The daily reports indicate 459 wild horses gathered since August 3. No wild burros have been captured and seven deaths have occurred (1.5%). No animals have been returned.
The goal is remove 1,600 horses and 200 burros from the HMA.
Category: Range
On the range
Spring Creek Management Plan Updated
A revised management plan for Spring Creek Basin HMA has been approved, according to a report published yesterday by The Journal of Cortez, CO. Western Horse Watchers was unable to find an announcement at the BLM news site.
The Decision Record, which authorized Alternative A in the EA (the Proposed Action), has no signatures and no dates. The 30-day appeal period began July 20.
The new plan includes:
- A larger AML (was 35 – 65, now 50 – 80)
- Decreased herd growth rates (fertility control)
- Monitoring criteria for identifying excess horses
- Bait trapping as the preferred method of removal (helicopters not banned)
- Introduction of outside horses to increase genetic diversity
- Forced age distribution
- Vegetation monitoring objectives
- New water developments to increase wild horse dispersion
Although livestock grazing does not occur in the HMA, it was not designated a WHR.
The HMA covers approximately 22,000 acres in western Colorado.
RELATED: Comments Invited on Spring Creek EA.
Emergency Roundup Scorecard
- Animals gathered: 5 horses, 43 burros
- Goal: 50 horses, 25 burros
- Animals shipped: 2 horses, 43 burros
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: August 4
- Gather stats
- Animals gathered: 74 horses
- Goal: 125 horses
- Animals shipped: 61
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: August 4
- Gather stats
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
- Animals gathered: 160 horses, a foal with no mare captured on August 4
- Goal: 360 horses
- Animals shipped: 89
- Animal deaths: 1
- Last update: August 5
- Gather stats
RELATED: Emergency Roundup Scorecard, August 4.
Black Mountain Decision Record Signed, Roundup Pending
BLM announced today that a Decision Record had been signed, allowing the wild burro management process to move ahead. Alternative A, the proposed action, was approved.
A roundup will occur next month, but a start date was not given. The news release did not indicate how the operation will be carried out, if will be open to public observation, and where the captured burros would be taken.
Those details should be provided before anything happens in the field. The decision is subject to appeal over the next 30 days. The Final EA is posted here.
The current population is thought to exceed 2,200 animals, whose forage demand likely exceeds the total AUMs authorized on the HMA (burros + livestock). This does not mean the burros can access all of them.
The old mining town of Oatman, noted for its friendly burros, is in the HMA.
RELATED: Comments Invited on EA for Black Mountain Gather Plan.
Isaias Leaves OBX
Forward speed has picked up and the system is now moving off rapidly to the northeast.
Northern end of OBX still under tropical storm warning but that will probably be lifted later today. Assateague ponies affected similarly. Volunteers and other personnel will be checking the horses over the next few days.
RELATED: Isaias Approaching OBX.
Emergency Roundup Scorecard
- Animals gathered: 0 horses, 43 burros
- Goal: 50 horses, 25 burros
- Animals shipped: 29
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: August 2
- Gather stats
- Animals gathered: 70 horses
- Goal: 125 horses
- Animals shipped: 61
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: August 3
- Gather stats
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
- Animals gathered: 122 horses
- Goal: 360 horses
- Animals shipped: 55
- Animal deaths: 1, eight month old colt put down August 2 due to broken leg
- Last update: August 2
- Gather stats
Non-Emergency / Planned
The Shawave Mountains roundup started yesterday with 181 horses captured and one death. A colt was put down due to a broken shoulder, kicked by another horse in a temporary holding pen. No data for Saylor Creek.
RELATED: Emergency Roundup Scorecard, August 2.
Currituck Wild Horses Know a Storm is Coming
A story posted this evening by WFMY News of Greensboro, NC notes that the horses have ridden out nor’easters and hurricanes for 500 years and know where to go to stay high and dry. Survival is in their blood.
RELATED: Isaias Approaching OBX.
Another Devil’s Garden Roundup Starts Next Month?
An online meeting regarding the use of motorized vehicles in roundup set to begin next month will occur August 20, according to a story posted today by the Herald and News of Klamath Falls, OR.
An announcement for the event could not be found on the USFS new site or the news page for the Modoc National Forest.
The Devil’s Garden WHT was gathered about a year ago with 500 wild horses removed.
RELATED: Devil’s Garden Horses Get Short End of Stick.
UPDATE: USFS announcement of roundup and online meeting posted here.
Outta Here!
What caused these guys to bolt? Trailcam photos from the Virginia Range.
Isaias Approaching OBX
System predicted to regain hurricane strength before making landfall. Tropical storm warning posted for OBX (indicated by blue in map).
Banker horses will likely see heavy rain and flooding due to storm surge on Tuesday.
RELATED: Isaias Update, ‘Too Many Vowels’ Edition.
Mustang Monday
Horses have the day off. At Custer State Park with Chuck Allen.
Emergency Roundup Scorecard
- Animals gathered: 0 horses, 29 burros
- Goal: 50 horses, 25 burros
- Animals shipped: 0
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: Unknown (daily reports won’t open)
- Gather stats
- Animals gathered: 53 horses
- Goal: 125 horses
- Animals shipped: 0
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: August 1
- Gather stats
Triple B / Maverick-Medicine HMAs
- Animals gathered: 51 horses
- Goal: 360 horses
- Animals shipped: 0
- Animal deaths: 0
- Last update: July 31
- Gather stats
The Shawave Mountains roundup starts tomorrow but will be carried out on a planned basis. Same for Saylor Creek, which has not yet started.
