Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
On the range
The advocates think you’re the ignoramus.
They couldn’t convert an AML to AUMs to save their lives, much less compute a forage allocation for livestock in an area set aside for wild horses, yet they know exactly how much adjuvant to add to the PZP and how long to mix them.
Why are you still giving them money?
The lists are updated monthly, according to statement at their census page, but there was no update for March.
The herd has been ruined by the Montana Solution.
The Park Service no longer provides census results.
RELATED: Assateague Pony Census, February 2023.
Lies have no place in wild horse preservation and the advocates are famous for them.
What can you do right now to help America’s wild horses? Stop giving them money!
Oral histories of native peoples, dismissed as folklore, say they were.
Now, research suggests that horses were distributed across indigenous communities from Wyoming to Kansas generations before European accounts established their presence, according to a story dated March 31 by The Hill.
The team performed genetic and radiocarbon testing on previously untested horse skeletons in museums and held by tribal nations, finding dozens of examples of horses in these communities that had been ridden, fed by humans and even received veterinary care long before European accounts allow for them having horses at all.
One of the investigators argued in her 2017 thesis that there was no actual evidence “scientific or otherwise” to disprove Native American oral histories of horse cultures that predated Spanish arrival.
Empirical conclusions can’t be proven like theorems in geometry—they are always subject to the test of future experience—but to accumulate enough evidence to cast doubt on the prevailing narrative would have a devastating effect on the ranching agenda, where horses and other native animals have been pushed aside on public lands across the American west to accommodate millions of nonnative cattle and sheep.
This report by the Billings Gazette parallels a news release from American Prairie.
The property covers 4,960 total acres southwest of Malta, MT, including 3,075 deeded acres, 1,245 BLM acres and 640 state acres, according to the listing on Land & Farm.
The BLM land lies within the North Wild Horse Allotment, adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.
The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Custodial category, with 1,142 public acres and 143 active AUMs per year, enough to support twelve wild horses.
The Authorization Use Report shows a year-round grazing season.
American Prairie did not indicate if it would petition the BLM for a change in livestock type, to allow bison on the allotment instead of cattle.
RELATED: American Prairie Using Leverage to Achieve Conservation Goals.
The preliminary plan noted that management of the WHR can be more specialized than that of most HMAs, but the concept has vanished from the preliminary EA now out for public review, according to a report dated March 30 by The Sheridan Press.
Strict adherence to BLM guidance has changed the document from specialized to standardized, similar to plans for wild horse areas across the country.
A woman interviewed for the story explained that all BLM lands are managed in accordance with RMPs, which establish how they will be used, a concept that eludes most advocates, especially those selling HMAPs as a solution to wild horse problems.
Comments on the EA will be accepted through April 14.
All documents have been posted to the project folder in ePlanning.
The herd is not dying off, it’s aging out.
The mares are not sterile, they’re self-boosting.
The sex ratio is not abnormal, females are living longer.
Removals aren’t necessary, the advocates are getting rid of them with PZP.
And they want you to pay for it.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, All Roads Lead to Billings Edition.
The proposed rule would apply standards for rangeland health to all BLM-managed public lands and uses, including watershed function, ecological processes, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
According to the definitions, land enhancement means any infrastructure or other use related to the public lands that is designed to improve production of forage, improve vegetative composition, direct patterns of use to improve ecological condition, provide water, stabilize soil and water conditions, promote effective wild horse and burro management, or restore, protect, and improve the condition of land health or fish and wildlife habitat.
The term includes, but is not limited to, structures, treatment projects, and the use of mechanical devices or landscape modifications achieved through mechanical means.
Wild horse and burro management was not defined, but generally equates to population reduction, to be achieved by helicopters, baited traps, wranglers and/or pesticides, so the regulation could provide the authority to reduce AMLs and zero-out more HMAs.
The rule would direct land managers to identify and prioritize lands and waters through the land management process that require habitat restoration work, such as removing invasive species or restoring streambanks, according to today’s news release.
Publication in the Federal Register will initiate a 75-day public comment period, accompanied by five information forums to discuss the details of the rule.
There are three layers of forage demand within the HMA: Horses, wildlife and livestock.
The 210 horses allowed by plan require 2,520 AUMs per year.
The HMA covers 507,681 total acres, including 375,915 public acres, according to the March 2022 HA/HMA Report.
The stocking rate allowed by plan is 0.6 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Recall that low stocking rates may indicate large amounts of forage assigned to privately owned livestock.
The land must be able to produce at least 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres to support the horses.
The forage assigned to wildlife inside the HMA is unknown, but is probably small, maybe 200 to 300 AUMs per year.
The HMA intersects twelve grazing allotments, as noted previously.
The National Data Viewer shows thirteen, but one, the Pony Express Trail, has no active AUMs. It appears as a gray strip across the HMA in the map below.
