Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
On the range
Refer to this opinion piece dated September 11 by Rod Miller, columnist for Cowboy State Daily, a reader response dated September 13 by Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History and this angry retort dated September 13 by Miller.
Why would Miller care about “horses that are munching our public grass?”
His bio says he was raised on the ID Ranch north of Rawlins, WY and has spent half his adult life working on and managing ranches in the West.
The capture goal was achieved in three days but the operation has been extended to take 250 more horses off the range.
Helicopters will be back in the air tomorrow, according to the gather page.
RELATED: South Steens Roundup, Day 3.
The incident began on September 10. Gather stats through September 12:
The capture goal has been reached.
The figures above are based on the daily reports, not the totals posted by the BLM.
Five horses were put down on Day 2 due to pre-existing conditions, followed by two more on Day 3.
The death rate is 1.3%.
The capture total includes 194 stallions, 231 mares and 100 foals.
Youngsters represented 19.0% of the animals gathered.
Of the adults, 45.6% were male and 54.4% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 19% per year.
A better estimate would be 14% per year, assuming a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores were not provided.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 3 ended with 42 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: South Steens Roundup Begins.
The incident began on September 10. Gather stats through September 12:
The figures above are based on the daily reports, not the totals posted by the BLM.
The figures for Day 1 were updated to include 43 horses shipped.
Three females were euthanized on Day 2 for non-life-threatening conditions.
The death rate is 2.1%.
The capture total includes 90 stallions, 105 mares and 40 foals.
Youngsters represented 17.0% of the animals gathered.
Of the adults, 46.2% were male and 53.8% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 17% per year.
A better estimate would be 12% per year, assuming a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores were not provided.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMAs and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 3 ended with 97 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Calico Roundup in Progress.
The incident will begin on September 17, according to a BLM news release.
Helicopters will force the horses into the traps and operations will be open to public observation, starting on Day 3.
Gather activity on Days 1 and 2 will occur in the Dugway Proving Ground, a military facility not accessible by the public.
The September 7 schedule indicates capture and removal goals of 700 and 400.
The HMA covers 211,592 acres in western Utah, including 204,674 public acres.
The 390 horses allowed by plan require 4,680 AUMs per year.
The stocking rate allowed by plan is 1.9 wild horses per thousand public acres, higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres.
The pre-gather population is thought to be 920.
The HMA intersects four grazing allotments. Livestock receive over three times more forage than the horses, as explained previously.
The BLM spends 113 times more to care for wild horses displaced from public lands by permitted grazing than it collects in fees from ranching activity inside the HMAs, as discussed yesterday.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Axtell.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
The incident started today, according to the sidebar at the resource management page, with 24 horses captured and no deaths. The number of animals shipped was not given.
RELATED: Fifth Annual Devil’s Garden Roundup Starts Next Month.
The incident started on September 10, with 225 horses captured, 175 shipped and none dead, but results were not posted until this morning.
An additional 164 horses were taken on Day 2, bringing the total to 389.
The capture goal is 500 according to the gather page.
The September 7 schedule says 400.
RELATED: South Steens Roundup Set for Next Month.
Horses have the day off. In the Black Mountain HMA with Julana Dizon.
The incident began on August 11 and does not appear in the latest schedule.
As of September 9, 194 burros have been trapped, 194 have been shipped and none have died, according to figures at the gather page.
The daily reports provide totals only.
The capture and removal goals are 275 each.
The cumulative total includes 92 jacks, 70 jennies and 32 foals.
Youngsters represented 16.5% of the animals gathered.
Of the adults, 56.8% were male and 43.2% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 17%.
The location of the trap site was not specified.
Day 30 ended with no unaccounted-for animals.
RELATED: Chemehuevi Roundup, Day 23.
The incident started today, as advertised, with 85 horses captured, none shipped and two dead.
The deaths resulted from pre-existing conditions, according to the gather page.
RELATED: Calico Roundup Announced.
