A bachelor stallion chases a mare and foal as they leave a water hole in the following video by Friends of the Heber Wild Horses.  The fence is for livestock.

A management plan, drafted earlier this year, shows the WHT boundary relative to those of the allotments, page 10 in the pdf.  The proposed AML is discussed on page 21.

The AML for areas outside the WHT is zero, meaning the horses could be captured and removed from the forest if someone complains or they create a hazard.

When grazing season begins, gates are closed, and the horses are cut off from some of their food and water, perhaps a sizeable amount.

If they can’t access critical resources inside their designated area, they’ll move beyond it in search of new ones.  Gotcha!

This approach to wild horse management is not unique to the WHT.  It’s standard practice for most of the wild horse areas on western rangelands.  The new Desatoya resource enforcement plan, currently out for review, is another example.

The environmental assessment for the Heber management plan should be available for public review in early 2021, according to the project status.

RELATED: Heber EA in Progress.

They are areas identified in 1971 for wild horses and burros.  Today, most of the HMAs are managed primarily for livestock, while the HAs are managed almost exclusively for livestock.  Privately owned, of course.

Wild horses should be relocated to remote wilderness areas, to satisfy growing demand for range-fed beef, according to a column published yesterday by the Mail Tribune of Medford, OR.  There, apex predators will keep their populations in check and cattle ranchers will be able to enjoy the full benefit of areas set aside for wild horses.

This is nuts.  If Equine Elite can buy an 80-acre parcel near Burns, WY to build a high-density animal feeding operation—for horses removed from public lands—why is it unreasonable to expect the ranchers to do that?  Many of them already have base properties of several thousand acres.

And why is it unreasonable to expect that lands identified for wild horses in 1971, about 50 million acres, should be managed principally for them, per the original statute?

Overpopulation is a critical problem, according to a story by Deseret News, because of horses that compete with wildlife for forage and water.

Even the casual reader of these pages knows that’s not true.

As for the roundup, no activity has been reported since December 9.

RELATED: Confusion Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick.

Another letter has been published in the East Oregonian, this time favoring PZP.

Counterpoint #4: Reader response dated December 12.

Makes sense if you believe that HMAs—areas set aside for wild horses—should be managed primarily for cattle and sheep.

RELATED: More Readers Oppose Wild Horse Slaughter Plan.

Two more letters have been published in the East Oregonian.  Both point to livestock as the problem and neither argues for contraceptives.

Counterpoint #2: Reader response dated December 12.

Counterpoint #3: Reader response dated December 12.

How refreshing.  The original column appeared on December 5.

RELATED: Slaughter Debate Continues.

The video has two views as of today.  It’s far worse than sodomy and abortion, which the folks at Google love.

Curiously, they didn’t flag a similar video, which has over 5,000 views and has been in the public domain for over two years.

The writer of a letter to the Las Vegas Review-Journal says it’s the easiest and cheapest way to curtail herd growth.

Why would you want to curtail herd growth?

Look at the gather area for the new Desatoya resource enforcement plan, currently out for review.  The boundary, denoted in red, extends well beyond the HMA.

When you carve out over 80% of their food and sell it to public-lands ranchers, don’t you think the horses might outgrow the remaining resources fairly quickly and move off the reservation in search of new ones?

That puts them into areas managed exclusively for wildlife and the most noble and deserving inhabitants of America’s public lands: Privately owned livestock.

Return to Freedom filed suit today in federal court to block the plan, according to a news release, arguing that contraceptives should be used to control herd sizes.

The resource allocations and management priorities that leave wild horses with crumbs on public lands in the western U.S., in favor of privately owned cattle and sheep, were not mentioned in the announcement.

The group is a signatory to the rancher-friendly ‘Path Forward,’ a plan to manage wild horse areas primarily for livestock.

RELATED: Why Should You Oppose Sterilization of Wild Mares?

That’s what the writer of a letter to the Pagosa Daily Post was told.

As for the number of livestock allowed on America’s public lands, the figure offered by the writer is a fairly good estimate.

The BLM sells about 12 million AUMs per year to public-lands ranchers.  If you assume an average grazing season of six months per year, that’s two million cow/calf pairs.

That forage would support one million wild horses, enough to empty all of the off-range corrals and long-term pastures twenty times over.

Point: Column in the East Oregonian dated December 5.

Counterpoint: Reader response dated December 10.

Neither writer mentions the horses displaced from public lands by privately owned livestock.  Nearly 2,000 at the Pancake HMA and that’s just one of approximately 200 WHTs and HMAs.