The Allotment Master Report at RAS provides acreage, management status and active AUMs (Salt Lake City Field Office | Fillmore Field Office).
About two-thirds of the land is in the Improve category.
The allotments provide 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on average, 10.7 times more forage than the land can produce for the horses. For the most part, it’s the same land!
As the advocates get rid of the horses, the ranchers can get enjoy more of what their allotments have to offer.
RELATED: Onaqui Herd Struggling?
It didn’t even start, but a statement at the gather page says it concluded on March 27, with zero horses captured, none shipped and none returned.
The capture goal was 50 and the removal goal was 25.
The pre-gather population was around 463.
The HMA is managed primarily for livestock.
A gather page has been created but no activity has been reported.
The HMA covers 438,140 total acres in southern Oregon, according to the March 2022 HA/HMA Report, including 399,725 public acres.
The AML is 250, which is small relative to the available resources.
Livestock receive six times more forage than the horses.
The incident was set to begin in December according to the latest schedule.
At the Valley of Thundering Waters, Navajo Nation, with Ron Toahani Jackson.
The Onaqui Catalogue Foundation reported earlier this year that the herd consisted of 144 males, 127 females, ten undetermined and 24 foals, for a total of 305, compared to an AML of 210.
The 2021 roundup took 435 wild horses into custody and returned 123 to the HMA, for a net removal of 312.
The BLM said the pre-gather population was over 475, plus that year’s foals.
Today, foals represent just 7.9% of the population, which is unnatural, a product of the darting program administered by the Wild Horses of America Foundation, not climate change or drought.
This amount is probably only two or three percentage points above the death rate, which was not given.
Why is it important to achieve and maintain AMLs? So ranchers can access most of the resources in the lawful homes of wild horses.
WITHOUT DARTING PROGRAMS
WITH DARTING PROGRAMS
These programs are safe, proven and reversible according to their adherents.
Those who disagree with permitted grazing, and don’t want the mares’ ovaries destroyed with a restricted-use pesticide, are derided by the charlatans at WHAF, who claim to be “in the know” and describe the concern as a “juvenile argument.”
A keyword search of their page about PZP yielded these results:
As for the wild horse shootings, two stallions were lost.
A herd composed of 281 adults should see around 50 new foals in a given year, a 17.8% birth rate, but only 22 were born in 2022.
That means the advocates got rid of 28 federally protected animals, 14 times more than the shooters.
Why hasn’t a warrant been issued for their arrest?
RELATED: Onaqui Reward Climbs.
The ordinance, which would prohibit the feeding of wild horses within Sandoval County, failed in yesterday’s meeting, according to a story by KRQE News.
RELATED: Commissioners to Ban Feeding of Placitas Wild Horses?
There were 124 wild horses on the island at the end of the year, according to an undated report by the Park Service, up from 121 at the end of 2021.
The growth rate was 2.5%, considerably less than the rate for free-roaming herds in the American west (provided the advocates are not involved).
Thirteen foals were born in 2022, for a birth rate of 10.7%.
Nine horses died.
One of the foals was removed illegally.
The herd was 61% female and 39% male.
The report said that some females are living longer, typical of herds subject to the Montana Solution.
Readers of these pages know that as a euphemism for abnormal sex ratio.
Contrary to what you read in this column by Tracy “You need to manage the numbers to fit what’s available for the horses” Wilson, field marshal for the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, the people of Nevada should tell their state representatives not to pass SB90 until the following language is removed:
No glorifying, legitimizing or ratifying the darting program and those involved, an affront to Velma’s legacy.
In her March 7 testimony before the Nevada Senate Natural Resources Committee, Wilson described the poisoning of the Virginia Range mares as the world’s largest wild horse conservation program.
With the effort moving into its fifth year, many are now at risk of sterility.
RELATED: We’re Out for Ourselves!
The loss was probably due to natural causes, according to a story posted this morning by The Charlotte Observer.
The current population on Shackleford Banks is thought to be around 120.
The article did not indicate if the mare had been treated with the Montana Solution.
Near Pahrump, NV with Robert Witham.
The allotment offers 3,325 AUMs per year on 186,083 public acres, as noted last week.
Is that good or bad?
Forage availability works out to 17.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, enough to support 1.5 cow/calf pairs, or 1.5 wild horses, per thousand public acres.
That’s not very much, when you realize the Virginia Range is carrying ten, or at least it did before the advocates got involved.
For comparison, the allotments in Sand Wash Basin HMA offer a weighted average 117.6 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, enough to support an additional 9.8 wild horses per thousand public acres, on top of the 2.4 wild horses allowed by plan.
This is what sinks the overpopulation narrative, repeated constantly by the advocates, not by what they say but by what they do.
The limited amount of forage on Majuba explains why the Antelope Range HA was zeroed out and why the doctrine of multiple use goes out the window in such cases.
