Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
On the range
Refer to this post on HuntTalk, a message board for outdoorsmen.
The original piece was probably written by the real estate agent and PZP darter in the Minden/Gardnerville area.
“You MUST want to protect wild horses and be a team player.”
Stories by the Pine Nut advocates are occasionally featured these pages, along with the appropriate commentary, such as the June 24 edition of Foal-Free Friday.
The Decision Record, dated July 28, authorizes a mix of Alternatives B and C across seven BLM allotments, as described in Sections 2.3 and 2.4 of the Final EA.
Alternative B applies to Telegraph Creek, Box Elder, Flat Creek and Whiterock Coulee.
Alternative C applies to French Coulee, East Dry Fork and Garey Coulee.
American Prairie Reserve obtained grazing privileges on these allotments by acquiring private lands serving as base properties then petitioned the BLM to change the livestock type to bison.
The decision may establish a precedent for others who acquire private property tied to grazing allotments then request the BLM to change the livestock type to horses.
Catch-treat-release could become adopt-haul-release.
The plan was condemned by the Public Lands Council earlier this year.
The decision is subject to a 30-day appeal period, according to the news release.
The EA and DR were posted with other project documents in ePlanning.
The incident began on July 23. Gather stats through July 27:
The figures above are based on the daily reports. The number of horses shipped doesn’t match the total at the gather page.
Two horses were put down on Day 4 due to pre-existing conditions. A mare jumped out of a pen on Day 5, ran through fencing and was later found dead.
The horse death rate is 1.1%.
The horse total includes 308 stallions, 352 mares and 127 foals.
Youngsters represented 16.1% of the horses captured. Of the adults, 46.7% were male and 53.3% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 16%. A better estimate would be 11% per year, assuming a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores on Days 4 and 5 ranged from 4 to 5.
Trapping continued at Bull Flat in Lassen County.
The HMA is subject to permitted grazing.
Day 5 ended with 200 unaccounted-for horses and no unaccounted-for burros.
Mares treated with fertility control will be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Twin Peaks Roundup, Day 3.
They crossed the channel yesterday and the auction begins today, according to a report by WMDT News of Salisbury, MD.
The herd makes the return trip tomorrow, minus the youngsters, with the exception of a few “buy backs.”
The official guide explains the process from start to finish.
The incident began on July 17. Gather stats through July 27:
Two mares were put down on Day 11 due to pre-existing conditions. They’d be alive today if there was no roundup. The death rate is 2.3%.
The total includes 161 stallions, 201 mares and 77 foals.
Youngsters represented 17.5% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 44.5% were male and 55.5% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 18% per year.
A better estimate would be 13% per year assuming a 5% death rate.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The Complex and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 11 ended with 74 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Triple B Roundup, Day 9.
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 27:
A horse was put down, presumably, on Day 12. No details were given.
The death rate is 0.4%.
The total, based on the daily reports, includes 267 stallions, 322 mares and 136 foals.
The eighteen horses taken off the range in Part 1 have been omitted.
Youngsters represented 18.8% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 45.3% were male and 54.7% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 19% per year.
Fourteen percent would be a better estimate assuming a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 13 ended with 89 unaccounted-for animals.
The capture goal is 69% complete.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Piceance Roundup, Part 2 Day 11.
The plaintiffs allege that the planned removal of 1,000 wild horses and burros will occur without the benefit of current data and environmental assessments related to rangeland conditions, according to a news release dated July 26.
A link to the complaint was not provided.
Helicopters are the fastest way to bring resource consumption in line with the specifications of the land-use plans but they don’t do much for rangeland health.
RELATED: Blue Wing Roundup Announced
The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses said yesterday in a news release that at least 840 wild horses and burros have been sold at slaughter auctions since 2019 as a result of the Adoption Incentive Program.
Adopters pocket the cash then dump the animals at livestock auctions, where they are sold to kill buyers for slaughter in Canada and Mexico, according to the announcement.
Western Horse Watchers estimates that during the same period, CAAWH and its army of nitwits got rid of at least 2,000 wild horses with the Montana Solution.
Who’s the greater threat to these animals?
When you spray your home for bugs, do you refer to them as cherished cockroaches while you apply the pesticide, as CAAWH does to wild horses?
RELATED: New Rules for AIP Announced.