Given that the ranchers pay about five cents on the dollar to feed their cattle, the product should be dirt cheap and good way to help the poor.

Range-fed beef.  Yum.

A news release published yesterday by Friends of Animals urges you to tell the BLM that you oppose the removal of wild horses from the Complex.

Don’t do it.  BLM already knows that.

The problem is in the RMPs listed in Section 1.0 of the Draft EA and those documents are not up for review at this time.  Your comments will likely be dismissed as outside the scope of the project.

The draft enforcement plan, which is open for discussion, is designed to achieve and maintain AMLs in the four areas that make up the Complex.  Those targets are based on the resource allocations and management priorities of the RMPs.

FOA is on the right track, however.

Keep in mind that drilling and mining, mentioned in the statement, affect anywhere from a few acres to a few thousand acres, while public-lands ranching affects entire HMAs—hundreds of thousands of acres—so keep the focus where it belongs.

RELATED: Pancake Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick.

November 30: Bureau of Land Management selling permits to cut Christmas trees in the Grand Junction Field Office.

December 4: BLM holiday tree permits now available online state-wide.

Because you wouldn’t want to offend the damned.

One of the operators who grazes livestock in the Delamar Mountains HA is eligible for up to 14,826 AUMs per year on two allotments.  The value of that forage, based on a market rate of $25 per AUM, is $370,000.

In exchange, the operator pays the government about $20,000, based on the current fee.

The benefit to the operator is roughly $350,000 per year, to be realized when the cattle are shipped for processing.

How does that compare to your salary?

RELATED: Don’t Be Deceived: Public-Lands Ranching Is Big Business.

Extrapolation is a bad idea in regression analysis and it’s not appropriate in the wild horse world either.

But a guest column appearing this morning in AZCentral does just that: The “stunning results” of a program in one area justify its replication nationwide.

At least the writer is honest: PZP prevents wild horses, it does not protect them.

That most of the resources have been diverted to privately owned livestock—on lands set aside for the horses—is apparently of no concern.

RELATED: Op-Ed Pushes Contraceptives.

Comments on the gather plan will be accepted through December 12.

The Proposed Action (Alternative A in the Draft EA) will achieve and maintain AMLs via roundups, contraceptives, sex ratio skewing and castration.

Concerns about resource allocations and management priorities in the Complex, although valid, are outside the scope of the project and should not be submitted.

A lengthy and coordinated effort will be necessary to ensure that HMAs and WHTs are managed primarily for horses, not livestock, as specified in the original WHB Act.

RELATED: Initial Thoughts on Pancake Gather Plan.

A few members of Congress are still clinging to the idea, according to a news release issued today by Animal Wellness Action, a lobbying group in Washington, DC.

The measure does nothing to change the resource allocations and management priorities that leave America’s wild horses and burros with crumbs, forcing their removal from public lands in favor of privately owned livestock.

RELATED: Op-Ed Pushes Contraceptives.

There is hope, according to the writers of a guest column published yesterday in Horse Nation, not because the BLM has decided to change the resource allocations and management priorities on lands set aside for wild horses, but because Congress may force it to implement an $11 million darting campaign.

Do they not see that they’ve thrown in with the groups they criticize?  Do they really want HMAs managed primarily for livestock?  How many wild horse herds are truly overpopulated?

The Confusion HMA, subject of next week’s roundup, certainly isn’t.  Would they start the darting program there?  Before or after the roundup?

Next to the government and public-lands ranchers, the greatest threat to America’s wild horses is not the oil companies, not the mining companies, but many of the so-called advocacy groups.

RELATED: Why Should You Oppose Sterilization of Wild Mares?

The link pointed to a copy of the story in the Houston Chronicle.

The government spends $57 million per year to warehouse 52,000 wild horses and burros, according to a recent news release, so it can collect an estimated $850,000 in grazing fees from the ranchers to whom their food is sold.

Revenue = 52,000 horses × 12 AUMs per horse per year × $1.35 per AUM

With taxpayers making up the difference, the grazing program is a fine example of redistribution of wealth.  That’s what Protect the Harvest is trying to protect.

RELATED: Wild Horse Wars?, Grazing Program Ancillaries.

For the same reason you oppose roundups, fertility control, sex ratio skewing and castration: They’re all part of plan to manage wild horse areas primarily for livestock.

That is the goal of the ‘Path Forward‘ and those who signed it.

Everything is off the table until those areas are managed principally for wild horses, per the original statute.