According to the 2015 Final EA for the Water Canyon Wild Horse Growth Suppression Pilot Program, mentioned in the July 5 roundup announcement,

When injected, the GonaCon vaccine targets the reproductive hormone gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) secreted by the hypothalamus of the brain.  Antibodies produced in response to the vaccine inactivate endogenous GnRH, which in turn eliminates stimulation of the pituitary gland and gonads in males or females.  The resulting “immunocastration” renders animals unable to produce reproductive steroids or gametes.

The EA was copied to the project folder in ePlanning with other related documents.

The Proposed Action, Alternative A, called for the use of PZP-22, but the Decision Record authorized Alternative B, similar to Alternative A except the mares would be treated with GonaCon-B instead of PZP-22.

A keyword search of the EPA web site yielded no results for GonaCon-B.

The description of Alternative B (bottom of page 34 in the pdf) refers to the registration of GonaCon-Equine, suggesting a rebranding or reformulation of the product.

A 2017 labeling amendment dropped the restricted-use designation and increased the interval between primer and booster from 30 days to 90 days.

RELATED: Antelope Roundups Announced.

Of the two leading fertility control pesticides for wild horses, Zonastat-H and GonaCon Equine, which product

• Is classified as restricted use?
• Is commonly referred to as a vaccine?
• Must be administered by certified applicators?
• Can be applied to horses that interfere with animal agriculture?
• Must be fired from Dan-Inject or Pneu-Dart rifles?
• Must be delivered in neon orange or green darts?
• May cause sterility with one or two doses?
• Cannot be mixed or applied without chemical-resistant gloves?
• Requires a minimum 90-day interval between doses?

Which one, in view of the pros and cons above, will surpass the other in terms of use?

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Managing for Genetic Diversity Edition.

Two news releases appeared yesterday, one covering pest control actions in and around the Spruce-Pequop and Goshute HMAs, as well as a portion of the Antelope Valley HMA, and the other for pest control actions in and around the Antelope HMA and remaining portion of Antelope Valley.

Highway 93 Alt, which runs northeast to West Wendover, serves as the split line for Antelope Valley.

The National Data Viewer shows the arrangement.  Click on image to open in new tab.

The June 14 roundup schedule suggests they will run concurrently, with start dates of July 9.

Call them resource enforcement actions or rancher protection actions if you’d like.

The HMAs are subject to, and managed primarily for, permitted grazing.

The combined capture and removal goals are 3,107 and 3,107, respectively, with no animals to be returned to their lawful homes.

One of the announcements said 15 mares in the Water Canyon area previously treated with GonaCon Equine will receive another dose of the pesticide before being released back to the range.

Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals at Indian Lakes and Palomino Valley.

Gather stats and daily reports for the northern portion will be posted to this page.

Data for the southern portion will be posted here.

The Spruce-Pequop HMA lies mostly within the massive Spruce Allotment, one of the parcels to which Madeleine Pickens obtained grazing preference through the purchase of the associated base property.

The Allotment Master Report indicates most of the active AUMs are held by the Spruce Grazing Association, which Bizapedia ties to a law firm in Elko.  One of the company contacts is Saving America’s Mustangs, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit started by Pickens.

A 2018 roundup in the HMA started with the massacre of eight wild horses.

RELATED: Horses in Antelope Complex Get Short End of Stick.

Friends of Animals announced on Monday that it has filed suit in U.S. District Court against the BLM for its plan to eliminate wild horses from more than one million acres of public lands in the southwestern Wyoming.

The complaint alleges that nothing in the WHB Act allows the BLM to respond to requests from private landowners to remove wild horses from public lands.

Nevertheless, such requests are common in the scoping and document review phases of wild horse gather projects in ePlanning, with ranchers and ranching advocacy groups among the most vocal.

Section 1334 in the statute authorizes the agency to remove free-roaming horses that stray from public lands onto privately owned land.

RELATED: Another Coalition Tries to Stop Rock Springs RMP Amendments.

The Day 3 report indicated 134 horses captured, 76 shipped, 30 released and one dead.

With 27 mares held for treatment with GonaCon Equine, there were no unaccounted-for animals.

Youngsters represented 11.2% of the horses captured.

Of the adults, 52.9% were male and 47.1% were female.

The report said the GonaCon mares will receive a second dose of the pesticide in 30 days, a violation of federal law.

The 2017 labeling amendment that dropped the RUP designation increased the time interval between doses from 30 days to 90 days.

