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.

In yesterday’s news release about the WHB Program in FY 2020, BLM said it protects wild horses and burros by gathering and removing excess animals from the range and offering them for adoption or purchase at facilities and events around the country.

Except that’s not what Velma had in mind.  They were to be protected on their home range.

Horse #81 is excess in an area where the AML is 80.  Same for horse #240.  The forage assigned livestock can support 450 of them, for a true AML of 530, so a roundup is not necessary.

If Congress wants to write letters to the Secretary of the Interior about the treatment of wild horses and burros, why not condemn public-lands ranching?

The Animal Welfare Institute said in a news release yesterday that 58 lawmakers from both houses of Congress sent a letter to the Department of the Interior condemning the BLM’s plan to sterilize wild mares from the Confusion HMA in western Utah.

Instead, they suggested, wild horse populations should be controlled with PZP.

Nobody wants to talk about causes.

The HMA is managed primarily for livestock.

Look at the resource allocations and management priorities of the RMP.

Then you’ll understand why the AML is low and the desire to shrink the herd is high.

RELATED: Confusion DR Setting New Precedent in WH Management?

Wild Horse Education reported earlier this week that the Forest Service has issued a decision notice authorizing a reduction of the AML for the Big Summit WHT, among other things, subject to a 45-day appeal period.

The number of horses allowed by plan would change from 55–65 to 12–57, necessitating a revision to the RMP.  The limiting factor is winter forage.  See “Purpose and Need for Action” in the EA, page 11 in the pdf.

The AML is the number of horses (or burros) an area can support after diverting most of the resources to privately owned livestock.

The horses will require 684 AUMs per year at the upper end of the new AML, while domestic sheep receive approximately 1,700 AUMs per year during a summer grazing season.  The forage assigned to livestock would help the horses bulk up in the summer and be less vulnerable to winter conditions.

The low end of the AML is usually set at approximately 50% of the high end, to provide five years between roundups at a growth rate of fifteen to twenty percent per year.

But the project sets the low end at roughly 20% of the high end, allowing the herd size to be cut to the bone.  This would set new precedent in wild horse management.

If the herd survives from a starting point of 12, how many years would pass before the population reaches 57?  The growth rate at Big Summit is thought to be around 8% per year, according to “Current Conditions” in the EA (page 10 in the pdf).

Here is the mathematical relationship.  Solve for x.

12 × 1.08^x = 57

The answer is 20.24—twenty years to reach the high end of AML.  Throw in some contraceptives and the herd will basically flat-line, the dream of land managers and ranchers everywhere.

RELATED: Comments Invited on Changes to Big Summit Management Plan.

It’s wild horses against the public-lands ranchers and Protect the Harvest against the wild horse advocates in this lengthy article by The Washington Post.

The more you tilt the scales in favor of the ranchers, the larger the horse ‘problem’ becomes, along with the need for drastic actions.

Next year marks its fiftieth anniversary.

Today, most wild horse areas are managed primarily for livestock.

Most of the so-called advocacy groups are trying to ruin the herds with contraceptives.

The rancher-friendly ‘Path Forward‘ will remove 70% of the horses from America’s public lands.

There will be five times as many horses in contracted pastures as on the range.

What exactly are we supposed to celebrate?

RELATED: Fiftieth Anniversary ‘Celebration’ of WHB Act?

Resource management plans determine, among other things, who gets what on America’s public lands.  They set the speed limits.

Roundups enforce those limits.  They are the highway patrol of the wild horse world.

If you exceed the limits, you don’t get a ticket, you are removed from the road.

That you can only go 20 while others can go 80 is beyond the scope of the program.

The Park Service counts the horses six times per year, in February, March, May, July, September, and November, according to a news release published in November, 2019.

Western Horse Watchers has been unable to find any data since March, 2020.

Did they stop doing it?  Probably not.

Why did they go underground?  Perhaps they don’t want you to see the long-term effects of the darting program.

What about other such programs?  There’s no accountability to the public.

Every group that administers a darting program, whether on public or private lands, should be required to produce a census count with demographics, at least once a year, so the American people can see what’s being done to their wild horses.

They already have the data.

Remember, there’s no such thing as birth control for horses, only safe and effective birth control for horses, and interfering with nature is a good alternative to roundups.

And above all, never talk about resource allocations, management priorities and privately owned livestock.

RELATED: Assateague Wild Horse Census Temporarily Halted?

Roundups, sterilization and long-term holding are effects.  They are outcomes of a process.  If you want to change the outcomes, you have to look upstream in the process.

Why are these effects occurring?

How much forage has been allocated to public-lands ranchers?  How many horses would it support?  What is the true AML?  How does the current herd size compare to that?  Would the roundup be necessary if the HMA was managed principally for wild horses?

Why is it managed primarily for livestock?  How are resource allocations determined?

Why are the horses treated like pests on land set aside for them?

RELATED: Confusion Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick.

It is an enforcement action, designed to achieve the resource allocations of the Rawlins and Lander RMPs.  It’s not about overpopulation and rangeland degradation.

You’re a fool if you think it will be called off or anything in the wild horse world will change for the better because of an election.

You don’t have time to be reading wild horse blogs.  Go vote.

These people are helping the government manage wild horse areas principally for livestock, by enforcing RMPs that are biased in favor of the public-lands ranchers.

Many of the so-called advocacy groups are involved.  Don’t give them a penny!

RELATED: Future of Wild Horses in Hands of U.S. Senate?

It’s when the poor ranchers can enjoy the full benefit of their permitted AUMs.

Consider this example from Appendix VII of the Final EA for wild horse management actions in the Caliente Complex:

To reestablish the health to the rangeland in the Areas we currently run Cattle the population of Wild Horses must be managed properly.  Current numbers indicate a gross overpopulation of Wild Horses on our allotments as well as many others.  We currently have an allotment that is supposed to allow us up to 327 Cattle (1312 AUMS) on our Sheep Flat permit.  The damage because of overpopulation of Wild Horses has made it to where we can barely run 100 head on this Allotment and not for the full grazing season.  We have to gather cattle and move them to rented pasture in Barclay to finish out the summer season.

Can you imagine that?  Having to pay market rates to feed your cattle?  You wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy.