That was before it was T-boned by a gravel truck, eleven miles north of the Mexican border.  How many of them were here legally?

UPDATE: A report dated March 3 says it was a migrant smuggling operation.

Many permittees own land and appurtenances known as a ‘base property.’  Grazing privileges on public lands are usually tied to base properties, which may include other assets such as water rights.

Where do livestock go during the off season?  Where would they go if AUMs on public lands had to be curtailed because of a fire or drought?  Back to the base property and/or rented pastures, where the ranchers would have to pay market rates to feed them.

The 4M Ranch, a sponsor of the Meeker Mustang Makeover and probable beneficiary of wild horses thus adopted, has almost 12,000 acres of deeded lands which, presumably, secure its grazing privileges on 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service lands.

Hay production on the ranch, about 1,200 tons annually, would support 240 cow/calf pairs, assuming they consume five tons per year per pair (25 to 30 pounds per day).

Forage on the deeded acres would support another 100 cow/calf pairs, assuming a stocking rate of eight pairs per thousand acres.

Additional food can be imported (at going rates) if a larger number of animals is desired.  No more dependence on government, no more slurping at the public trough.

Yes, it’s a radical idea—confining them to their own property.  Nobody has ever been expected to do that.

RELATED: Sponsor of Meeker Mustang Makeover or Beneficiary?.

It does not mean the carrying capacity of the land has been exceeded, not even close.

It means more horses than allowed by plan, too many resources lost to animals that bring in no economic return.

The resources are there.  In most cases there are no ‘excess’ horses.  There is no basis for a roundup or fertility control program.  Most of the ‘advocacy’ groups are clueless.

The problem is resource management—the plans—which typically allocate four to five times as much food to privately owned livestock as they do to wild horses, on lands identified for the horses.

One of the event’s sponsors is 4M Ranch.

The Operator Information report in RAS, for the State of Colorado, Northwest District, White River Field Office, gives an address in Meeker, along with authorization numbers 0505793 and 0505794.

The Allotment Information report ties the authorization numbers to the River and Little Toms Draw allotments.

The Allotment Master report puts Little Toms in the Improve category and River in the Custodial category (condition unknown).  Western Horse Watchers is unable to explain how it qualifies for Custodial.

The principal of 4M Ranch is Craig Macnab, according to a Bizapedia report.

A 1985 announcement in The New York Times suggests that he’s married to Deirdre Macnab, the woman who said that genetic viability of wild horses is threatened by increasing herd sizes.

A 2016 report by the Rio Blanco Herald Times says the ranch was purchased in 2015 for $9.5 million.  It covers 11,870 deeded acres and has grazing preference on more than 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.  The allotment master report accounts for only a small fraction of the total acreage.

The ranch has 800 acres of hay meadows and supports up to 1,000 cow/calf pairs, for a stocking rate of eight cow/calf pairs per thousand acres.  The aimed-at stocking rate across all HMAs is one wild horse per thousand acres.

To say that the Macnabs have only a passing interest in wild horses would be a gross understatement.

RELATED: Meeker Mustang Makeover Seeks Trainers and Adopters.

Cancellation of the project is not necessarily a bad thing, according to climate czar John Kerry, because the workers will be able to “make solar panels” instead of an oil pipeline.

The incident reflects a belief not in the primacy of the individual but in the preeminence of government.

Multiple samples failed to meet standards for rangeland health so the Designated Area was immediately placed into the Improve category.  No major problems are expected, however, as there are many such areas in the western U.S., even where horses have been zeroed out.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Livestock on Mars said an RMP and EIS are in the works but they will not be put out for public review because grazing is “too important” for the red planet’s fledgling economy.

He went on to say that retraining cattle ranchers for other roles, such as solar techs, would be “darn near impossible.”

The spacecraft carried the historic first doses of PZP to the surface, so the ranchers can get out in front of the horse problem before it even gets started.  Clipboards and darting rifles will be delivered in a subsequent mission.