The incident will begin on or about August 1, according to a BLM news release, with five HMAs and four HAs affected.
Helicopters will push the animals into the traps and operations will be open to public observation.
The capture and removal goals are 200 wild horses and 800 wild burros. No animals will be treated with fertility control and returned to the range.
The Complex covers about 1.2 million total acres northeast Pyramid Lake, NV and has a combined AML of 553 horses and 90 burros, equivalent to 598 horses. Refer to Table 1 in the Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein.
The HAs are no longer managed for horses and burros and have an AML of zero.
The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement. The HAs are not included.’
The current population is thought to be 1,695 horses and 1,327 burros.
The HMAs lie within the massive Blue Wing – Seven Troughs Allotment, not shown on the map.
Captured horses will be taken to the off-range corrals at Palomino Valley, NV and burros will be shipped to the off-range corrals in Axtell, UT.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
The EA was posted with other project documents in ePlanning.
The incident began on July 23. Gather stats through July 25:
A foal died on Day 2 after collapsing in the pen due to pneumonia. Three horses were put down on Day 3. An incident in the trap resulted in the escape of ten horses.
The horse death rate is 1.0%.
The horse total includes 228 stallions, 266 mares and 94 foals.
Youngsters represented 16.0% of the horses captured. 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, a figure used by land managers to predict herd sizes, with a birth rate of 16%.
Body condition scores on Day 3 ranged from 4 to 5.
Trapping continued at Bull Flat in Lassen County.
The HMA is subject to permitted grazing.
Day 3 ended with 216 unaccounted-for horses and 1 unaccounted-for burro.
Mares treated with fertility control will be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Twin Peaks Roundup in Progress.
They’re safer in the wild [but not from the advocates] according to a spokesman for CAAWH in this not-ready-for-prime-time report by KREX News in Grand Junction.
If the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses had its way, they’re wouldn’t be any foals or pregnant mares for helicopters to chase.
Indeed, there wouldn’t be any horses to capture at all, because its army of nitwits would have taken most of them off the range with the Montana Solution, leaving their food and water to the public-lands ranchers, as specified in the land-use plans.
RELATED: Foals and Pregnant Mares Should Not Be Chased by Helicopters?
Nevada Vanadium has reached an agreement with Fish Creek Ranch to lease water rights to meet the water supply requirements of the project for a period of ten years, according to Section 3.19.2.2 of the Draft EIS.
Figure 2 in Supplemental Environmental Report 1 shows the arrangement.
As specified in the agreement, Fish Creek Ranch would remove 818 acres of alfalfa from production during the term of the lease to compensate for water that would otherwise be used for irrigation.
Water would pumped from a take-off near Fish Creek Springs to the project site.
A Rangeland Management Specialist with the Battle Mountain District confirmed that Fish Creek Ranch qualifies as a base property and has grazing preference on the Fish Creek Allotment, which overlaps the project area.
The advocates issued a bizarre statement last week claiming that “BLM NV is preparing to dig in and use millions more gallons of precious water for mining operations while ousting federally protected wild horses from their homes, and continue the destruction of our lands and wildlife.”
The SER and EIS were posted to the Gibellini project folder in ePlanning.
RELATED: Vanadium Mine Coming to Fish Creek HMA?
The incident began on July 17. Gather stats through July 25:
A stallion died of a broken neck on Day 9 and a mare was euthanized, increasing the death rate to 2.3%.
The total includes 118 stallions, 163 mares and 65 foals.
Youngsters represented 18.8% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 42.0% were male and 58.0% 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 5% death rate.
Abnormal sex ratios are often found in herds subject to the Montana Solution but not double-digit birth rates.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The Complex and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 9 ended with 19 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Triple B Roundup, Day 7.
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 25:
The death rate is 0.3%.
The total, based on the daily reports, includes 247 stallions, 297 mares and 121 foals.
The eighteen horses taken off the range in Part 1 have been omitted.
Youngsters represented 18.2% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 45.4% were male and 54.6% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 18% per year.
Thirteen percent would be a better estimate assuming a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 11 ended with 98 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Piceance Roundup, Part 2 Day 9.
The Draft EIS and other supporting documents have been posted for public review, according to a BLM news release dated July 22.
