In northwest Colorado with Epic Mountain Hunter.

Send a film crew back to the HMA to see what type of animals filled the void!

RELATED: Bias in Sand Wash Reporting?

The real estate agent and PZP darter who wrote the article about euthanizing foals in the current edition of Horse Tales also wrote the condescending article in last month’s edition about the dangers to wild horses posed by local residents.

The Pine Nut HA, not shown in the Western Watersheds map, extends well to the south of the HMA.  It’s drawn with a brown border on page 15 of the BLM map.  The area was identified for wild horses in 1971 but has since been zeroed out.  It has no AML.

The HA contains some private land, denoted by white.

Like the HMA, the HA intersects several grazing allotments, notably Buckeye, Sunrise and Pine Nut.  All three are in the Improve category according to the Allotment Master report (click on map to open in new tab).

The author’s listings appear on the last page of this month’s edition of Horse Tales.

Some of the parcels have cattle fencing.  Others are surrounded by BLM land and have no legal access.  The description at the top says “Look for owner name Bently.”

Curiously, the permittee holding most of the active AUMs on the Buckeye Allotment is the Bently Family Limited Partnership.

Interesting.

RELATED: Well for Fish Springs Mustangs Needs 640 Acres?

Depends on how you weigh the value of horses, cattle, wildlife, economic growth and ecological sustainability, according to a column in the Herald Journal of Logan, UT.

The government already knows what resources are available and typically assigns most of them to privately owned livestock, as in this example from the Warm Springs HMA.

The 202 horses allowed by plan receive just 11% of the authorized forage, supporting an observation made earlier this week that livestock, not horses, are are the highly valued animals on western rangelands.

This is not a consequence of the original WHB Act but a result of changes wrought by FLPMA and PRIA, which promoted the interests of ranchers, not wild horses as suggested by the writer.

RELATED: Origin of AMLs?

The incident began on October 7.  Gather stats through November 19:

• Type: Planned
• Method: Helicopter
• Horses captured: 1,843, up from 1,631 on Day 42
• Average daily take: 41.9
• Capture goal: 4,400
• Removal goal: 3,500
• Returned: 1, no change from Day 42
• Deaths: 7, no change from Day 42
• Shipped: 1,701, up from 1,410 on Day 42

The death rate in this roundup, described as cruel and inhumane by the advocates, is 0.4%.  If they are disappointed by any of this it’s that the government is getting rid of the horses, not them.

Foals represented 20.1% of the horses captured.  Of the adults, 48.4% were male and 51.6% were female.

Body condition scores were not reported.

Gather activity continued at Salt Wells Creek.  Five HMAs are involved in the roundup.

Day 44 ended with 134 unaccounted-for animals.

Other statistics:

• AML: 2,165 (across five HMAs)
• Forage assigned to horses: 25,980 AUMs per year
• Pre-gather population: 5,105
• Forage liberated to date: 22,104 AUMs per year
• Water liberated to date: 18,420 gallons per day
• Forage assigned to livestock: 191,791 AUMs per year (estimated)
• Horses displaced from HMAs by livestock: 15,982 (32% of off-range holding)
• True AML: 18,147

RELATED: Rock Springs Roundup Day 42.

The truth is not always pretty.  Sometimes you have to put foals down, the subject of ‘Wild Horse Tales,’ a column in the November edition of Horse Tales.

The advocates like to talk about on-range management of wild horses but whenever they get involved, there are fewer of them on the range.  Ever notice that?

The incident occurred on October 10 near Hartsel, CO, according to a story posted today by KUSA News of Denver.

A report published yesterday by The Flume of Bailey, CO said he roamed with a band of 15 animals.  All were removed from the range.

There are no HMAs or WHTs in that part of the state but the Western Watersheds map shows BLM and USFS grazing allotments in the area.

Refer to Attachment 2 in the 2018 BLM report to Congress for the cost to remove an animal from his home range and place him into short-term or long-term holding.

The grazing fee is currently $1.35 per AUM.

RELATED: Economics of ‘Path Forward.’

The incident began on October 7.  Gather stats through November 17:

• Type: Planned
• Method: Helicopter
• Horses captured: 1,631, up from 1,254 on Day 39
• Average daily take: 38.8
• Capture goal: 4,400
• Removal goal: 3,500
• Returned: 1, no change from Day 39
• Deaths: 7, no change from Day 39
• Shipped: 1,410, up from 1,164 on Day 39

The death rate dropped to 0.4%.

