Short but cute.  H/T Emersyn Boerner.

Onaqui Mountain horses being horses.  H/T 19whitey54.

The wild horse herd on the barrier island of Shackleford Banks added 14 foals in 2017, while losing five adults and one foal, for a net increase of eight horses.  The population at the beginning of 2018 was 120 horses.

Fertility control has not been applied since 2009.  The AML is 130 and the area where the horses roam covers 3000 acres, for an aimed-at population density of 43.3 animals per thousand acres.

No roundups are planned.  Livestock are not present in the area.

Refer to the story in Coastal Review Online dated 09/04/18.

The report published by NPS indicated that, of the horses aged twenty years and older, 17 out of 20 are mares (85%).  Assuming that mortality is evenly distributed among genders (p = .5), you’d expect to find between four and sixteen mares in the group, using np-chart limits with n = 20.

That you have 17 mares (and 3 stallions) suggests that mortality favors stallions at Shackleford Banks.  This result should be attributed to a special cause.

The report did not say if any of the three stallions were band leaders.

Wild horse herds on the east coast barrier islands have been on U.S. soil longer than those of the American west.

On Sand Wash Basin HMA.  H/T Lebliztx.

Given:

• Wild horse herds should contain at least 150 animals for genetic viability
• Average population density on BLM lands is one animal per thousand acres

Therefore, every HMA should have at least 150,000 acres.

There are a total of 117 HMAs in Nevada, Oregon and Utah (66% of the HMAs in the U.S.) and 67 are smaller than 150,000 acres (57%).

The Pryor Mountains and Little Bookcliffs Wild Horse Ranges, which have been in the news of late, have 38,000 and 36,113 acres respectively.

The problem is not too many horses, the problem is not enough land.

A stallion named Tecate was killed earlier today on Hwy 318 in northwest Colorado, according to a report just posted in the Craig Press.  Low visibility was cited as a factor in the incident.  The Sand Wash Basin HMA is about 45 miles west of Craig, CO.

More trailcam images of Virginia Range mustangs visiting the new stock tanks.

They don’t stay put very long.  They come in and move on in a minute or two.

Another hearing will be held on 09/28/18 to rule on an injunction that would stop the roundup completely.  See the report posted today by KTVQ in Billings, MT.

RELATED: WH Advocates Ask Judge to Stop Gather on PMWHR.

UPDATE: Added video.

Video posted 08/28/18 by Salt River Wild Horse Management Group.  No description was provided.  Questions left in the comment area have not been answered as of today.

Probably intended to show livestock moving into an area where the horses were being fed (due to the drought), not how horses react to spotlights at night.

RELATED: Advocates Bringing Hay to Salt River Horses.

Helicopters would be used to gather all wild horses on Beatys Butte HMA, followed by the return of 100 studs and mares to the range, according to a news release issued yesterday by the Lakeview office.  Mares would be treated with a contraceptive (such as PZP).  Public comments must be received by 09/28/18.

The HMA is in southern Oregon on the Nevada border.  It contains 437,120 acres and will have a population density of 0.23 animals per thousand acres at the end of the process, almost nothing.

The announcement did not indicate if the goal was to have the area horse-free within ten years, but it sure sounds like it.  Also omitted from the remarks was the innovative Beatys Butte Wild Horse Training Facility.

A 100% gather was completed in 2015, the result of a new cooperative program between ranchers and the BLM.

The proposed gather marks the next phase of a long-term strategy developed by ranchers, wild horse advocates, environmental groups, elected officials, and state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, according to the announcement.

How many advocates want to see horses removed from western rangelands, families broken up, breeding patterns determined by government?  Who benefits from this arrangement?

The wild horse population on Beatys Butte was over 1000 in 2015.  Today it’s around 250.  The number of livestock in and around the HMA was not provided.

