The Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission, the propaganda arm for public-lands ranching in the state, was recognized today by the BLM for involving students in rangeland education and policy formation.  The award was presented at the annual meeting of the Public Lands Council (another propaganda organ).

Also commended was their promotion of recreational activities involving livestock grazing, according to the news release.

RELATED: IRRC Expands Propaganda.

Sixty percent of the Cedar Island herd is gone.  You could argue that genetic diversity was lacking before the storm.  If not, it is now.  Can they recover?

The same thing could happen out west.  A fast moving wildfire, a harsh winter or a fatal disease could ruin one or more HMAs.

Even in the face of these threats, the PZP zealots will not rethink their position, because they, like the public-lands ranchers, believe there are too many wild horses on western rangelands.

The glorious Path Forward, with its plan for massive roundups and widespread use of contraceptives, will make those rangelands look like they were hit by a natural disaster, at least from a wild horse viewpoint.

The fences will still be there.  The forage will still be there.  And the livestock will still be there, as they were before that pesky Wild Horse Annie got involved.

RELATED: Cedar Island Horses Swept Away by Dorian.

Not all the news is bad.

Yesterday the BLM announced that local ranchers bid $35 to $43 per AUM to graze eight parcels on withdrawn lands in southern New Mexico.

The McGregor Range covers 606,000 acres on the west side of Otero Mesa, between Alamogordo, NM and El Paso, TX, according to the news release.  It was a part of Fort Bliss and supported live fire exercises with new missile systems.

Pick the mid point.  If $40 per AUM is the going rate for livestock grazing on public lands, why are the ranchers who graze HMAs and WHTs allowed to pay just $1.35?

Title I of FLPMA says the U.S. [shall] receive fair market value of the use of the public lands and their resources unless otherwise provided for by statute (item 9, page 8).

How does $1.35 meet that requirement?  It doesn’t.  How do those endeavors return the maximum benefit to the American people?  They don’t.  (Refer to Title IV on page 31 for remarks about grazing fees.  Page 34 has the infamous helicopter roundup provision that was added to the WHB Act.)

Public-lands ranching is a gravy train.  That’s what groups like Protect the Harvest and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association are trying to defend—and expand.

It’s the driver of the despicable ‘Path Forward.’

Raising the grazing fee to $60 per AUM—in line with the cost of warehousing excess wild horses and burros in off-range pastures—would be a nice down payment on the goal of erasing public-lands ranching from the American landscape.

The U.S. would receive an additional $528 million annually, at least for a while, until the ranchers throw in the towel, because paying market rates just plain spoils the party.

You’ll hear that frequently over the next few months as roundup season grinds its way across western rangelands.

They had good homes, before the helicopters came.  Anything else is unacceptable.

Refer to this report by the Washington Post, published yesterday.  Includes a link to the wild horse and burro management plan announced on 04-22-19.

The plan was negotiated by ranching interests and animal welfare groups.  Wild horse advocates were omitted from the process.

The story includes some photos and anecdotes from the Triple B roundup in July, and, as expected, gives the ranchers and their allies in government a pass.

RELATED: Liberals Will Never Condemn Public-Lands Ranching.

UPDATE: Added video.

The American Farm Bureau Federation issued this pronouncement today:

“Wild horses and burros are to be managed according to the Wild and Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act of 1971, which not only specifies where wild horses and burros can occupy public lands but that they shall be managed in a manner that produces a thriving natural ecological balance.”

Couldn’t agree more.  Of course, the WHB Act of 1971 no longer exists—it was revamped by Congress at the behest of the public-lands ranchers.

So the first step would be to roll back the changes, restoring the Act to its original form.

Wild horses and burros are to occupy lands on which they were found when the bill was signed into law.  This will nearly double the amount of land they inhabit today.

As for the thriving ecological balance, Congress ordered the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to confer with state agencies to ensure that wildlife, especially endangered species, are not adversely affected by the horses and burros.

There was no provision for domestic livestock, which leads to the second step: Ending public-lands ranching and its 100-year reign of terror in the American west.

The third step is a thorough house cleaning of federal agencies involved with public lands: Anyone with a ranching background or ties to the ranching industry is gone.

RELATED: The Land Can Only Support 27,000 Wild Horses and Burros.

The Grand Forks Herald reported today that the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park will again be subject to a birth control program, meaning the mares will be shot in the butt with contraceptive darts.

The report did not indicate if the pesticide would be administered by park staff or volunteers from local ‘advocacy’ groups.

The full effect of this practice—tampering with breeding patterns and the reproductive systems of mares—will not be known for generations.

RELATED: TRNP ‘Culls’ Adopted.

Animal Wellness Action, a lobbying group in Washington, DC, said today in a news release that Congress should order the BLM (and presumably the Forest Service) to increase fertility control programs as a way to halt the growth of wild horse herds and reduce the need for roundups on public lands in the western U.S.

“It’s time to double down on contraception not roundups,” said the group’s director of federal affairs, in response to the wild horse management plan announced on 04-22-19.

Sadly, the problem is not wild horse overpopulation, it is public-lands ranching.

RELATED: Ten Years to AML: The Way Forward for America’s Horses and Burros.

The event, held yesterday, showcases mutilated ponies from the BLM off-range corrals in Hines, OR and is sponsored by Protect the Harvest Gravy Train, a cheerleader group for the public-lands ranchers.