Under the Proposed Action, the project area would cover 6,456 public acres, on which 806 acres of surface disturbance would occur. No state or private lands are included.
The project life consists of 1.5 years of construction, seven years of operation, four years of active reclamation and closure, and up to 30 years of post-closure monitoring.
The 85-acre open pit would not be reclaimed.
The project area straddles the eastern boundary of the Fish Creek HMA, with roads coming in from the east.
Impacts to wild horses are discussed in Supplemental Environmental Report 17.
Under the Proposed Action, fencing would temporarily exclude 806 acres of surface disturbance plus an additional 413 acres of undisturbed lands.
The 85 acres in the open pit would be permanently lost, a question for the comment period. Reclaimed coal mines provide habitat for free-roaming horses in Kentucky.
The effects on wild horses from water management activities are expected to be negligible, short term and localized.
The project area lies within the Fish Creek Ranch Allotment.
Impacts to livestock are discussed in Supplemental Environmental Report 5.
Under the Proposed Action, 15.1 AUMs per year would be temporarily lost, with 1.4 AUMs per year permanently lost due to the open pit.
The temporary loss would equate to three cow/calf pairs on a five-month grazing season, consistent with the claim that impacts to livestock are anticipated to be minor, short term, and localized.
You could argue that resources taken from the horses were lost a long time ago, when they were assigned to the permittees.
Vanadium is used as an alloying element in steel, among other things.
Comments will be accepted through September 6.
An online public meeting will be held August 6 on Zoom from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM Pacific Time.
The project will be pursued by Nevada Vanadium Mining Corporation. Refer to this news release for more information.
Near Pahrump, NV (Wheeler Pass HMA) with Bob Cruikshank.
The incident began on July 15. Gather stats through July 23:
The death rate is 0.3%.
The total, based on the daily reports, includes 230 stallions, 276 mares and 110 foals.
The eighteen horses taken off the range in Part 1 have been omitted.
Youngsters represented 17.9% of the animals captured. Of the adults, 45.5% were male and 54.5% were female.
The herd can’t be growing at a rate of 20% per year with a birth rate of 18% per year.
Thirteen percent would be a better estimate based on a death rate of 5% per year.
Body condition scores were not given.
The location of the trap site was not disclosed.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
Day 9 ended with 170 unaccounted-for animals.
Mares treated with fertility control may be returned to the area at a later date.
Other statistics:
RELATED: Piceance Roundup, Part 2 Day 7.
The incident started yesterday, as scheduled, with 231 horses captured, 104 shipped and two dead.
The Day 1 report at the gather page said that 11 members of the public observed the action, including a TV production crew working on “Human Footprint, the Film,” to be aired on PBS, a reporter from KUNR public radio in Reno and a freelance filmmaker and videographer.
RELATED: Twin Peaks Roundup Explained.
The case was filed in 2018 by Friends of Animals and the complaint is now in its third iteration.
Last year the court denied a request by FOA to halt the Onaqui Mountain roundup.
In the latest amendment, FOA seeks an order prohibiting future Onaqui roundups and a return of the horses to the HMA.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office issued a statement last week indicating that the court had granted its motion to intervene in the case, in opposition to FOA.
Refer to Section II, Course of Proceedings, in the State’s motion for a case history.
The next step will be a hearing for summary judgment according to the announcement.
The State says it’s motivated by an interest in wildlife, not permitted grazing.
A new project has been created in ePlanning but no documents have been posted.
The project map puts the job site west of the Piute Mountain HA and southwest of Fenner, CA.
The HA does not appear on the Western Watersheds map but it’s mostly inside the Lazy Daisy Allotment.
The management status is Improve according to the Allotment Master Report.
Allotments in the Improve Category exhibit vegetative and watershed conditions that don’t meet objectives and standards for rangeland health.
The allotment offers 3,192 active AUMs on 284,533 public acres, with forage availability coming in at a paltry 11.2 AUMs per year per thousand acres—not quite enough to support a stocking rate of two wild burros (or one wild horse) per thousand acres.
The government will collect $4,309 per year from the permittee in grazing fees while it spends $485,450 per year to care for the 266 wild horses (or 532 wild burros) that the allotment would support.
The HA has an AML of zero and is no longer managed for wild burros.
A roundup occurred in the area four years ago.
Western Horse Watchers Association 