Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
Opinion
Refer to the column titled ‘Wild Horse Tales,’ starting on page 19 of the online edition of Horse Tales, July issue.
Good work, guys.
The authorization use report shows five out of ten:
The number of animals on the permits, along with the available AUMs, tell you what the advocates are trying to defend.
It ain’t about the horses, folks.
RELATED: Value of Forage in HMAs?, Advocates Frustrated with Onaqui Roundup?
That’s a hard question to answer, for the reason noted in this post, but the number of cattle and sheep in the Onaqui allotments is easy.
Go to the Authorization Use report in RAS.
Click Apply to run the report. How do you know the field office? Look at the news release for the roundup.
You can download the report by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right or you can view it here.
Western Horse Watchers recommends that you work with resource allocations, not the number of animals, to get the best understanding of the way our wild horses and burros are being managed.
Refer to items [12], [13] and [14] of comment #1960 in the Onaqui Comment Report, starting at the bottom of page 136 in the pdf.
The 19,235 AUMs in the grazing permits provide roughly $1.9 million in benefits to local economies. That’s about $100 per AUM per year in economic activity.
Now we can put a price tag on wild horses.
The Onaqui AML is not 210, but 210 × 12 × 100 = $252,000 per year in lost economic value.
The pre-gather population of 500 represents 500 × 12 × 100 = $600,000 per year in lost economic activity.
The answer is obvious: Remove the horses and give their food to the ranchers.
This is an area where the advocates can unite with the cattlemen in their desire to get rid of wild horses.
Must be tough. They’re watching a contractor get rid of the horses with helicopters when they could be doing the same with their darting rifles.
Most of them want the mares treated with PZP, a pesticide, to keep the herd in check without having to resort to sterilization or roundups, according to a report posted this morning by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Nobody’s talking about land-use plans, resource allocations and the reasons for wild horse removals.
Nobody except Western Horse Watchers.
RELATED: Status of Onaqui Allotments, Wild Wednesdays at Onaqui Mountain HMA.
Think of it as GPS-enabled shock collars. You enter the coordinates of the pasture into the base station, slap on the collars and the system will gently persuade your livestock to stay within the pre-defined boundaries.
There are no posts, no gates, no buried wires.
The story by KFOR News of Oklahoma City did not say what might happen if the power goes out or atmospheric conditions interfere with GPS signals.
The range of the system is not known and if it requires line-of-sight communications between the base station and the animals.
Nevertheless, the technology may be of interest to those on the political left who want to control everything, including you.
A GPS-enabled kill switch in your car would warn you when you’re approaching the limits set by your masters. An ankle bracelet might do the same if you’re on foot.
Curiously, those who would enslave you are the ones tearing down statues because they’re associated with slavery.
“The science is on our side,” according to a delegate of the Cloud Foundation, stating that “there are win-win solutions that can benefit the ranchers and our wild horses.”
The reference, of course, is to PZP darting of wild mares. The term appears three times in this article by The Salt Lake Tribune. Drive the birth rate to zero and let the herd die off. Don’t let the horses reclaim any of their food from the cattlemen.
Any of you still wondering who the turncoats are in the wild horse world?
Undeniable Truth #2.
RELATED: Capitulation to Ranching Agenda at Onaqui Mountain HMA.
Watch how quickly the focus shifts to free-roaming horses on public rangelands—just 20 seconds into the video. Would their story differ from that of horses in other areas?
In this film about science, did they use scientific methods to collect the data and present their findings?
Where in the North American fossil record do cattle and sheep appear? Are they working on a video for that?
This is not science, it is agenda-driven information intended to confuse or mislead, also known as propaganda.
Be very skeptical when you see statements such as “management of these animals informed by independent science,” which was added to the text of AJR-5 in California.
The year-long infection in her leg intensified after she was separated from her colt, removed from the wild and treated aggressively, according to a report by OBX Today.
The advocacy group coordinating the response solicited donations two weeks ago to help with the vet bills.
On the bright side, they did let her have a foal before she died.
Refer to this news release by American Equine Awareness.
The advocates won’t oppose it because it can accomplish automatically what they’ve been trying to achieve manually: Getting rid of wild horses with contraceptives.
Western Horse Watchers believes there are some aspects of the machine that its developers aren’t disclosing, such as what happens if studs come in for the bait or the mares continue to feed after they’ve been darted. How will they be repelled?
On the range, will the higher horses allow the lower horses to get near it?
They’re not lobbying the politicians, as we saw yesterday. They’re schmoozing the bureaucrats, who never have to face the voters.
The practice came up last year, when BLM moved its headquarters to Grand Junction.
Why all the uproar? Loss of access by special interests.
Two years ago, when interviewed about the proposed move, a Colorado senator said “Washington is infested with special interests. You mean to tell me that BLM is insulated from that? They’re infested.”
Congress doesn’t write land-use plans and specify AMLs. How long do you think they’d last if the American people knew they assigned most of the resources in wild horse areas to privately owned livestock? That would be political suicide.
They may agree with it, but they let the bureaucrats do the dirty work.
A story dated July 9 by Tri-State Livestock News describes the reaction of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to an executive order committing $500 million to expanding processing capacity in the beef industry.
The order was intended to promote competition in the American economy and directs the USDA to consider issuing new rules defining the “Product of the USA” label on beef so consumers have accurate, transparent information at the grocery store.
The term ‘rulemaking’ appears 21 times in the order.