RELATED: Mea Culpa, Missed the 2018 Wild Spayed Filly Futurity.

Because it’s an enterprise of the Left, a darling of the Democrat Party.  They love their little collective farms, with all the government control.  Cow farts and climate change be damned.

Private sector ranching is another story.

Be sure to read the commentary by Eleanor Schwartz, beginning on page 59 of the 25th anniversary edition of FLPMA, including the footnotes, to see who drafted the statute, which codified ‘multiple use’ and gave us helicopter roundups of wild horses.

What about the Burns Amendment?  Conrad Burns, senator from Montana, had little to gain from a change to the WHB Act that accelerated the disposal of wild horses removed from public lands in the western U.S.  But Harry Reid, senator from Nevada, sure did.

Of the states with federally managed herds of wild horses and burros, Montana is at the bottom of the list, while Nevada, with half of the nation’s wild horses, is at the top.

Reid convinced Burns to fall on his sword for the benefit of the public-lands ranchers.

The first step is to build public support for the plan—just like Velma did—and to find individuals in Congress who believe in freedom/ruggedness/self-reliance and want to conserve something that’s right and good.

This automatically excludes liberals.

Individuals who signed on to the new wild horse management plan, the PZP zealots and others that have bought into the overpopulation narrative (indicated by their support of wild horse gathers, adoption incentives and expanded training programs) are of no use to the effort.

RELATED: Mass Training Is Not the Answer!

Holding pens are flooded with wild horses and burros because the WHB Act no longer functions as Velma intended.  The safeguards that would keep these animals on public lands in the western U.S. are gone.

Meanwhile, back on the range, privately owned livestock graze peacefully on land that belongs to the horses and burros.

The alternative is not slaughter and euthanasia, it is to end public-lands ranching and roll back the changes to the statute.

RELATED: PZP Is Not the Answer!

And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name (Revelation 13:17).

Public-lands ranchers can access six times as much acreage and twelve times as much forage as America’s wild horses and burros.  Off-range corrals and long-term pastures are flooded with these animals because the WHB Act no longer affords the protections sought by Velma, not because there are too many of them!

How exactly do contraceptives roll back the changes to the Act, fix the AUM imbalance and put an end to the crony capitalism?

The PZP zealots are on the same side of the debate as the public-lands ranchers, differing only in methodology.  The ranchers want the horses gone now while the darters want their numbers to decline gradually.  Not quite what Velma had in mind.

RELATED: Sanctuaries Are Not the Answer!

The adoption pipeline is flooded with wild horses and burros because the WHB Act no longer affords the protections sought by Velma Johnston.  These animals are being forced off public lands in the western U.S. to make way for privately owned cattle and sheep.  The problem is not wild horse overpopulation, it is public-lands ranching.

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

Who knows?  The absence of one surely won’t.

About a year ago, several wild horses were shot on the Spruce-Pequop HMA, at the beginning of a roundup.  The story was ignored by major news outlets (including Drudge) and is now totally off the radar screen.

RELATED: Clark Mountain Burro Update.

Nine days of moral depravity on the high desert, in the middle of wild horse country.

Radical inclusion, a core principle of the festival, is a leftist code word for acceptance and celebration of all manner of disease, filth and perversion.  The event should not be allowed on public lands, even if it is a favorite of rich white liberals from the Bay Area.

RELATED: BLM to Renew Burning Man SRP.

Statements like that are misleading and incomplete.

Truth is, public lands in the western U.S. can only support that many wild horses and burros because they’ve been consigned to ‘other mandated uses,’ such as the grazing of privately owned cattle and sheep.

Section 3 in the Original WHB Act, which calls for a ‘thriving natural ecological balance’ on public lands, orders the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to confer with state agencies to ensure that wildlife have access to sufficient resources and are not squeezed out by the horses and burros, especially endangered species.

“All management activities shall be at the minimal feasible level and shall be carried out in consultation with the wildlife agency of the State wherein such lands are located in order to protect the natural ecological balance of all wildlife species which inhabit such lands, particularly endangered wildlife species.”

There is no provision for domestic livestock!  (That’s one of the ‘errors’ in the WHB Act that the public-lands ranchers and their political allies, mostly Democrats, ‘corrected’ when they drafted FLPMA.)

Statements about roundups and other actions, that they are required by the WHB Act of 1971, are also misleading.  That statute is gone, destroyed by the ranchers.

Off-range corrals and long-term pastures are flooded with (former) wild horses and burros as a consequence.

Current herd management practices are justified by the WHB Act of 1976/1978/2004.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?, Unwinding the Mess in the Wild Horse World.

For years we’ve heard that taxes and regulations are destroying businesses—weakening our competitive position—but now we’re learning that wild burros are the culprit, at least in Arizona.

They’re trampling the ground, reducing vegetation, invading farmland, breaking fences  and releasing livestock, according to a story posted Thursday by the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy.

They have no natural predators and compete with domestic cattle for resources.

While all of these things may be true, the author did not indicate if they were occurring on public lands set aside for the burros.

If not, were those lands designated as open range, where the owners are responsible for keeping the burros out (by constructing suitable fences)?

Whatever the answers, the ranchers want the burro populations reduced and are willing to look at all options.

Complaints about the burros from oil companies, mining companies, timber companies, hikers, campers and tourists appeared nowhere in the story.