Actually he’s the ‘No Horse Guy’ from Utah, which he’s made clear in recent weeks by his comments and letters.  Refer to this story dated 05/23/19 by the Imperial Valley News of Imperial, CA.

The problem, of course, is too many privately owned cattle and sheep robbing forage from wild horses on public lands in the western U.S.

The solution, according to the story, is to slow or reverse wild horse population growth with contraceptives.

These people are nuts!  Whose side are they on?

There is no wild horse population crisis.  Western rangelands can support way more than 27,000 horses and burros, the figure tossed out repeatedly by the ranchers and their allies at the BLM.

But you’ll never hear that as long as the rent-seekers are in charge of the federal government.

RELATED: Republican Senators Push for WHB Euthanasia, Another Reader Blasts Stewart and Lee’s Letter, Wild Horse Overpopulation?

Eighty lives denied in one month, according to a guest column that appeared yesterday in the Reno Gazette-Journal, a statistic that should please any wild horse hater.

The population density on the Virginia Range is at least ten times higher than what the BLM says land in the Western U.S. can support—evidence that strongly contradicts the anti-horse agenda—and these nutjobs are out there destroying it.

Yep, it’s a win-win for everyone involved, except the horses and those fighting to preserve them.

RELATED: NDA Allows PZP Zealots Back On Virginia Range.

Refer to this letter by a reader of the St. George News, in response to the letter written by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.  The conversions from AUMs to cattle and sheep are not correct but it’s worth the read.

RELATED: Stewart and Lee: Pleaders for the Public-Lands Ranchers.

UPDATE: The AUM conversions would be correct if the cattle and sheep were on the range for one month per year, but six months might be a better estimate.  If that’s true, a cow/calf pair would consume six AUMs annually and the total available AUMs should be divided by six to obtain the number of animals.  Horse and burros are on the range year around and therefore the total available AUMs should be divided by 12 to obtain the equivalent number of animals.  For example, 1.5 million AUMs would support 250,000 cow/calf pairs or 125,000 wild horses.

When will a Congressman come out against America’s wild horses on behalf of the oil and mining companies?

The recent letter by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee defending the public-lands ranchers must have been a decoy.  Everybody knows that the greatest threat to wild horses and burros is the mineral extraction industry.

A letter to the St. George News of St. George, UT, published yesterday, says “ranchers are being bankrupted by the cost of hay to replace lost forage for their livestock, and the number of starving and diseased wild horses is rising substantially,” because of a wild horse “population boom.”

It was written by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee (both R-UT).

Public-lands ranching is government dependency.

Benefits are not transferred directly.  Rather, they inure through the program itself.

Ranchers don’t own the land (except for the base properties).  Therefore, they pay no property taxes.

The grazing fee, $1.35 per cow/calf pair per month, is so low it can’t even be approached in the private sector.  The government pays about $60 per month to feed a wild horse in long-term holding, removed from its home range at the behest of the ranchers.

Some of those funds are plowed back into the program, to improve rangeland conditions for the ranchers.

If the number of wild horses in an area exceeds the amount the ranchers are willing to tolerate, typically one animal per thousand acres, the government removes them, at no cost to the ranchers.

In exchange, government bureaucrats tell the ranchers what to do and when to do it.

American taxpayers are footing the bill for this.  It’s a racket, a gravy train, a good ol’ boys network.

The authors noted that the Wild Horse and Burro Act was designed to “protect wild mustangs” but did not say from whom: Livestock ranchers, who nearly eradicated them in the middle of the last century.

Nothing has changed since it was signed into law.  The ranchers still despise these animals, because they rob forage from their cattle and sheep—on lands set aside for horses and burros.

It’s absolutely absurd, but we’re supposed to take these men seriously, you know, because they’re in Congress.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?, Republican Senators Push for WHB Euthanasia, Don’t Buy Range-Fed Beef.

Refer to this story, published yesterday by Yahoo Finance.

The problem is public-lands ranching, yet these so-called advocates agree in principle with their opponents, differing only in methodology.

Why aren’t they challenging the constitutionality of FLPMA, which gave the federal government control over vast amounts of western rangelands and preferential treatment to the ranchers?

Why aren’t they pushing for an increase in grazing fees to $60 per AUM, in line with the cost of feeding wild horses in long-term pastures?

Why aren’t they demanding labels on beef, so consumers would know if the item was produced at the expense of America’s wild horses and burros?

RELATED: Co-Signers of WHB Management Plan Try to Save Face.

Refer to this opinion piece posted today in The Hill.  They’re trying to justify a massive tactical error.  Shills for the public-lands ranchers, every one of them.

RELATED: IDA Rejects Proposed Wild Horse Management Plan.

In Defense of Animals, an animal protection group based in San Rafael, CA, released a statement yesterday condemning the wild horse management plan pushed by beef producers and cheerleader groups for the public-lands ranchers.

The proposal would reduce wild horse and burro populations on public lands in the western U.S. by 70%.

Not one wild horse advocate with significant knowledge of the wild horse on-range management issues was asked for input on the proposal, according to the statement.

RELATED: More Criticism of Proposed Wild Horse Management Plan?

A story posted yesterday by The Daily Caller said Utah Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee sent a letter dated May 3 to the Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies urging the removal of a rider that prohibits euthanasia and slaughter of wild horses and burros gathered from public lands in the western U.S.