Foals represented 20.4% of the horses captured.  Of the adults, 48.1% were male and 51.9% were female.

Body condition scores were not reported.

Gather activity continued at Salt Wells Creek.  Five HMAs are involved in the roundup.

Day 42 ended with 213 unaccounted-for animals.

Other statistics:

• AML: 2,165 (across five HMAs)
• Forage assigned to horses: 25,980 AUMs per year
• Pre-gather population: 5,105
• Forage liberated to date: 19,560 AUMs per year
• Water liberated to date: 16,300 gallons per day
• Forage assigned to livestock: 191,791 AUMs per year (estimated)
• Horses displaced from HMAs by livestock: 15,982 (32% of off-range holding)
• True AML: 18,147

RELATED: Rock Springs Roundup Day 39.

The group submitted a rulemaking petition to new BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, according to a news release, asking for the impact of cattle and sheep to be included in rangeland assessments and to immediately reduce the number of those animals within HMAs when any management actions are planned because of rangeland deterioration, followed by a phaseout of all livestock as grazing permits expire.

If the BLM denies the petition, the group will likely take the agency to court.

Western Horse Watchers believes that scientific methods are used to assess resource availability and reliability but the apportionment of those resources is arbitrary and subject to influence by special interests.

The removal of a large amount of horses is absolutely necessary to maintain the balance for all wildlife, according to the author of a guest column in today’s edition of the White Mountain Independent.

The preliminary EA and management plan were posted under the Analysis tab with other project documents.

RELATED: Heber Management Plan and Roundup Getting Closer.

The incident began on October 7.  Gather stats through November 14:

• Type: Planned
• Method: Helicopter
• Horses captured: 1,254, up from 1,170 on Day 34
• Average daily take: 32.2
• Capture goal: 4,400
• Removal goal: 3,500
• Returned: 1, no change from Day 34
• Deaths: 7, up from 6 on Day 34
• Shipped: 1,164, up from 1,066 on Day 34

Helicopters were grounded on Days 36 and 37 due to high winds.

One horse was put down on Day 38 due to pre-existing conditions.  No details were given.  The death rate increased slightly to 0.6%.

Foals represented 20.7% of the horses captured.  Of the adults, 46.7% were male and 53.3% were female.

Body condition scores were not reported.

Gather activity continued at Salt Wells Creek.  Five HMAs are involved in the roundup.

Day 39 ended with 82 unaccounted-for animals.

Other statistics:

• AML: 2,165 (across five HMAs)
• Forage assigned to horses: 25,980 AUMs per year
• Pre-gather population: 5,105
• Forage liberated to date: 15,036 AUMs per year
• Water liberated to date: 12,530 gallons per day
• Forage assigned to livestock: 191,791 AUMs per year (estimated)
• Horses displaced from HMAs by livestock: 15,982 (32% of off-range holding)
• True AML: 18,147

RELATED: Rock Springs Roundup Day 34.

At Canyon de Chelly with Hike To Wildlife.

There are more wild horses than allowed by plan, and the plans assign most of the resources to privately owned livestock.

Remove excess animals with helicopters and PZP darting.

Blame droughts on climate change and use those events to remove more horses.

Don’t talk about base properties, rented pastures and off seasons.  Act like the cattle and sheep have nowhere else to go.

Insist that the number of wild horses an area can actually support is unknown and unknowable.

Never let the wild horse and burro program get in the way of the grazing program.

The Decision Record was signed on November 3, allowing the project to move forward, subject to a 30-day appeal period.

Responses to public comments were provided in Appendix D of the Final EA.

Proposals for high-density feeding operations were also sought in Idaho and Utah.

Horses removed from their home range will be shipped to the new facility while privately owned livestock graze in their stead.

The project is downstream in the wild horse management process.  It does not address the causes of the removals, so it can only prolong them.

RELATED: Comments Invited on Draft EA for New Off-Range Corrals.

Closure of the HMA to livestock grazing was not brought forward for detailed analysis because the action would not conform to the multiple-use mandate of FLPMA and the existing land-use plan, which authorizes AUMs for wild horse and livestock grazing in the allotments within the HMA.

Further, as stated in Appendix E of the NEPA analysis, management of livestock grazing is designed to achieve standards for rangeland health and conform to guidelines for grazing management.