RELATED: ‘Perseverance’ on Mars, Stakes Claim for Public-Lands Ranchers.

In a first-of-its-kind mission, an American spacecraft has designated a large swath of the Martian surface for livestock grazing, before any horses can escape or be turned loose by explorers from Earth.

The vehicle touched down in an area known as Ubiquitous Valley, aptly named for a practice that’s devoured hundreds of millions of acres in the western U.S.

Two ‘advocacy’ groups have asked DOI nominee Deb Haaland to stop the sterilization of mares from the Confusion HMA, according to a news release in Horse Nation, while concurring with her vision of ‘humane management’ of wild horse herds—code words for PZP fertility control.

Managing HMAs and WHTs primarily for livestock must be an acceptable practice to these people, perhaps the preferred practice.  Instead of pushing back against the ranchers, they push back against the horses.

Allowing four permittees to utilize most of the resources in the Piceance-East Douglas HMA does not conform to the mandates of 16 USC 30, an act of Congress, according to comment #69 in the appendices of the EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

Western Horse Watchers refers to the practice as ‘managing primarily for livestock.’

In response, the government stated that the ‘principally but not necessarily exclusively’ language of the statute applies only to areas known as Wild Horse Ranges, not to HMAs in general, pointing to 43 CFR 4710.3-2, a rule created by the unelected bureaucracy.

Areas that no longer qualify as HMAs are managed almost exclusively for livestock.

These are the defining issues of the wild horse world.

Can regulations override statutes?  Is the government trying to sidestep the law in favor of a special interest?  Where is the consent of the governed?

RELATED: Statutes and Regulations, Piceance Decision Record Signed.

This is how it looked today on Drudge.  The link pointed to a story by The Sun, a British tabloid.

Western Horse Watchers is probably to the right of everyone reading these pages, but does not see the benefit of killing these animals.  The fee?  Over 2,000 US dollars.

The one-horse pony held a moment of silence and candle-lighting ceremony today at the White House, marking 500,000 deaths over the past year, according to a story by AP News.

During that same time, approximately twice as many pre-born kids were killed in their mother’s wombs.

The report noted that the U.S., with less than five percent of the world’s population, accounts for 20% of the world’s corona deaths.

Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?

The numbers have been cooked to perfection.

The American Wild Horse Campaign has appealed the appointment of Tammy Pearson to the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, according to a guest column appearing today in The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, CO.

Pearson, a Beaver County commissioner, presumably lives in Beaver County, UT.

The BLM state map puts the county in the Color Country District, Cedar City Field Office.

Western Horse Watchers was able to find ‘Pearson Ranch’ in the Operator Information report from RAS, authorization #4304328.  A page on socialist media refers to the Pearson Ranch and current residence in Minersville, UT, which match the name and address in RAS.

The Allotment Information report ties the authorization number to the Minersville #5, Smithson and Beaver Lake allotments.

The Allotment Master report has two in the Improve category and one in the Custodial category.  Pearson holds most of the active AUMs in Minersville and all of the active AUMs in Beaver Lake and Smithson.

In the custodial allotment, public lands represent 42% of the total area and 61% of the total AUMs.  It’s not clear how it qualifies for that classification, which conceals its true condition.

The Authorization Use report shows grazing seasons and the number of animals on the permit.

Although AWHC may be doing something useful here—pushing back against the ranching cabal—it does not absolve them from their ruinous darting programs on the Virginia Range and elsewhere.

RELATED: BLM Fills WHBAB Vacancies, Allotment Categories Explained.

Every year, wild horses are killed in accidents with vehicles.

“Around 600, right?”  No, that’s the number of Virginia Range mustangs the PZP zealots got rid of in 2021.

How many years would you have to go back to count that many collisions?

If you get rid of them with helicopters, bullets or sterilization, that’s bad.  But if you get rid of them with clipboards and darting rifles, that’s good.