Renewal of the grazing permit is not mandatory. Cancellation is one of the four alternatives evaluated in the revised EA. Refer to Section 2.5 (page 30 in pdf).
Another rancher could acquire the base property and apply for a permit or shift his preference to Alvord from another allotment.
RMP amendments would be needed to permanently transfer the resources from livestock to wild horses. Drafting a new HMAP won’t work.
Writing a new AMP to permanently transfer AUMs to livestock that are currently off limits to everybody, including wildlife and wild horses, probably isn’t valid either but that’s what the BLM appears to be doing at Alvord.
Over the last 49 years, the agency has allowed the permittees to access the resource 18 times, according to Section 1.1 of the EA.
The RMP amendments would confine the ranchers to their base properties, operating their businesses on their own land while paying the going rate to feed their animals.
No more gravy train, no more sucking on the government teat at the expense of America’s wild horses.
American Prairie recently flipped several allotments in Montana from livestock to bison.
The advocates, obsessed with the Montana Solution and the welfare of the ranchers, continue their assault on the horses.
If Alternative D was approved, 7,355 AUMs per year would be liberated.
Four of the Alvord pastures are outside the HMA, according to Map 3 of the EA, North and South Foothills, Pike Creek and Alvord Seeding.
Those pastures cover 18,161 acres, according to Table 1, about 7.9% of the acreage in the allotment.
The forage assigned to Alvord livestock inside the HMA would be (1 – .079) × 7,355 = 6,774 AUMs per year, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the allotment, enough to support 564 wild horses.
This does not include the suspended AUMs.
If the RMPs were revised as noted above, the AML could be increased from 390 to 954.
The allotment covers about a third of the HMA, so the AML could likely go much higher.
The BLM collects $9,145 per year in grazing fees from ranching activity inside the Alvord portion of the HMA while it spends $1,029,300 per year to care for the horses displaced thereby.
The BLM is not asking us to vote on the four alternatives, but as taxpayers, the option that helps the horses and reduces the burden on us is obvious.
RELATED: Alvord Allotment Confusion?
One permittee holds all of the active AUMs in the allotment, according to Section 1.1 of the revised EA for permit renewal and new AMP.
The Allotment Master Report shows three.
Section 1.1 ties all of the active AUMs to authorization #3602552, which corresponds to Tom Davis Livestock.
The suspended AUMs are on authorization #3601175, T&T Livestock.
Section 1.1 indicates that Davis can lease out portions of the preference to other operators, so Stoddart and T&T may be lessees.
RELATED: AMPs Must Conform to RMPs?
The capture and removal goals in the September 7 update are 700 and 400, bringing the totals to 23,841 and 20,923.
The totals in the August 10 update were 23,238 and 20,590.
The goals announced in January were 22,000 and 19,000.
An announcement for Cedar Mountain has not appeared at the BLM news site as of this morning but the schedule shows a start date of September 17.
RELATED: Cedar Mountain Decision Issued.
The advocates have assured us that herds treated with the Montana Solution suffer no adverse effects and they exhibit the full range of wild behaviors in a natural setting.
Meanwhile, herd sizes go down, death rates go up, females outnumber males and mares become sterile.
Massive human involvement turns those areas into curated horse exhibits.
“Stay Wild” is a ruse.
Lying to the public must be part of the curriculum at the Billings school of PZP darting.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, You’re Not Supposed to Notice Edition
A decision rendered earlier this year was vacated in July as a result of appeals submitted by several conservation groups and the project was sent back to the BLM for revision.
A news release from two of the groups circulated at the time.
On September 2, the BLM copied the updated EA to the project folder, along with two other documents, for public review.
The comment period runs through September 17, according to a BLM news release dated September 6.
Some of the details in Section 1.1 of the New EA are a bit confusing and Western Horse Watchers has sent an email to the BLM rep seeking clarification.
The Proposed Action, discussed in Section 2.3 of the EA, would increase the active AUMs in the Alvord Allotment from 7,355 to 9,247 per year.