The trailcam photo below shows an underweight horse on the Virginia Range.  A WHB specialist might give it a BCS of 3.  A wild horse critic (ahem, cough-cough, hater) might argue the horses are overpopulated and need to be removed from the range.

Would that be a fair statement?

A ‘common cause’ belongs to the system and affects all horses in an area.  The illness affecting the Waipio Valley horses would be an example.  It will probably be attributed to common causes, something in their environment.  Ditto for the Sand Wash horses, who are threatened by fencing and drought.

A ‘special cause’ is outside the system and affects only individual herd members.  An example would be the horse recently removed from Big Summit WHT.

If you saw many horses with low body condition scores, you’d be thinking common causes, such as excess animals / not enough land / insufficient forage.

In this example you only see one such horse, so you’re looking for a special cause, like illness, injury or loss of teeth.

Two mistakes are possible: (1) attributing a problem to a special cause when it was produced by common causes and (2) attributing a problem to common causes when it was produced by a special cause.

Calling a horse ‘stupid’ because he wandered onto a road and was hit by a car is an example of Mistake #1.  Any of the horses in his band could have done that, because a new subdivision is chewing up their land and now they must find food elsewhere.

The critic above is wrong.  He has made Mistake #2.

Bait trapping ended 08/29/18, according to a news release issued today, with 801 horses removed from the Nevada Wild Horse Range, the largest HMA in Nevada.

Thirty one deaths were reported (3.9%) and the number of horses returned to the range was not stated.  Captured animals were taken to the Palomino Valley Center near Reno, NV and the Ridgecrest Regional Corrals in Ridgecrest, CA.

Gather stats and daily reports can be found on this page.

RELATED: BLM Starts Emergency Gather at Nevada Wild Horse Range.

A lawsuit was filed in federal court today by Ginger Kathrens and The Cloud Foundation to stop a planned roundup in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, arguing that it would destroy the genetic viability of a herd descended from horses brought to the New World by Spanish explorers.  Refer to this report in AP News.

RELATED: Best Way to See the Pryor Mountains Horses.

The state has been ‘ground zero’ for wild horse gathers this year, with the Range Creek, Cedar Mountain, Four Mile, Bible Springs, Tilly Creek, Sulphur and Muddy Creek HMAs targeted for removals.  Next on the list is the Onaqui Mountain HMA.

An article posted today in the Odgen-based Standard-Examiner looks at a proposed roundup that would remove 84% of the horses.  Opposing viewpoints are considered.

“BLM does review range health when they renew grazing permits, but it’s true there are hundreds more cattle and thousands more sheep permitted than there are wild horses on the Onaqui.”

At what point do we start calling it collusion?

Somewhere around the Heber WHT.

See this report, posted earlier today in the Reno Gazette Journal.  The expected population density of the festival, held annually near Gerlach, NV, is approximately 15,900 humans per thousand acres, compared to roughly one animal per thousand acres in the surrounding HMAs.

RELATED: Burning Man: Permit Approved.

Vegetation control team at work on the Virginia Range.  Filmed 08/24/18, about an hour before sunset.

Trailcam hasn’t picked up any Virginia Range mustangs last few weeks, so I put out two stock tanks and filled them with water on 08/10/18.  They found them that evening!

The idea is to keep the horses up in the hills and away from populated areas.

Bait traps use the same concept.  Put out some food and water but enclose the area with a pipe panel fence and attach the gate to a trip wire.  See the video at this post.

A detailed article posted recently in Just Horse Crazy provides some background on the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range, along with recommendations for viewing the horses.  It’s pretty much everything you need to know.  The drive into the mountains should not be attempted without a 4WD vehicle.

The PMWHR is one of just three areas in the western U.S. devoted primarily to wild horses.  It may become the subject of a gather in early September, although the BLM has not formally announced it.

RELATED: Pryor Mountain Horses.

Virginia Range mustangs inspecting roads and vegetation.  The supervisor comes in for a closer look at the stupid human.  Filmed 08/24/18 about an hour before sunset.