Western Horse Watchers Association
Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
On the range
They will be returned to the BLM according to a report posted today by MLive, an online news service in Michigan.
If they are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the American west, why aren’t they out west?
To protect scarce and fragile resources [that have been assigned to the public-lands ranchers] and to ensure healthy animals [that go moooo and baaaa].
They bill themselves as the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, but wherever they and their surrogates are involved, wild horse numbers go down.
Ever notice that?
Defenders of the public-lands ranchers, they are a leader in the wild horse removal business and a challenger to Cattoor, Sun J and Uhalde.
How many of their supporters are cattlemen and bots?
RELATED: Montana Solution Alleviates Many Wild Horse Problems.
A page for the gather stats and daily reports still hasn’t been created by BLM Colorado.
The incident was set to begin on June 16 using bait traps.
The BLM allotments grazed by the rancher who favors the removal are on the northeast side of the HMA.
RELATED: Status of Piceance Roundup?
They think the advocates are protecting the horses.
It’s an area where wild horses lived, but because of massive human involvement, the natural order has been all but extinguished.
The advocates work hard to keep up appearances but the critical observer will notice
Examples include Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Assateague Island, Currituck Outer Banks, Salt River, Virginia Range, Little Book Cliffs WHR, McCullough Peaks HMA and Pine Nut Mountains HA.
The advocates support it so you know it’s bad for the horses.
A report by KLAS News refers to it but does not explain it.
It’s synonymous with “humane management.”
What is it?
The Montana Solution, marketed by the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a voice for the public-lands ranchers and leader in the wild horse removal industry.
RELATED: Montana Solution Alleviates Many Wild Horse Problems.
At or near the South Steens HMA with Bill Singleton.
The bureaucrats tried to reassure the public that they were addressing the problems at the June 16 online meeting but they have provided little information about the Piceance roundup and did not post an update this week for the situation at Cañon City.
They may be providing updates on other platforms. Western Horse Watchers does not read and will not link to anything on socialist media, with the exception of YouTube.
RELATED: Status of Piceance Roundup?
More trailcam images from the safe and humane fertility control program on the Virginia Range.
The advocates are counting on predators to take out foals that slip through.
The youngster spotted on Mother’s Day hasn’t been seen since.
They truly want these and other wild horses to fail.
RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Injuries Easier to Find Than Youngsters Edition.
A link for the operation has not been added to the Colorado gather page.
The capture and removal goals were not specified but the roundup schedule dated June 14 says 99 and 99 for Part 1 (carried out with bait traps).
The incident is probably not open to public observation and updates will only be posted when horses are caught.
Captured animals will be taken to an undisclosed location in Utah.
A story posted today by the Herald Times of Meeker said it’s underway but that may mean the traps have been put up and hay has been put out.
RELATED: Rancher Happy to See Piceance Horses Go.
As noted last year, 4M Ranch covers nearly 12,000 deeded acres in western Colorado and has grazing preference on more than 125,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service land.
The remark at 2:10 by the executive director of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses about tax dollars funding a broken and inhumane system is a reference to the Montana Solution, a better way of taking wild horses off the range according to her and her supporters.
Why would you want to take horses off the range? Who benefits?
RELATED: Piceance Roundup Prompted by Public Comments?
This urgent message from The Cloud Foundation asks its supporters to oppose a plan that will zero-out the Blawn Wash herd.
NEWS FLASH: Blawn Wash was zeroed out in 2005. A 2001 land exchange shifted 43% of the acreage and 70% of the forage from the BLM to the State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. Forage in that portion of the HA is managed by SITLA.
The AML has been zero for 17 years. Refer to Section 1.1 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Bible Springs Complex.
The comment period for the new EA closes tomorrow.
The project can never lead to meaningful changes for the horses and can only improve conditions for the public-lands ranchers.
The procedure occurs much more frequently in adopted and pedigreed horses, but that wasn’t a finding of a study cited in a March 18 blog post by the BLM.
About 40% of the stallions in the Conger HMA were gelded in 2017 to test for differences in behavior and habitat use as well as effects on survival and foaling rates.
Researchers found that geldings tended to lose their harems three years after surgery and there was no long-term reduction in foaling rate.
A 1992 study showed that 80% or more of a herd’s stallions would need to be sterilized to substantially reduce growth rates.
RELATED: Wild Horse and Burro Research Initiative Announced.
This story by AP News has already been picked up by some news outlets and will likely be picked up by others in the next 24 hours.
A spokesman for the BLM indicated in yesterday’s news release that they were getting quite a bit of feedback from the public about the poor condition of the horses.
They’re in a remote area, did those concerns come from campers, hikers and tourists?
The HMA was established in an area occupied by grazing allotments, as shown on the Western Watersheds map. The gather area will likely extend beyond the HMA and will include some of the outlying allotments.
Given that most people want to see horses running wild and free on their home range, it seems unlikely that comments from the public would lead to their removal.
A more plausible explanation would involve complaints from the ranchers and concerns from the advocates.
RELATED: Piceance Roundup Starts This Week, Not an Emergency.
The advocates have filled that role.
The incident was scheduled for late August but will begin on June 16 due to the poor condition of some animals, according to today’s news release.
Initially, horses will be captured by traps baited with food and water, with the remaining animals forced into the traps by helicopter starting on July 15.
The HMA covers 190,130 total acres in western Colorado, including 158,310 public acres managed by the BLM. The AML is 235 and the stocking rate allowed by plan is 1.2 wild horses per thousand acres.
The current population is thought to be 1,385, six times higher than the bureaucrats and ranchers are willing to tolerate.
The HMA intersects four grazing allotments. Livestock receive 2.4 times more forage than the horses, one of the milder cases of wild horse mismanagement.
Captured animals will be taken to an unspecified holding facility in Utah.
A link to the gather stats and daily reports was not provided.
The HMA is subject to the Montana Solution according to the roundup schedule.
RELATED: Ten Weeks to Go: Piceance-East Douglas Pre-Game Report.
In Breathitt County, KY with AmeriPino Journey. Refer to this history brief by the Appalachian Horse Project for more information.
If a herd goes from 200 to 100 as a result of your darting program, no wild horses were removed from the range?
Let’s look at this mathematically.
Final population = Initial population – Horses removed
100 = 200 – x
If you’re an advocate, x = 0.
If the herd was growing at a rate of 15% per year, the population would reach 800 in ten years, the time you needed to cut it to 100, which means you actually got rid of 700.
The land may be able to support many more wild horses but those resources have been assigned to privately owned livestock.
The ranchers appreciate your hard—but misguided—work very much.
Images will be disturbing to viewers wearing “Stay Wild” caps.
Western Horse Watchers Association 