group argues that towing can be rough on cars, claiming that damage can be minimized if the cars are dismantled and carried out piece by piece.  The process will be slower but the results will be the same.

The group does not question the government’s assertion and does not oppose the removal, only the way it will be carried out.

The government is not convinced by their argument and while the tow trucks are working, opens the lot to 18-wheelers taking a break from the nearby interstate.

“That’s just wrong,” you say to yourself, “this lot was meant for cars, not big rigs.”

The parking-rights group protests the action, to no avail.

When it’s all said and done, only the truck drivers are smiling.