No, it’s not a remake of the Edgar Winter album, just some Virginia Range mustangs stopping by for a drink. Not much activity during the day in August.
Category: Range
On the range
Diamond Roundup Day 2
Gather stats through September 11:
- Horses captured: 133
- Goal: 1,225
- Deaths: 0
Foals represented 12% of the horses gathered.
Body condition scores were not provided.
Sixty horses will be returned to the Complex, including 30 mares treated with contraceptives, for a removal goal of 1,165.
RELATED: Diamond Roundup Underway.
Devil’s Garden Roundup Day 2
The event started September 9, according to today’s report, with 34 horses gathered and one death.
Day 2 yielded eight more, for a total of 42.
Foals represented 21.4% of the horses captured.
No horses have been returned to the WHT and 41 have shipped or are awaiting shipment, so the numbers check.
42 animal captured = 41 animals shipped + 1 animal death + 0 animals returned
The daily reports can be found here.
RELATED: Devil’s Garden Roundup Begins.
Diamond Roundup Underway
The incident started yesterday, according to the daily reports, with 103 horses captured.
No deaths were reported and foals accounted for 8.7% of the total.
Devil’s Garden Roundup Begins
Thirty four horses were captured on the first day, according to an undated report by the Forest Service. No other details were given.
Volunteers Needed for Virginia Range Feeding Program
Refer to this report, posted today by This Is Reno. Could the hay piles be used for bait in the darting program?
RELATED: NDA OKs Diversionary Feeding of Virginia Range Mustangs?
Pokegama Roundup to Alleviate Grazing Conflicts
A story published this morning by the Herald and News of Klamath Falls, OR said that a request to remove the horses from private lands came from the Green Diamond Resource Company, a forest products concern.
A document cited in the article said the horses have become an increasing nuisance by impacting riparian environments and occupying grazing land intended for tenants.
What is a ‘Hopeless Prognosis for Recovery?’
In wild horse and burro roundups, a pre-existing condition that’s usually handled by putting the animal down, even though he survived the chase and survived on his home range for an unknown number of years.
RELATED: Blindness: Death Sentence for BLM Horses?
No Rest for the Weary
Catching up on trailcam photos. Three minutes for a drink and they’re gone. Filmed on the Virginia Range.
Mustang Monday
On the Salt River with Chris Benner.
Diamond Wild Horses Get Short End of Stick
The Diamond Complex in central Nevada consists of three HMAs which are managed as a group: Diamond Hills North, Diamond Hills South and Diamond.
The HMAs cover 255,463 acres and have a combined AML of 210. A small part of DHS has been reserved for livestock only, per note c of Table 15 in the Final EA for wild horse management actions in the Complex. The acreage was not given.
The 210 horses allowed by plan require 2,520 AUMs per year. The stocking rate alowed by plan is 0.8 horses per thousand acres. A fractional stocking rate, as noted earlier this year, may indicate large amounts of resources diverted to livestock. Let’s see what the numbers reveal.
Projects involving wild horse and burro roundups are often designed to achieve and maintain AMLs, they do not set them or revise them. Refer to the last paragraph on page 4, Section 1.1, in the EA.
A takeaway from those remarks is that when commenting on a draft EA for wild horse or burro management actions in a given HMA, don’t ask for a reduction in permitted livestock AUMs. That’s not what the project is about.
Those requests, completely valid, should be aimed at the Resource Management Plans, where forage is apportioned. A first step would be to force the government to manage the HMAs principally for wild horses and burros, per the statute.
That’s what the big-name ‘advocacy’ groups should be pursuing, not the implementation of fertility control programs. Don’t give them a penny until they see the light!
The HMAs intersect nine grazing allotments, per Map 2 on page 6 of the EA, which overlap all of the land in the Complex. Table 15 provides the forage allocations and grazing seasons but does not provide the allotment sizes. Therefore, the stocking rates allowed by plan in each allotment can’t be determined.
Although cattle and sheep are permitted within the Complex, the calculations are based on cow/calf pairs only, for a direct comparison to wild horses. The resources required by wild horses are said to be equivalent to cow/calf pairs.
The total estimated forage available to livestock inside the Complex was computed as the sum of the forage amounts in each allotment falling within the Complex, assuming the resource is evenly distributed across those parcels.
For example, the amount of forage contributed by the Black Point allotment would be .98 × 4,312 = 4,226 AUMs per year. The sum of the nine contributions is 17,952 AUMs per year, about seven times higher than the forage allocated to horses.
The Black Point ranchers would have to place 650 cow/calf pairs inside the Complex to graze off 4,226 AUMs in 6.5 months (4,226 ÷ 6.5). The total estimated number of cow/calf pairs allowed by plan inside the Complex is 2,741, compared to 210 horses.
The land available for permitted grazing is 255,463 acres, for an aimed-at stocking rate of 10.7 cow/calf pairs per thousand acres (2,741 ÷ 255,463 × 1,000).
The land available to wild horses inside the Complex is slightly less due to the fenced area in Diamond Hills South but was assumed to be identical to that for livestock.
These management indicators are displayed in the following charts.
The Complex is managed principally for livestock. Wild horses receive 12% of the authorized forage, with 88% going to privately owned cattle and sheep.