In Sec. 5. (i) (ii), the Secretary of Agriculture shall consider initiating a rulemaking to define the conditions under which the labeling of meat products can bear voluntary statements indicating that the product is of United States origin, such as “Product of USA,” to ensure that consumers have accurate, transparent labels that enable them to choose products made in the United States.
The issue is not the labels. As an aside, do you think producers of range-fed beef would welcome labels like this?
RANGE FED
PRODUCED ON PUBLIC LANDS
Ensuring that consumers have accurate information is the last thing on their minds.
The concern is the rulemaking. The new rules will be created by the unelected bureaucracy, not your elected representatives.
They may be tied to a statute, or have the appearance of such, but you have no voice in the process.
Look at the rules affecting wild horses and burros. Do they uphold the statute—which was crafted by your representatives—or contradict it?
So much for consent of the governed.
They’re constantly screwing it up. They said the preview link, new today, would not appear when the post went live, but there it is.
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, go elsewhere. WordPress is third rate.
The fictitious HMA was the subject of a presentation last week about gather planning and scheduling in wild horse areas, according to the WHBAB agenda.
Characteristics from page 6 of the slide deck:
The horses allowed by plan require 6,000 AUMs per year and the aimed-at stocking rate is approximately 0.7 horses per thousand acres.
The presentation did not provide any information about resources assigned to livestock and did not include an EA for enforcement actions associated therewith, so the meaning of ‘limited’ is not clear.
Western Horse Watchers has yet to see an HMA where, say, twenty to thirty percent of the authorized forage has been allocated to privately owned cattle and sheep, neglecting those areas where permitted grazing is not allowed.
We need a bridge that will take us from the horse side of the management plan to the ranching side and the chart in this post about stocking rates will do exactly that.
Start on the x-axis at 0.7, move vertically until reaching the dashed line, then go horizontally to the left until you hit the y-axis. An estimated 85% of the forage has been assigned to other users of public lands (with a small amount reserved for wildlife, not considered in this post).
So, indeed, grazing is limited. Healthy Horse HMA is managed primarily for livestock, not principally. Areas no longer designated for wild horses, around half of the land identified in 1971, might be managed almost exclusively for livestock.
The total authorized forage is 6,000 ÷ .15 = 40,000 AUMs per year, with 34,000 AUMs per year dedicated to livestock.
The advocates, not mentioned in the presentation, are undeterred by these figures and continue to push their darting programs. The voices of one or more celebrities may have been added to bolster the effort.
Occasionally, water may be scarce for the horses, but the ranchers have installed various improvements that insulate their herds from droughts, perhaps with the assistance of the federal government. Every year, 50% of the grazing fees, or $10 million, whichever is greater, is plowed back into the program.
In recent years, the $10 million limit has prevailed, because the grazing fees, stuck in a time capsule since the 1960s, are artificially low.
The forage assigned to livestock would support an additional 2,833 wild horses, for a True AML of 3,333.
The stocking rate at the new AML would be approximately 4.4 horses per thousand acres, or if you prefer, about 227 acres per animal.
A larger horse population might do a better job of knocking down those invasive weeds.
The 2,833 horses displaced from the HMA by privately owned livestock represent 5.8% of the 48,897 horses currently in off-range holding, according to figures provided at the meeting.
Conversely, up to 5.8% of the horses in off-range holding could be returned to the range by ending public-lands ranching at Healthy Horse HMA, a savings of two to five million dollars per year.
The decrease in receipts from lost grazing fees would be $45,900 per year.
Most people would eagerly give up that income if they could save that much money.
The presentation said that a survey found 1,200 wild horses in the area, considerably less than 3,333, so there is no need for a roundup. The problem is livestock, not horses.
RELATED: WHBAB Offers New Slate of Anti-Horse Recommendations.
China, North Korea and Cuba are independent nations but their people have no rights and are enslaved to totalitarian governments.
The Constitution protects you from tyranny.
We don’t need a January 6th commission, we need a November 3rd commission, followed by justice, up to and including execution of those involved.
RELATED: Independence Day Quiz.
Refer to this news release, appearing today on EIN Presswire.
Although it addresses the misguided practice of PZP darting, it does not reflect the writer’s desire to see America’s wild horses moved to remote wilderness areas not particularly suited to livestock grazing, so the ranchers can have all of their food.
Eighty to ninety five percent is not enough.
RELATED: Onaqui Wild Horse Rally Today at Utah State Capital.
The Board met online June 30 and July 1. Western Horse Watchers did not view any of the proceedings, including public comments.
The first recommendation, in view of the “unprecedented drought situation,” is to create “an emergency action plan including the capacity to gather and house an unprecedented number of equids, coincidentally contacting FEMA and Interior regarding possible funding, and issuing an emergency declaration.”
Getting rid of wild horses and burros has been the goal all along but the idea is easier to sell when you can point to a temporary change in their environment.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
RELATED: WHBAB Meets Next Month.
Paraphrasing Max Planck: A new idea does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die off and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Refer to this news release by the Animal Welfare Institute. Same amount as last year, $11 million “to pursue safe and reversible fertility control options.”
Permitted grazing, and the number of wild horses and burros displaced thereby, are not mentioned in the announcement.
It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish the advocates from the ranchers.
RELATED: So Long, PZP Amendment?
The measure, part of the HR 3684 infrastructure bill, bans the transport of equines across state lines or to Canada or Mexico for slaughter for human consumption, according to a news release issued this morning by Animal Wellness Action.
The amendment carried with others by a voice vote, which may mean there’s no record of who voted for and against. The announcement did not indicate if the animals could be transported for pet food and other products.
RELATED: Amendment Tries to End Horse Transport for Slaughter.
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