Good work, guys.

Refer to this commentary in The Sierra Nevada Ally by the individual who questioned the testimony of one of the SJR3 witnesses because it omitted data for livestock.

RELATED: Ranchers Rebranding Agenda as Wildlife Conservation?

SJR3 is one example.  It’s not about livestock, according to one of its adherents, even though the term appears five times in the text and the rancher-friendly Path Forward was cited once.

The writer of an opinion piece appearing in today’s edition of The Salt Lake Tribune claims that loss of sagebrush habitat, which rural communities need for ranching, hunting and other recreation, can be attributed to invasive cheatgrass, encroaching juniper, wildfires and overabundant wild horses, among other things.

Therefore, to protect wildlife that inhabit those areas, we need to eliminate those things because they displace native grasses, consume them or destroy them.

Like SJR3, the goal is wildlife conservation.  The ranchers have little if any interest in these efforts and will not benefit from them.

The author did not indicate if the photo of the cut-down juniper tree, which had probably been there for several hundred years, was taken on a grazing allotment.

RELATED: Sagebrush Restoration Project Inching Ahead.

The resolution was drafted to benefit Nevada’s wildlands and wildlife, according to the writer of column posted today by The Sierra Nevada Ally of Reno, NV.

Let’s accept that as a true statement.

Now, suppose you were going to write it to help the public-lands ranchers.  What would you do differently?  What exactly would you change?

“The fact that there is a problem with livestock does not mean we should not try to solve the problem with overabundant horses.”

You don’t have too many horses, you have too little food.  Gathering to the low end of AML and suppressing population growth reflects that reality.

The author testified in favor of the measure at the March 23 hearing.  His presentation was questioned at the end of the public comments for omitting data on cattle.  Go to 5:25:40 in the video transcript of the meeting.

RELATED: AWHC Intervenes in SJR3?

It’s what you’d have if the public-lands ranchers were confined to their own property, importing feed as needed to sustain their herds.

Think of it as off season year around.

RELATED: Fixing the Ranching Problem in the Western U.S.

An amendment to the resolution was proposed in a work session on April 1.  It was submitted by the American Wild Horse Campaign.  Video of the meeting has been linked to the SJR3 page on NELIS.

The amendment does not contest the management priorities on lands set aside for wild horses and burros in Nevada, illustrated in this morning’s commentary on the Desatoya HMA, nor the resource allocations arising therefrom.

Rather, it suggests an alternate method for getting rid of those animals, which will achieve the results desired by the SJR3 supporters but in a longer timeframe.

RELATED: SJR3 Stirs Up Wild Horse Debate in Nevada?

The management plan assigns 2,160 AUMs per year to wild horses at the upper end of the AML, per Section 1.2 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions in the HMA.

Livestock receive 9,133 AUMs per year per Table 3-2 in the EA.  The forage available to livestock inside the HMA from the Porter Canyon allotment decreased from 6,352 AUMs per year in the Draft EA to 5,877 AUMs per year in the Final EA.

The total authorized forage in the HMA is 11,293 AUMs per year, neglecting wildlife.

That means the horses can consume up to 19% of their food.

The Proposed Action, authorized in yesterday’s Decision Record, will gather the HMA to the lower end of the AML and minimize growth rates thereafter with fertility controls and sex ratio skewing.

The remaining horses will need 1,524 AUMs per year, about 13% of the authorized forage, which is the long-term goal of the management plan.

Perhaps we should refer to it as a pest control plan, designed to protect the interests of the public-lands ranchers, not America’s wild horses.

The forage assigned to livestock would support an additional 761 horses for a True AML of 941.  The current population is thought to be around of 231.

If the HMA was managed principally for wild horses, per the original statute, there would be no need for a roundup or fertility control program.

RELATED: Desatoya Wild Horse Decision Record Signed.

Western Horse Watchers looks at resources allowed by plan, not current usage, to understand how an area is managed.

Forage consumption, grazing seasons and herd sizes may change from year to year.

Animal numbers are usually reported for wild horses and cow/calf pairs, even if the area is managed for burros and sheep.

RELATED: Evaluating Management Priorities in Mixed-Use Areas.

When I started this blog three and a half years ago, I was pretty sure that public-lands ranching was going to be a major issue.

What I wasn’t expecting is the large number of bogus advocacy groups, working not in the best interest of America’s wild horses, but for those of the ranchers.

RELATED: Sizing Up Threats to America’s Wild Horses.

The Draft EA for the Sand Wash gather plan refers to it in a section about record keeping for wild horse fertility control programs (bottom of page 22 in the pdf).

A web search pointed to a site called ‘WHIMS Web (AWHC).’  It is not a ‘dot gov,’ which would signify government ownership.

The warning message says “Actual or attempted unauthorized use of this system will result in criminal and/or civil prosecution” and “WHIMS Web reserves the right to review, monitor, and record all activities on the system,” which are “subject to review by law enforcement officials.”

Good grief, what are they hiding?

If it’s a database for wild horse darting programs on public lands, why isn’t it in the public domain?

The horses can access one bedroom, but five have been reserved for other mandated uses (see Lexicon).

However, if you’re a wild horse in the Little Colorado, Saylor Creek or Lost Creek HMAs, you get half a broom closet.

RELATED: Hypothesis Confirmed.