Isaias Update, ‘Too Many Vowels’ Edition
NOTE: Some vowels have been removed from this report to achieve a thriving alphabetical balance. This does not mean—and you should not construe—that this blog is managed primarily for consonants, even if they outnumber vowels 37 to 1.
The systm has been downgraded to a tropicl strm. Although the trck has shifted farther to the west, OBX is now undr a tropical storm watch (indicatd by yellow n the map).
The strm will likely brng heavy rain and floding to the Assateague pones as well.
RELATED: Isaias Still Heading to OBX.
Chincoteague Auction Sets New Record
Not bad for an event that was cancelled, although the auction happened online.
Bidders paid a total of $380,000 this year, according to a report by Delmarva Now.
The ponies usually swim across the bay from Assateague Island (Virginia side) to Chincoteague but they may have been hauled by trailer this year.
The following video by Alyssa Equestrian shows them at the Chintoteague Volunteer Fire Company Carnival Grounds, where the auction usually occurs.
RELATED: No Pony Penning This Year.
Isaias Still Heading to OBX
The track has shifted slightly to the west, taking the center of the storm inland of OBX Tuesday morning. The Banker Horses will be in its northeast quadrant.
Last year, 28 Cedar Island horses were swept out to sea by Hurricane Dorian.
RELATED: Isaias to Drench Banker Horses?
Two Air Tanker Pilots Die Fighting Bishop Fire
The mid-air collision occurred yesterday, according to a BLM news release.
The map at InciWeb puts the blaze in the Delamar Mountains HA, a few miles northwest of Elgin, NV near the Utah border.
Isaias to Drench Banker Horses?
The latest track puts it on top of OBX Tuesday as a tropical storm. Onshore flow will bring rain and flooding to low lying areas.
The counter-clockwise rotation of these systems means onshore flow as they approach and offshore flow as they leave.
Blue Wing Overview
Figure 4, supplied with the Final EA for wild horse and burro management actions in the Blue Wing Complex, shows the five HMAs assigned thereto. All lie within the Blue Wing-Seven Troughs Allotment. The allotment also contains portions of several HAs.
The map appearing on BLM’s livestock grazing page for Nevada shows the size of the allotment compared to others in the state.
State Route 447, which runs north from I-80 on the west side of the allotment, takes you to Gerlach, a hopping-off point for those attending the Burning Man festival. The event is held on the Black Rock playa, north of the allotment.
The road originates in Wadsworth, home of the Double Lazy Heart Ranch where Charlie and Velma lived.
Free-roaming horses and burros are found in the Blue Wing HMAs.
- Kamma Mountains, managed for horses only
- Seven Troughs, managed for horses and burros
- Lava Beds, managed for horses and burros
- Blue Wing Mountains, managed for horses and burros
- Shawave Mountains, managed for horses only
There are currently around 200 burros on Shawave Mountains but they will be rounded up starting next week.
The total land and forage assigned to horses and burros within the allotment can be computed from HMA data.
Table 11 in the Final EA shows 32,228 AUMs per year assigned to livestock, so the total authorized forage in the allotment is 7,176 + 32,228 = 39,404 AUMs per year, excluding wildlife. The size of the allotment is 1,376,287 acres per Table 9.
The HMAs cover 46% of the allotment (634,391 ÷ 1,376,287) but the horses and burros receive only 18% of the total forage (7,176 ÷ 39,404).
If horses replaced the burros (one for two), the forage on the five HMAs would support 598 of them. The overall stocking rate would be 598 ÷ 634,391 × 1,000 = 0.9 horses per thousand acres, slightly below the average rate of one wild horse per thousand acres across all HMAs.
The forage assigned to livestock would support 2,686 cow/calf pairs, given a 12 month grazing season (11 months per year inside the HMAs per Section 3.2.11 of the EA but omitted for simplicity). The stocking rate would be two cow/calf pairs per thousand acres (2,686 ÷ 1,376,287 × 1,000).
The total authorized forage would support 3,284 wild horses (or cow/calf pairs), with a stocking rate of 2.4 per thousand acres. This value, lower than expected, may be due to the full-year grazing periods, limited resources compared to other areas, or the safety factor applied to resource allocations relative to their availability.
The Blue Wing Decision Record approved Alternative B, described in Section 2.4 of the EA, which will achieve and maintain AMLs with multiple gathers and removals, fertility control and/or sterilization.
Assateague Fundraiser Exceeds Goal
The advocacy group trying to raise $3,100 for two new wild horse interns has collected over $7,000, according to a report posted today by the Maryland Coast Dispatch.
Antelope Valley Roundup Ends
The operation concluded yesterday, according to the daily reports, with 54 wild horses removed from the HMA and no deaths reported. The goal was 50.
The event was expected to last 60 days but was completed in two days.
UPDATE: BLM news release now posted.
RELATED: Antelope Valley Emergency Roundup Starts This Week.
Western Horse Watchers Association 