The BLM probably won’t mobilize law enforcement resources against itself.

RELATED: Reveille Gather Ops Conclude.

At Grayson Highlands State Park with American Wanderlust.

Helicopters were grounded this afternoon, with 133 horses captured, 39 shipped and one dead.

The colt lost yesterday died from a spinal cord injury caused by blunt trauma to the lower neck, according to today’s report.

One more update will be posted tomorrow.

Mares treated with Gonacon Equine could be returned to the HMA this week, but they won’t go home until October if two doses are given.

Stallions identified for return could be released before the contractor demobilizes.

RELATED: Where Are the Reveille Foals?

Last year the facility was closed due to a strangle outbreak.  Nineteen horses were lost.

In March, on-site adoptions resumed.

In June, in-person adoptions were suspended in favor of the online system.

On Friday, a BLM news release said wild horse and burro adoptions will resume as scheduled throughout the summer.

The Wheatland population consisted of 2,511 wild horses and 23 wild burros, according to the May 21 Facility Report.

Yesterday’s action netted 37 stallions, 40 mares and 6 foals.

Almost certainly the helicopter pilots are targeting family bands, as the advocates do, but why the low percentage of foals?

The sample size was not large but at the rate the incident is going, the chase may end tonight.

A 7.2% birth rate implies a herd growth rate of two percent per year.

Can the results be attributed to population suppression efforts?  Harsh winter?

Mares captured in the 2020 roundup were treated with fertility control of unspecified type according the gather page.

RELATED: Reveille Roundup in Progress

Of the two leading products, Zonastat-H and GonaCon Equine, Gonacon will outpace Zonastat in use, for the following reasons:

• May sterilize treated mares
• Applicators need not be certified
• Can be misused with no consequences
• Few if any limitations on where it can be used

In the first part of the June 14 roundup schedule, for nonmotorized removals, the two products are more-or-less evenly split.

Given that GonaCon Equine can be used to control or eradicate pests (wild horses and burros) that interfere or could interfere with animal agriculture (permitted grazing), which is not true for Zonastat-H, it will become the pesticide of record until something better comes along.

RELATED: An Incomplete History of GonaCon Equine.

The incident started today, according to the gather page, with 83 horses captured, none shipped and one dead.

The capture and removal goals are 129 and 76, respectively.

Mares returned to the HMA will be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide that may act as a sterilant.

RELATED: Reveille Roundup Announced.

The following timeline is based on documents found during keyword searches at epa.gov.

2009 – The EPA publishes a Fact Sheet classifying the product as a restricted-use pesticide, for use on female deer.  The label indicated there is a chance that some animals will become permanently sterile.

2013 – The EPA registers GonaCon Equine as a restricted-use pesticide, naming USDA APHIS as the registrant, complete with PPE requirements and directions for use.  Same product, but rebranded.

2015 – The EPA amends the registration, correcting the label and confidential statement of formulation (CSF).  Still classified as RUP.

2017 – The EPA drops the restricted-use designation.  Still assigned to USDA APHIS.

2019 – The EPA registers the product to Spay First as GONACON Immunocontraceptive Vaccine – EQ for commercial sale and use.

The product interrupts ovulation and infertility can be achieved for up to four years in mares treated with a primer and booster, according to a 2018 report by CSU.

Spay First is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Oklahoma.

GonaCon EQ is not available for private use but you don’t need a diploma from the Billings School of PZP Darting and Public Deception to apply it.

RELATED: NPS Getting Rid of TRNP Wild Horses with GonaCon?

The Onaqui Mountain HMA has an AML of 210, which exceeds the minimum acceptable herd size of 150 to 200 animals in Section 4.4.6.3 of the WHB Handbook, but does that ensure genetic diversity?

Not really.  The low end of AML is 121, so the BLM could take the herd down to that level, compromising genetic variation.

How about Sand Wash Basin?  The AML is 163 to 363.

Nope, the low end is too low.

Hey Western Horse Watchers, what about Clan Alpine in Nevada, where the AML ranges from 612 to 979?

Not so fast, Chester!

There’s one more variable that must be considered: Are the advocates pounding the mares with pesticide-laced darts?

If so, the breeding population may dip below 50 even though the current population is well above the minimum recommended level.

This is what the advocates are doing at the Salt River and Virginia Range.

Eventually the herds will collapse because too many mares have been sterilized by the safe, proven and reversible “vaccines.”

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Snuffing Out New Life Edition.

Sound quality was poor on Day 3, could barely hear it.  Wasn’t able to connect to video feed on Day 2.

