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.

A press release issued today by The Cloud Foundation recommends three actions for future management of wild horses and burros:

• Protect their natural behaviors
• Give them their fair share of forage on public lands
• Fix inadequate standards during roundups, in holding facilities and at adoption

How about “managing principally for wild horses and burros” and “managing at the minimum feasible level,” per the original statute, while rolling back federal regulations aimed at “managing primarily for livestock?”

The appeal period closes on March 23, according to a report by Vail Daily.

The 337 wild horses found five years ago have blossomed into 1,200, for an average annual growth rate of 29% per year!

The story includes comments by one of the two sisters who recently received a Trailblazer award.  With 74% of the BLM grazing land in Colorado failing to meet standards for rangeland health, and most of the allotments not inhabited by free-roaming horses, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

RELATED: Piceance Decision Record Signed.

Commissioners of Mesa County, CO designated March 20 “Meat-In Day,” according to a report posted today by KREX News of Grand Junction.

Western Horse Watchers encourages you to enjoy beef and beef products not produced on America’s public lands.  Sadly, you may have a hard time making the determination.

The Mesa County Republican Women will host a BBQ from 12 until 2 PM in Grand Junction.  The story did not say if they’ll be offering range-fed steaks.

Government dependency and redistribution of wealth are not hallmarks of conservatism, which has been traditionally associated with the Republican Party.

The awards were presented to two sisters, according to a story posted today by the Rio Blanco Herald Times.

One of them, executive director of the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts, speaks about the impact of wild horses in this video by Protect the Harvest, a cheerleader group for the public-lands ranchers.

The other, a steward of the public lands and president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, operates a cattle ranch near Fruita, CO.

The Operator Information and Allotment Information reports in RAS tie the ranch to the North Fork Kannah Creek and Whitewater Common allotments.

The Allotment Master report puts both of them in the Improve category.

RELATED: Allotment Categories Explained.

Western Horse Watchers has already suggested Category D for allotments ruined by wild horses and burros, even in areas where the AML is zero.

But now there’s another issue: Man-made climate change.

For allotments threatened by global warming, which should be all of them, Western Horse Watchers proposes Category W—not for warming but for Woke—because only the enlightened can see what’s truly going on.

The rest of us dolts, including your host, only see sedentary animals congregating around water holes, polluting them with their droppings.

The new category would relieve the ranchers of any responsibility for rangeland health.

RELATED: Rewilding Western Rangelands?

A drawback of the automatic darting machine introduced last year is that the horses have to come to it, necessitating the continual restocking of bait.

But what if it was mobile and could go on the offensive?  Artificial intelligence would identify the target and steer the machine to the appropriate distance.

Contraceptive darts, loaded into twelve-round cartridges that resemble baseball bats, would be fired automatically.  A ballistics computer would aim the device based on wind speed and direction.

Spent cartridges would be jettisoned.

The rover demonstrates the concept.  No more youngsters consuming critical resources in the Designated Area.

RELATED: ‘Perseverance’ Finds No Pinyon Pines or Juniper Trees.

The writer of a guest column appearing today in The Hill argues that deteriorating conditions on public lands in the western U.S. have more to do with climate change than wild horses, and that a massive conservation program is needed to stop it.

Given the political leanings of the publication, those could be code words for deindustrializing and depopulating western rangelands.

The piece could have been written at the behest of ranching interests.  Notably absent are terms such as ‘cattle,’ ‘livestock,’ and ‘grazing.’

Yet, approximately 250 million acres have been designated for public-lands ranching, with many of the BLM allotments in the Improve category.

The article includes the usual propaganda, such as “developing a humane contraceptive that will effectively slow the growth of wild horse populations” and incentivizing private landowners to “support the relocation of wild horses to suitable lands.”

How exactly does relocation of wild horses to private sanctuaries and remote wilderness areas achieve the original goals of the WHB Act?

What happens when you use phony problems as a basis for action?

The author is a legal advisor for The CANA Foundation, a non-profit group whose founder supports horse slaughter.

RELATED: CANA Foundation Throws in with Public-Lands Ranchers.

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A story posted last night by The Fountain Hills Times said Brownie Troop #6445 donated $300 from this year’s cookie sales to the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, a non-profit that humanely manages the Salt River wild horses.

The report did not mention that ‘humane management’ means stalking the mares and shooting them with contraceptive darts.

RELATED: Saving the Salt River Horses by Getting Rid of Them.

The WHB Act no longer affords the protections she sought, most of the resources go to privately owned livestock and the advocacy groups offer no meaningful resistance.

The Salt River horses live in the Tonto National Forest but are managed at the state level.  There is no Salt River WHT.

Human involvement, including darting and feeding, has, in effect, turned their range into a sanctuary.

Why can’t the horses fend for themselves?  If food is scarce, why don’t they move to greener pastures?  What’s on the other side of the fence?

A summary of grazing activity in Arizona forests during 2016, the most recent year for which the Forest Service has provided data, yields the following results:

• Forage to cattle: 924,099 AUMs
• Forage to sheep and goats: 25,129 AUMs
• Forage to wild horses and burros: 10,427 AUMs

Horses and burros receive 1.1% of the total, which may not include the Salt River herd.

Are the horses constrained by other mandated uses of public lands?  If so, why isn’t the ‘advocacy’ group talking about it?

RELATED: Saving the Salt River Horses by Getting Rid of Them.