The greatest threat to wild horses, next to the public-lands ranchers and their allies in government, is not the oil companies, not the mining companies, but the so-called advocacy groups.

RELATED: Only Government Can Surpass Impact of PZP Zealots.

The 2021 Silver King roundup ended with 284 horses gathered, 256 shipped, 25 returned and three deaths.

Wild horses require 12 AUMs per year of forage and ten gallons of water per day, on average.  The resource requirements of wild burros are about half of those for horses.

Forage liberated = (Horses gathered – Horses returned) × 12

Water liberated = (Horses gathered – Horses returned) × 10

The roundup reduced forage consumption by (284 – 25) × 12 = 3,108 AUMs per year and reduced water consumption by (284 – 25) × 10 = 2,590 gallons of water per day.

Roundups usually occur when the horses are consuming more than their allocated share of the resources, not because they are outpacing resource availability.

That is the working definition of ‘overpopulation.’

The missing elements are wildlife and other mandated uses of public lands—code words for privately owned cattle and sheep.

The management plan for the typical HMA assigns four to five time as much forage to livestock as it does for horses, with a small amount reserved for wildlife.

Resources consumed by ‘excess’ horses can be shifted back to their rightful owners, the public-lands ranchers.

The same concept applies to wild horses eliminated by contraceptives, IUDs, sex ratio skewing and sterilization.

RELATED: Silver King Roundup Over.

The aftertaste will make you cry, according to a post on Non Veni Pacem.  Horses hate the stuff, even the apple-flavored variety.

There are many dewormers on the market, most of which do not contain Ivermectin.

RELATED: NIH Shifts to Neutral on Use of Ivermectin to Treat Covid.

Still the lead story on Drudge.  The second link points to a report by AP News.

His audience was much larger than his detractors are willing to admit.

RELATED: Talent Returned to God?

Did any of the signatories to the ‘Path Forward‘ withdraw their support for the rancher-friendly plan?

What about the signatories to the PZP Manifesto?

Any prodigal sons out there?

Didn’t think so.

RELATED: Quick Note on ‘Path Forward.’

Did Rush Limbaugh achieve the beatific vision?  We don’t know.

For the faithful, the journey to heaven will likely pass through purgatory.

For the faithless, the road almost certainly goes straight to hell.

What we do know is that all men will be held to the same standard and only the Catholic Church has the fullness of the truth.

RELATED: Life Without Limbaugh, Last Four Things.

Here’s the headline on Drudge.  The link pointed to a story by Fox News.

His last radio show aired February 2.

The Virginia Range is an outlier.

Not because most of the land is privately owned or that the horses are managed at the state level, but because of the stocking rate.

The article in Tahoe Quarterly noted that a survey conducted in early 2018 (when the Nevada Department of Agriculture wanted to transfer ownership of the horses to a private entity) found approximately 2,900 wild horses in the area.  The article also noted that the Virginia Range covers around 300,000 acres.

Those numbers yield a stocking rate of roughly ten wild horses per thousand acres.

NDA says the range can support 600 horses at most, with 300 horses representing the ideal amount, according to the story.

That last figure yields a stocking rate of one wild horse per thousand acres, in line with the target rate for wild horses on federal lands.

Now you have a driver for a fertility control program—in lieu of roundups.

The largest landowner in the area, Blockchains LLC, instigator and would-be beneficiary of the Storey County autonomous zone, pushed for the darting program.

And the turncoats at AWHC were only too eager to help.

One woman, commenting on the use of PZP in a Facebook page for the Fish Springs horses, located a few miles south of the Virginia Range, said “Hey, look at it this way, they get more sex without the consequences!”

This is what passes for advocacy in the wild horse world.

You can’t have government telling the people that the land can only support one wild horse per thousand acres when the Virginia Range is carrying ten.  Not when you’re biased in favor of ranching interests.

The program is a disgrace and an insult to Velma’s legacy.

RELATED: Virginia Range 70 Years Later.