Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
Opinion
The writer of this letter to the Colorado Times Recorder has the right idea but Western Horse Watchers believes the review should focus on resource allocations, management priorities and land-use plans.
Why do the bureaucrats cater to public-lands ranchers at the expense of wild horses and burros, in areas set aside for wild horses and burros?
…someone from a farm bureau or stock grower’s association salutes your darting efforts, as they did for Wild Horse Connection on the Virginia Range.
RELATED: Wild Horse Connection Thrives on Double Standard.
The driver of the truck said he was dispatched to a ranch near San Antonio to pick up horses and knew he was transporting something illegal but did not know what, according to a report posted yesterday by the Laredo Morning Times.
The story did not indicate how many carrots were needed to load the trailer and what would have happened to the horses had the driver reached his destination.
Although not approved by the FDA to treat Covid-19, it’s selling like hotcakes, according to a story posted yesterday by KOAM News of Pittsburg, KS.
The one-horse pony and usurper of the White House, his illicit administration and godless political party, along with their sycophants in the media, want you to take the clotshot instead, so roll up your sleeves when the third dose becomes available.
RELATED: Yes We Have No Ivermectin.
We’ve never seen this before. Dry conditions out west. Worsened by global warming.
We should give it a name. Western Horse Watchers proposes Megadrought Sandy.
As for the horses, how many HMAs are not occupied by privately owned livestock?
How can emergency roundups provide relief to fragile ecosystems without similar cutbacks in permitted grazing?
When conditions improve, will the horses be returned to the range?
The government is not trying to save wild horses, but to insulate the public-lands ranchers from the effects of temporary changes in the weather, and improve their fortunes in the future. What drives this obsession?
Man-made climate change is a lie, despite what you might read in stories like this one by AP News.
If you want to get off the grid and put your car on blocks, knock yourself out.
Management of the Virginia Range mustangs should be left to them.
If you get too close to wild horses, you might receive a citation.
If you feed them you might be accused of unlawful conduct.
If you shoot them with darts you might be charged with animal cruelty.
Not so for the advocates.
This is the double standard of the wild horse world.
The announcement by WVEC News did not indicate if the advocates would be discussing their fertility control program and if viewers would be asked to accept statements such as “Few horses remain but we’re darting as many as necessary.”
A story posted August 4 by This Is Reno considers a key finding from a USGS study: Greater sage-grouse populations may continue to decline—by more than 70% within areas where the horses live by 2034—of horse populations continue increasing at current rates.
Let’s take a closer look at ‘areas where the horses live.’ How many of them are not occupied by privately owned livestock? How did the researchers get a clean separation between the effects related to horses and those related to livestock, a problem known as ‘confounding?’ Who commissioned the study?
A subsequent column in the Sierra Nevada Ally dated August 8 asks similar questions.
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Western Horse Watchers can’t respond if it’s not valid.
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.
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.
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?
Western Horse Watchers Association 