Unfortunately, that remark is not supported by the data.  If it was true, the acreage in the Improve category would be lower.  The land-use plan has been in effect since 1999.

The Western Watersheds map shows the allotments that overlap the HMA.  Section 3.8 in the Final EA says there are seven allotments within the HMA but only calls out six.

The map shows a small portion of the Willow Creek allotment at the eastern side of the HMA, which may correspond to #7.  Click on map to open in new tab.

Table 2 in Appendix G shows the percentages inside the HMA.  Willow Creek is not in the list.  The Allotment Master report provides the acreage and active AUMs.

The forage taken from the horses and sold to the Warm Springs permittees, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across the allotment, is .79 × 4,478 = 3,538 AUMs per year.  The total estimated forage assigned to livestock inside the HMA is 9,756 AUMs per year.

That resource would support an additional 813 wild horses, meaning that 813 horses have been displaced from the HMA by privately owned livestock.  That’s 1.6% of the 50,000 horses in off-range holding.

The 253 horses allowed by plan require 3,036 AUMs per year.  Livestock receive 3.2 times as much forage as the horses, in an area set aside for wild horses.  The HMA is managed primarily for livestock.

The True AML would be 253 + 813 = 1,066 and the stocking rate at the new AML would be 6.3 wild horses per thousand acres, or 158 acres per horse.

The pre-gather population of 244 is well within this range.  It hasn’t even exceeded the current AML!

RELATED: Challis Roundup Announced.

Approximately 88% of the HMA is subject to permitted grazing, according to Section 3.8 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

The Allotment Master report in RAS supplies public and private acres, management status and active AUMs for the six allotments listed in the EA.  Table 2 in Appendix G provides the available forage from the 2017 grazing season.

Although half of the allotments are in the Maintain category, 86.9% of the public acres are in the Improve category.

Forage available to livestock declined 12% over the four-year period.  The smaller allotments had larger changes while the larger allotments had smaller changes.

RELATED: Challis Roundup Announced.

The news release says the Challis Field Office is conducting a wild horse gather in the Challis HMA, as if the operation is already in progress.

The gather page shows no activity.

The capture goal is 70 and the removal goal is 39.

Horses will be drawn into the traps with bait and the incident will not be open to public observation.

The HMA covers 168,720 acres in central Idaho, according to Section 1.1 of the 2019 Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein, and has an AML of 253.

The stocking rate allowed by plan is 1.5 wild horses per thousand acres.

The current population is thought to be 224 animals, putting the herd at 0.9X AML, so what’s the hurry?

The HMA intersects six grazing allotments.  Section 3.8 in the EA says seven but lists six.  Table 2 in Appendix G shows the available AUMs and the percentages inside the HMA.  The EA was posted with other project documents.

The Western Watersheds map shows the allotment boundaries.  Zoom in to see the arrangement.

Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Challis.

Mares returned to the range will be treated with fertility control of unspecified type.

The incident appears on the latest schedule and was marked as a nuisance removal.

A roundup occurred in the area two years ago.

The incident concluded on November 9, according to a statement at the gather page, with 934 horses captured, 531 shipped, 362 released and 27 dead.  The numbers don’t balance, there were 14 unaccounted-for animals.

The news release said 545 horses removed, but if 934 horses came off the land and 362 were returned, the number removed would be 572.

The capture goal was 947 and the removal goal was 615.

The death rate was 2.9%.

Foals represented 17.6% of the horses captured.  Of the adults, 51.9% were male and 48.1% were female.

The low percentage of foals is not consistent with a growth rate of 20% per year, a benchmark used by land managers to predict herd sizes.

The roundup began on October 11.

RELATED: Owyhee Roundup Announced.

The following table contains data for animals captured in wild horse roundups, starting with Onaqui Mountain in July, 2021.  These figures are from the daily reports, not the cumulative totals, and do not include results from roundups in progress.

Foals represented 18% of the horses captured.  Of the adults, 45% were male and 55% were female.

Do these numbers tell you anything useful about the herds at large?  Are they indicators of the way roundups are carried out?

The advocates are ruining the herds—and helping the public-lands ranchers—at Onaqui Mountain and Sand Wash Basin, and those efforts are reflected in the low percentages of foals.

The government typically wants to see more stallions than mares on the range, which also reduces growth rates and keeps the resource scales tipped in favor of the ranchers for longer periods of time.