The rider has been attached to appropriations bills for the Department of the Interior since 2011.

These animals are “devastating the land, negatively impacting other species living in the area and prohibiting an effective multiple-use management of the land,” according to the letter.

What are the odds that it was drafted by one or more special interest groups or was influenced by such groups?  That the senators don’t have a clue about issues affecting western rangelands?

The story did not indicate what the other species were, but the reference in the letter to multiple use almost certainly means privately owned cattle and sheep.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?

At the AWHC booth on Day 2 of the Western States Horse Expo, 05/10/19.

Animal protection groups urged a federal judge yesterday to block the sale (without limitation) of wild horses removed last year from the Devil’s Garden Plateau WHT, which was set to begin on May 13.

Plaintiffs believe the animals could be sold for human consumption.  That they might end up in pet food or other products apparently was not a concern.

A public-lands rancher attending the hearing said the horses drain resources that cattle and other wild animals need to survive.

The report did not say if any oil or mining companies had intervened in the case.

RELATED: Horses at Double Devil Corrals Now ‘Three Strikers’, Devil’s Garden Horses Get Short End of Stick.

A guest column dated 05/02/19 in Drovers, a publication for the beef industry, says the plan should be rejected for several reasons, and any path going forward should have contraception as its centerpiece.

How exactly does that qualify as opposition?  It doesn’t.  It’s resignation to the ranching agenda, acceptance of the overpopulation narrative.

The proposal will reduce wild horse and burro numbers by 70% on lands set aside for the horses and burros, so they can be replaced by privately owned cattle and sheep.

It’s absurd, but nobody wants to talk about it.  What are they afraid of?

RELATED: Private Sanctuaries: End-Game of Wild Horse Management Plan.

Much has been written in recent days about the proposal, how it will reduce wild horse populations by 70% in the next three to five years and how population growth in the remaining herds will be suppressed by contraceptives and sterilization.

But what the plan’s supporters really want to see—most of them beef producers operating on public lands—is the transfer of all wild horses to private sanctuaries.

And now, an editorial by an Arizona rancher (and brother of a former supreme court justice), is making the rounds in some news outlets, pitching the idea to the public.

“Without a doubt, private wild horse sanctuaries can be a win-win for wild horses and horse lovers.  With more sanctuaries in place, perhaps the BLM can concentrate on ways to keep the free-roaming wild horses from overpopulating the open range.”

Recall that the Public Lands Council, a cheerleader group for the ranchers, wants HMAs and WHTs abolished (fourth bullet item below).

With the BLM largely divested of the wild horse ‘business,’ it can dedicate more resources to their for-profit enterprise.

Thus, the proposed management plan will put a smile on the faces of public-lands ranchers, not wild horse advocates.

Privately owned cattle and sheep should be raised on private lands, not wild horses and burros.  The proposal must be defeated.

RELATED: New Wild Horse Management Plan: Reinforcing the Narrative.

In an editorial published today by the Mesquite Local News, the writer, commenting on a proposal announced last week for managing wild horses and burros on public lands in the western U.S., states

“Currently the animals in many herd management areas are so overpopulated that they are starving and damaging water resources.  Grazing land needed by cattle and other wild animals is depleted.”

TRANSLATION: Wild horses are robbing too much forage from the poor ranchers, on land set aside for the horses.  The horses need to go.

Can’t get much more absurd than that.

Truth is, these people have never accepted the WHB Act and have worked steadily towards its nullification.

Backers of proposal, which will reduce wild horse populations by 70% on western rangelands, were mostly beef producers and a few animal protection groups.

There were no supporters from the oil and gas industry.  Nobody from the timber industry stepped forward.  Mining companies were silent.

RELATED: New Wild Horse Management Plan: Reinforcing the Narrative.

Reposting this video for the form-follows-function crowd, such as the public-lands ranchers, who believe that wild horses, unlike livestock, should be removed from western rangelands because they serve no useful purpose and bring in no economic return.  Pay attention to the remarks from 14:44 to 15:45.

“People need useless things.”

The announcement last week by the American Farm Bureau Federation said no but an article posted yesterday by Wild Horse Education says it will, not by legislation, but through the appropriations process, similar to the Burns Amendment.

RELATED: New Wild Horse Management Plan: Reinforcing the Narrative.

You know the drill: They’re overpopulated, have no natural predators, serve no useful purpose and bring in no economic return.  Keep pounding those words into the psyche.

Tell your elected representative that you want to see free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in the western U.S., not privately owned cattle and sheep.

RELATED: Cheerleader Groups Endorse New WHB Management Plan.

In case you don’t have two brain cells to rub together:

1. Get the horses off the range.

2. Sell their food to public-lands ranchers.

3. WHB Act nullified.

Return to Freedom, one of the signatories to the proposal, operates a sanctuary in central California.  What will happen to those horses if their funding dries up?

Today is not a Friday of Lent, but it’s still a good day to abstain from range-fed beef.

In fact, any day is a good day to abstain from range-fed beef.

Of course they are.  They can’t condemn it without condemning themselves.

They oppose the government’s ‘systematic and cruel elimination’ of free-roaming horses and burros.  Instead, they want to do it themselves, ‘humanely,’ by firing contraceptive darts into the herds, with the long-term goal of sterilization.

RELATED: Opposition to New Management Plan Begins.