Most of the increase, about 88%, would occur in the Desert #6 pasture, which lies within the Coyote Lake-Alvord-Tule Springs HMA. Refer to Table 8 and Map 3.
The incremental forage, 1,670 AUMs per year, would support 139 wild horses, on top of the 390 horses currently allowed by plan.
The BLM will collect an additional $2,255 per year in grazing fees if the suspended AUMs in Desert #6 are moved into active status, while it spends $253,675 per year to care for 139 horses in off-range holding that could be returned to the HMA.
Would you say that the Proposed Action constitutes a wise use of the public lands?
A roundup started two years ago will resume this month, according to a BLM news release dated September 7.
The operation, requested by the Green Diamond Resource Company, will remove wild horses from private lands in and around the HMA, as explained in the 2020 Categorical Exclusion and Decision Record.
Horses will be drawn into the traps with bait and the incident will not be open to public observation.
The capture and removal goals were not provided.
The HMA covers about 81,000 total acres (public and private) on the OR-CA border and has an AML of 50.
The current population is thought to be around 230.
Green Diamond owns about 79% of the land in the HMA and the horses are consuming forage worth an estimated $25,000 per year.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Hines, OR.
Gather stats and daily report will be posted to this page.
The CX/DR was the only document posted to the project folder in ePlanning.
Three members have been reappointed to second terms, according to a BLM news release dated September 6.
The interest categories in the announcement don’t match those of the notice last month in the Federal Register.
RELATED: WHBAB Nominations Sought.
It’s the last one on the schedule for FY 2022.
The incident will begin on or about September 10, according to yesterday’s news release, with a capture goal of 1,076 wild horses and removal goal of 1,036, compared to 1,556 and 1,445 in the schedule.
Up to 40 cherished mares will be treated with fertility control and returned to the area.
Helicopters will push the animals into the traps and operations will be open to public observation.
Five HMAs are affected.
The Complex covers 584,101 total acres in northern Nevada, as shown in Table 1 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions, and has an AML of 952 wild horses and 65 wild burros.
An aerial survey in May found 1,593 wild horses in and around the Complex.
The Western Watersheds map shows the layout.
The Complex intersects five grazing allotments. The forage assigned to livestock inside the HMAs is not known at this time.
Overpopulation means more horses than allowed by plan, not necessarily more horses than the land can support.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Fallon.
Gather stats and daily reports can be found at this page.
The EA was posted with other project documents at ePlanning.
RELATED: Calico Decision Reached.
The announcement in the Federal Register on August 30 said that comments supported by quantitative information, studies, or those that include citations and analysis of applicable laws and regulations are most beneficial, more useful, and likely to assist the decision-making process for the management and protection of wild horses and burros.
Presumably, conclusions based on data would also be welcomed.
Consider this example from the Warm Springs HMA in Oregon.
The 204 horses allowed by plan receive 2,448 AUMs per year.
The HMA coincides roughly with the East and West Warm Springs Allotments.
The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.
Livestock receive 18,600 AUMs per year, according to the Allotment Master Report, 7.6 times more than the horses, in an area set aside for the horses.
The horses receive 11.6% of the authorized forage, neglecting wildlife.
The HMA is managed primarily for livestock.
The forage assigned to livestock would support an additional 1,550 wild horses, for a True AML of 1,754.
1. The BLM collects $25,110 per year in grazing fees from ranching activity inside the HMA.
2. The BLM spends $2,828,750 per year to care for the 1,550 horses displaced thereby.
3. The BLM could save up to $2,803,640 per year by placing horses in short-term holding back on the HMA.
Therefore, in keeping with the guidelines above, the recommendation would be to confine the ranchers to their base properties and manage the HMA principally for wild horses, as specified in the original statute, at huge savings to American taxpayers.
This is just one HMA.
The advocates, in their zeal for the Montana Solution, are ready and willing to help the agency achieve the 11.6% specification.
RELATED: WHBAB Meeting Announced.
On the Maryland side of Assateague Island with Mama Fry.
Western Horse Watchers Association 