Category: Range

On the range

How Many Livestock Are on the Onaqui Mountain HMA?

Would you be upset if it was 2,250 cow/calf pairs for six months per year?  What would you say if it was 1,800 cow/calf pairs for four months and 5,250 ewe/lamb pairs for six months?  Would you feel better if it was 7,500 ewe/lamb pairs for nine months?

All three cases have the same resource loading, 13,500 AUMs per year.

The management plan allows 210 wild horses for twelve months, requiring 2,520 AUMs per year.

How do you make the comparisons simple?  Look at the resource allocations.

Livestock numbers depend on livestock types and grazing seasons.

But the forage allocations tell you immediately that the HMA is managed primarily for livestock.

You can also compute the number of horses displaced from the HMA by livestock, the True AML, and, if you know the current population, the number of excess horses.

RELATED: Resource Allocation Quiz, Filling in the Gaps at Healthy Horse HMA.

Onaqui DC Commentary

In Washington, DC with Marty Irby and colleagues.

Keep in mind that the rancher-friendly ‘Path Forward‘ will enforce resource allocations already on the books.  It changes nothing.

You have to look upstream in the management process at the land-use plans, federal regulations and the bureaucracy that writes them.

The American people and their representatives have been sidestepped.

RELATED: Onaqui DC Rally Tomorrow.

Black Mountain Roundup, Part 2, Day 122

The operation began on March 9, a resource enforcement action that follows a wild burro removal in 2020.  Gather stats through July 8:

  • Burros captured: 243, up from 209 on Day 111
  • Goal: 500
  • Returned: 0
  • Deaths: 0
  • Shipped: 209, up from 154 on Day 111

The cumulative total on the gather page is 246.

Foals accounted for 16.5% of the burros gathered.  Of the adults, 56.7% were male and 43.3% were female.

Fertility controls will not be applied and the incident is not open to public observation.

There are 34 burros in the unaccounted-for category.

Supplemental statistics:

  • AML: 478
  • Current population: Unknown
  • Forage liberated to date: 1,458 AUMs per year
  • Water liberated to date: 1,215 gallons per day
  • Burros displaced from HMA by privately owned livestock: 1,222
  • True AML: 1,700
  • Excess animals: Unknown

RELATED: Black Mountain Roundup, Part 2, Day 111.

Cibola-Trigo Roundup, Day 6

The operation began on July 4, a sequel to the nuisance roundup of 2020.

Gather stats through July 9:

  • Burros captured: 131
  • Goal: 200
  • Returned: 0
  • Deaths: 1
  • Shipped: 130

Foals accounted for 12.2% of the burros gathered.  Of the adults, 50.4% were male and 49.6% were female.

Fertility controls will not be applied and the incident is not open to public observation.

Data quality is good.  The number of unaccounted-for burros is zero.

RELATED: Cibola-Trigo Nuisance Roundup in Progress.

Assateague Name-That-Foal Contest Starts Next Week

Six foals were born this year, according to a report by the Maryland Coast Dispatch, providing more opportunities for public involvement.

The article said the current population is 83, which may include the mare lost last week.

The population was 78 in March.

That means a herd of 77 could only produce 6 foals, a 7.8% birth rate, five years into the adaptive phase of the management program, also known as the PZP-free phase.

The advocates are half right: The darting program is effective but definitely but not safe.

Capitulation to Ranching Agenda at Onaqui Mountain HMA

The video is fine, for the most part, but the description in YouTube says the roundup should be supplanted with “scientific, proven methods of humane, on the range management,” a plug for the fertility control program.

How do (1) stalking the mares and shooting them with darts every year, (2) driving birth rates to zero, and (3) letting the herds die off qualify as humane or protection?

How can you defend that when most of their food has been shifted to privately owned livestock?  How many horses have been cheated out of a spot on their home range by non-native, non-protected species?

The advocates are wrong and the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses doesn’t deserve any of your hard-earned donations.

RELATED: Rallying for Onaqui Wild Horses or Privately Owned Livestock?