The forage assigned to livestock inside the Complex would support an additional 1,496 wild horses for a true AML of 1,706. The pre-gather population was thought to be 1,495 wild horses, plus this year’s foal crop, for a total of 1,794 (1.2 × 1,495).
The number of excess horses in the Complex, to be removed starting later this week, is 88 (1,794 – 1706), not 1,584 (1,794 – 210).
With the horses gone, the ranchers won’t have to worry about moving their animals onto rented pastures and paying (OMG) market rates to feed them.
RELATED: Diamond Wild Horse Roundup Starts Next Week.
High Desert Horses
Looking south in a remote area of the Virginia Range on August 7. Elevation 6,200 feet.
The PZP zealots are right. That forage would be knee high if it wasn’t for the horses.
They must have fled the scene when they heard me coming.
Emergency Roundup Scorecard
Pine Gulch Update
Fire crews are now in patrol-and-monitor mode and no spread is expected outside of containment lines in the next 48 hours. Sporadic activity may occur within the perimeter as previously unburned fuels are encountered.
The area burned by the fire remains at 139,000 acres and containment has increased to 87%. The number of persons assigned to the incident has decreased to 436.
Today’s map shows no hot spots near the Little Bookcliffs WHR.
The fire was started by lightning on July 31 and now ranks as the largest in Colorado history. At one point, it was within a mile of the WHR.
RELATED: Pine Gulch Fire Smoldering.
Shawave Follow-Up
The roundup yielded 594 studs and 757 mares. The sex of the foals was not given.
Do these numbers look like they came from a herd that’s 50% males and 50% females?
The total number of adults is 1,351, with 44% studs and 56% mares. The expected range of variation can be found from basic statistical formulas, where n = 1,351 and p = .50.
Lower limit = .50 – 3 × Sqrt[.50 × (1 – .50) ÷ 1,351] = .459 = 45.9%
Upper limit = .50 + 3 × Sqrt[.50 × (1 – .50) ÷ 1,351] = .541 = 54.1%
The percentage of studs (or mares) in the total should fall between 45.9% and 54.1%, assuming they were gathered at random from a herd that’s 50% males and 50% females.
The observed percentages fall outside these limits, so one or more assignable causes should be sought.
Perhaps the pre-gather composition of the herd was not 50% males and 50% females.
Another possibility is that the contractor targeted family bands. Leaving bachelor bands on the range would skew the sex ratio of the herd in favor of males, slowing population growth and reducing the impact on other mandated uses of public lands.
Can you think of other explanations?
Sulphur Roundup Over?
The daily reports stopped on August 28 but there has been no announcement at the BLM news site. Final results:
- Animals gathered: 620
- Animals returned: 46
- Animal deaths: 8
- Animals shipped: 566 (computed from daily results)
Foals represented 20.6% of the animals gathered.
The number of unaccounted-for animals was zero, computed as follows:
UAF = Animals gathered – Animals returned – Animal deaths – Animals shipped
The result should be zero, meaning the numbers balance.
Diamond Wild Horse Roundup Starts Next Week
BLM said today that approximately 1,165 wild horses will be removed from three HMAs in central Nevada, beginning on or about September 10, due to overpopulation.
The operation will be carried out with helicopters, according to the news release, and will be open to public observation. Of the 1,225 horses to be gathered, 60 will be returned to the area, including 30 mares treated with contraceptives.
The HMAs cover 255,463 acres and have a combined AML of 210, for an aimed-at stocking rate of 0.8 animals per thousand acres. Refer to Table 1 in the Final EA for wild horse management actions in the Diamond Complex.
The HMAs intersect nine allotments according to Map 2 in the EA and all of the acreage is subject to permitted livestock grazing. The total estimated forage assigned to cattle and sheep inside the HMAs, based on data from Table 15 in the EA, is 17,950 AUMs per year, compared to 2,520 AUMs per year for the horses.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals in Palomino Valley.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
Devil’s Garden Roundup, Part 3, Starts Next Week
The Forest Service will gather another 500 wild horses from the Devil’s Garden Plateau WHT, beginning September 8, to “address unsustainable impacts on aquatic resources, wildlife, hunting, grazing and other traditional cultural practices.”
In 2018, over 900 wild horses were removed from the area, followed by 500 in 2019.
The operation will be open to public observation on a limited basis, according to the news release, just two persons per day.
The WHT covers 232,520 acres in northern California and has an AML of 335, for an aimed-at stocking rate of 1.4 animals per thousand acres.
The WHT intersects eight allotments and is 100% subject to permitted livestock grazing.
An article published yesterday by the Houston Chronicle might give you the impression that the horses are being forced off their home range by drilling interests. Curiously, the term does not appear in the Final EA for wild horse management actions at Devil’s Garden, but it does note wild horse impacts on the poor ranchers. See Section 2.4.1.2.
The forage allocated to livestock would support an additional 1,309 wild horses, for a true AML of 1,644. The current population, not mentioned in the announcement, may be below that value.
Gather updates and adoption information will be posted to this page.
Montezuma Roundup Over
The operation has concluded, according to the daily reports, with five horses and 43 burros gathered, two horses and 43 burros shipped, and no deaths.
What happened to the three missing horses? Returned to HMA?
The goal of the operation was to remove 50 wild horses and 25 burros.
Jakes Wash Roundup Ends
The operation concluded yesterday, with 68 horses removed. No deaths were reported.
Foals accounted for 17.6% of the total.