The HMA, one of five affected by the Rock Springs gather plan, does not contain any checkerboard land and is not included in the Rock Springs RMP amendments, as noted at the end of Section 1.1 in the Draft EA.

The management plan assigns 1,200 AUMs per year to wild horses at the upper end of the AML, with 45,004 AUMs per year assigned to privately owned livestock.

That means the horses are allowed to consume up to 2.6% of the authorized forage in the HMA, also known as ‘their food.’

Doesn’t that seem a bit strange?  The land was set aside for the horses.

The proposed action will gather the HMA to the lower end of the AML, leaving around 69 horses.  Growth rates will be minimized with contraceptives.

The horses will need 828 AUMs per year after the roundup, about 1.8% of the authorized forage.

The fertility control program locks the pattern in, maximizing benefits to the public-lands ranchers.

RELATED: Aim of Rock Springs Gather Plan.

The organization, based in Kamas, UT, was mentioned yesterday in the guest column about the Onaqui wild horses.

They are PZP zealots, working with government to ensure that privately owned livestock receive 83% of the authorized forage in an area set aside for wild horses, according to figures in the column.

RELATED: Running the Onaqui Numbers.

Think of it as a horse race, a record-breaking horse race, such as Belmont in 1973.

Everybody starts at the same time.  The advocacy groups would have you believe that it’ll be a photo finish, everybody neck-and-neck in terms of their impact on wild horses.

Not so.

Way out in front are the public-lands ranchers.

Far behind are the drillers, miners and loggers.

In between are the advocacy groups themselves, masquerading as defenders of wild horses but actually allies of the ranchers.  Obsessed with contraceptives, they’re getting rid of more wild horses than any of the ‘miscreants’ in the back of the bus.

Although Sham ran well initially, he faded into the background and finished last, a symbol of wild horse advocacy almost fifty years later.

A story posted this evening by This Is Reno says the resolution has received roughly equal amounts of support and opposition.

Except that it’s really not a debate and there is no meaningful opposition.

Proponents of the measure want the horses removed now, using helicopters, while its opponents—the so-called advocates—want to get rid of them with contraceptives.

Nobody’s sticking up for the horses.

Nobody’s questioning resource allocations and management plans.

Nobody’s asking why only two of the 83 HMAs in the state are managed principally for wild horses and burros, per the original statute.

Nobody’s talking about grazing fees vs market rates, economics of roundups, base properties, True AMLs and consumer awareness of range-fed beef.

Notably absent from the testimony are concerns from drilling and mining interests.

RELATED: Wild Horse ‘Advocacy’ Groups React to SJR3 Hearing.

Woohoo, she co-authored the glorious PZP Amendment, an idea so good that even the Rolling Stones would support it.

Now, she brings a “refreshing vision to the BLM,” according to a guest column published by the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Much of the debate in the wild horse world is not about how to protect them but the best way to get rid of them.  Should we use helicopters or contraceptives or sterilization or euthanasia?  Or some combination?

Drilling and mining affect anywhere from a few acres to a few thousand acres, while public-lands ranching affects entire HMAs and beyond—millions of acres.

Will she come out against it?

Will she push for an increase in grazing fees, a revamp of management plans that assign most of the resources to privately owned livestock, and labels for beef produced on America’s public lands?

Probably not.  Those ideas qualify as bold but would likely clash with her party’s alliances and political agenda.

RELATED: Haaland Urged to Hit ‘Reset’ Button in WHB Program.

A draft resolution that resembles the formal text was prepared in 2020 by the Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands, Wildlife and Free-Roaming Horses and was submitted to the Public Lands Steering Committee of the Nevada Association of Counties.

The cover letter was written by the woman who spoke to the Committee on Natural Resources yesterday at the beginning of the hearing.

She was an organizer for the ‘Horse Rich Dirt Poor’ forum in October 2019 and describes her group as a “small band of volunteers.”

Western Horse Watchers believes that the Coalition is not an advocacy group, at least not for wild horses, and that its members are motivated by more than a concern for rangeland health in Nevada.

RELATED: SJR3: Heard, No Action.

Folks, this may be relevant to the wild horse world.

No wait, it was taken from the wild horse world.

Researchers are using PZP to manage deer populations in the Hudson Valley, according to a report posted yesterday by the Times Union of Albany, NY.

The story did not indicate if the animals had been robbing forage from privately owned livestock and if the residents favored annual injections over low-flying helicopters.

It’s not a problem involving random sampling, statistical inferences and confidence levels.  The characteristics of the population are already known.

Just get the forage allocations for all of the areas not managed principally for wild horses and burros (which is most of them), add the forage amounts for livestock and divide the sum by twelve.

Add that result to the current AML of 27,000 and there’s your answer.

FOIA requests may be required.

Water may be limiting factor in some areas.

RELATED: How Many Wild Horses Can the Land Really Support?

The discussion yesterday suggests that it’s way more than 27,000.

The forty-or-so areas in the analysis were not randomly selected from the population of about 200 areas, so the accuracy of the answer cannot be assessed and a margin of error cannot be applied.  It’s mostly an extrapolation so take it with a grain of salt.

What you can conclude is that statements such as “The land can only support 27,000 wild horses” are incomplete.  “The land can only support 27,000 wild horses because we’ve sold most of their food to the public-lands ranchers” would be a bit more accurate.

RELATED: Estimating the True AML for All Wild Horse Areas in the West.