The inaugural catch-treat-release roundup will occur in July, according to one of the snippets from today.

The meeting ends tomorrow.  Watch the final session at BLM Live.

RELATED: WHBAB Meeting Starts Today.

The answer can be found by the same method used for the HMA but with more acreage.

The HMA is a subset of the HA, which is a subset of the Reveille Allotment.

The allotment offers 39.1 AUMs per year per thousand public acres.

The HA covers 387,676 public acres.

Therefore, the forage assigned to livestock inside the HA is 39.1 × 387,676 ÷ 1,000 = 15,158 AUMs per year, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the parcel, enough to support 15,158 ÷ 12 = 1,263 wild horses.

The True AML would be 138 + 1,263 = 1,401, because the HA contains the HMA.

The BLM receives 15,158 × 1.35 = $20,463 per year from ranching activity inside the HA while it spends $5 per head per day, at least, for a total of $2,304,975 per year, to care for the 1,263 wild horses displaced from the HA by permitted grazing.

This is a fine example of how the government caters to special interests, wastes our money and mismanages our public lands.

RELATED: How Many Wild Horses Can the Reveille HMA Support?

There are three layers of forage demand in most HMAs: Horses, livestock and wildlife.

To estimate the carrying capacity, convert the forage assigned to livestock to wild horses and add the result to the AML.

The HMA is a subset of the Reveille Allotment, as shown in the National Data Viewer.

The HMA offers 138 × 12 = 1,656 AUMs per year on 104,500 public acres, or 15.8 AUMs per year per thousand public acres.

The allotment offers 25,730 AUMs on 657,520 public acres, according to the Allotment Master Report, which works out to 39.1 AUMs per year per thousand public acres.

Land that can only produce 15.8 AUMs per year per thousand public acres for wild horses can produce 39.1 AUMs per year per thousand public acres for livestock.

If the resource is evenly distributed across the allotment, the forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA should be 39.1 × 104,500 ÷ 1,000 = 4,086 AUMs per year, enough to support 4,086 ÷ 12 = 340 wild horses.

Therefore, the True AML, the number of wild horses the HMA could support if it was managed principally for them (as specified in the original statute) is 138 + 340 = 478, to be achieved by confining the ranchers to their base properties in a year-round off season.

The current population, thought to be 164 plus this year’s foal crop, is well within this range.

The Authorization Use Report indicates a twelve-month grazing season.

The HMA is managed primarily for animal agriculture, with cattle receiving 2.5 times more forage than the horses.

The roundup will bring forage consumption in line with the resource specifications of the land-use plan(s) and the fertility control pesticides should keep it that way for many years to come.

RELATED: Reveille Roundup Announced.

The incident, which kicks off the second half of the FY23 roundup season, will begin on or about July 1, according to today’s news release.

Helicopters will push the horses into the traps and operations will be open to public observation.

The HMA covers 105,499 total acres, including 104,500 public acres, according to the March HA/HMA Report.

The HA, most of which is unfit for wild horses but not for livestock, covers 389,050 total acres, including 387,676 public acres, east of Tonopah, NV.

The AML is 138.

The current population is thought to be 164 plus this year’s foal crop.

The stocking rate allowed by plan is 1.3 wild horses per thousand public acres, slightly higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres.

The goal  is to capture 129 wild horses, remove 76 and return 26 stallions to their lawful home along with 27 mares treated with GonaCon Equine, an ovary-killing pesticide not a fertility control vaccine.

The HA and HMA lie within the Reveille Allotment and are subject to permitted grazing, as shown by the National Data Viewer.

Animals not returned to the HMA will be taken to the Ridgecrest off-range corrals.

Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.

RELATED: FY23 Roundup Schedule Grows.

Day 1 kicks off with an educational tour of the Blue Wing Complex, where wild horses have been cheated by the bureaucrats in favor of the ranchers with the concurrence of the advocates.

You can watch the proceedings live, starting tomorrow.

RELATED: More WHBAB Meeting Materials Posted.

The Corolla Wild Horse Fund, the group responsible for contraceptive darting, was unaware of their presence, according to this report by WVEC News.

The story did not indicate if the band had moved to the remote area in fear of the advocates.

RELATED: Currituck Herd Adds New Filly.

Contrary to what the advocates have been telling you, they are not among the players in this WyoFile article about lawsuits, overpopulation and AMLs.

RELATED: Another Coalition Tries to Stop Rock Springs RMP Amendments.