Category: Range

On the range

CAAWH Distributes More Lies about VR Darting Program

The announcement, posted on the propaganda page hosted by Lucky Three Ranch, celebrates the fourth anniversary of the effort to snuff out new life on the Virginia Range, allowing the herd to die off at an increasing rate.

With a shrinking number of foals hitting the ground, the average age of the herd is increasing, along with the death rate.

Why are they doing this?

Virginia Range Darting Justification 04-10-23

Nonsense!  Some land has been lost to development at TRIC, but not enough to justify a reduction in herd size from 3,000 to 600 or less, the whisper target mentioned in the March 7 SB90 hearing.

At a stocking rate of ten wild horses per thousand acres, the Virginia Range defies the carrying capacity narrative peddled by the bureaucrats and ranchers.

They want it erased and the advocates—their allies—are eager to comply.

How are they doing this?

Virginia Range Fertility Control 04-10-23

They’re poisoning the mares with a restricted-use pesticide.

It’s not a vaccine.  It causes illness instead of preventing it.

It destroys the ovaries, usually within five years, resulting in sterility.  The damage begins with the first injection.

Effect on hormonal system?  Huge.

They are not keeping the horses wild and free.

They are not protecting them from removal.

They’re exterminating the herd with little if any fanfare, hoping you won’t notice.

What have they accomplished?

Virginia Range Darting Stats 04-10-23

With the program moving into its fifth year, many of the mares are at risk of sterility.

They’ve enriched those in the PZP supply chain.

Their enmity toward the horses has caught the eye of the bureaucrats and ranchers.

With the current lull in gather activity, they’re leaders in the wild horse removal industry.

Nobody’s getting rid of more wild horses than CAAWH.

Not motorists, not tourists, not shooters, not helicopter pilots and wranglers, not drillers, miners and loggers.  Nobody.

RELATED: What’s So Important about the Virginia Range?

CAAWH Acquires Pine Nut Base Property?

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses is now one of the major grazing rights holders in Douglas County, according to a story posted today by The Record-Courier of Minden, NV.

Christopher and Camille Bently and Bently Family LLC donated 757 acres.

Funding from others enabled the purchase 15 additional parcels amounting to 2,578 acres, for a total of 3,335 acres in the Pine Nut Mountains.

The article did not name the allotment to which the acreage is tied but Western Horse Watchers suspects it’s Buckeye.

It did not indicate if the group, a leader in the wild horse removal industry, would lease out the grazing preference to local ranchers, whose approval it seeks above all else.

Petitioning the BLM for a change in livestock type and season of use, to accommodate wild horses, is not compatible with its mission, which is to eradicate as many herds as possible with a restricted-use pesticide.

The following map from the National Data Viewer shows the Pine Nut Mountains HMA in orange, the HA in black and the Buckeye Allotment in green.

Contrary to what you read in the report, CAAWH has been working closely with the Pine Nut advocates for years, providing support for their safe, proven and reversible darting program, targeting the beloved mares of the Fish Springs herd.

The article did not say if Mary Cioffi, president of the group, real estate agent and PZP darter in the Fish Springs area, whose writings frequently appear in Horse Tales, brokered some or all of the deal.

Bently is the only son and heir of Don Bently, founder of Bently Nevada, manufacturer of sensors that monitor the condition of rotating equipment, among other things.

Buckeye Allotment Map 04-08-23

Decision Published for Roberts Mountain Complex

The Mount Lewis Field Office authorized the Proposed Action, according to a Decision Record dated April 7, clearing the way for an initial roundup of approximately 1,000 wild horses, followed by removal of 954.

Mares returned to the Complex would be treated with pesticides and/or IUDs.

Stallions would be released in numbers that skew the sex ratio in favor of males.

The Complex consists of three HMAs northwest of Eureka, NV and is subject to permitted grazing.

Curiously, one of the ranchers who testified against SB90 runs cattle in the area.

The Final EA and other related documents have been copied to the project folder.

The BLM’s response to comments begins in Section 17.0 of the Supplemental Information Report.

Approximately 3,600 form letters were received from followers of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, demanding the use of PZP, among other things, an indication of the malice of its leadership and brainwashing of its supporters.

Form Letter for PZP 04-08-23

Note that they didn’t refer to it as reversible.

Concerns about forage allocations, although valid, were outside the scope of the project, which was a resource enforcement decision, not an RMP amendment.

RELATED: Roberts Mountain Pest Control Plan Goes Public.

Roberts Mountain Complex Map 04-08-23

SB90 Amended, Passed

The reference to the Virginia Range darting program was dropped from the preamble in yesterday’s work session.

SB90 Amended 04-05-23

The definition of wild mustang was also removed, suggesting that the state would continue to view the Virginia Range herd as estray livestock, with few if any protections.

The amended bill was posted to NELIS for public review.

The bill overview does not indicate the next step in the legislative process.

RELATED: SB90 Work Session Tomorrow.

Horses Grazing on Virginia Range 04-05-23

No Growth for Assateague Herd in Latest Census

The Park Service announced in an undated report that there were 75 wild horses on the Maryland side of the island last month, down from 76 a year ago.

The Assateague Island Alliance reported 78 animals in February.

The safe, proven and reversible darting program was shut off in 2016, and in the seven years since, the herd should have doubled in size, at least.

But the curve has been flat for the last five years, and slightly off aim.

Assatuegue Population Trend 04-04-23

The report did not indicate how many of the mares were sterile.

It did indicate an abnormal sex ratio, another byproduct of the Montana Solution, with mares outnumbering stallions 1.7 to 1.

The birth rate was 7.9%, barely enough to keep up with the death rate.

No new foals have hit the ground in 2023.

Like the advocates for the Currituck herd, park staff are pleading with visitors to keep their distance and protect expectant mares from undue stress, hopefully resulting in live births, a last-ditch effort to save the herds they ruined with a restricted-use pesticide.

RELATED: AIA Going Dark on Assateague Pony Census?

How Many Wild Horses Can the Onaqui Mountain HMA Support?

As noted last week, the overlapping allotments offer a weighted average 71.9 AUMs per year per thousand public acres, on top of the 6.7 AUMs per year per thousand public acres allocated to the horses.

The HMA covers 375,915 public acres.

The forage assigned to livestock dwarfs the forage assigned to the horses.

This is why True AMLs are so much larger than current AMLs.  They represent the carrying capacities if HMAs were managed principally for wild horses, as specified in the original statute.

This also explains why the off-range corrals and long-term pastures are flooded with “excess” animals: Most HMAs are managed primarily for livestock.

All of the so-called solutions, including fertility control, adoptions, training and sanctuaries, not to mention the Wild Horse Fire Brigade, with which a growing percentage of the intelligentsia have been duped, ignore this basic truth.

The total estimated forage availability inside the HMA, neglecting wildlife, is (6.7 + 71.9) × 375,915 ÷ 1,000 = 29,547 AUMs per year, enough to support 2,462 wild horses.

That is your True AML, over ten times larger than the current AML.

The stocking rate at the True AML would be 6.5 wild horses per thousand public acres, a little more than half of the rate on the Virginia Range.

Onaqui is another counterexample that defies the carrying capacity narrative of the bureaucrats and ranchers, which the advocates support, not by words but by deeds.

Why are they silent about this?  You’d realize that fertility control isn’t necessary and that the mares are being poisoned for the benefit of the ranchers.

RELATED: How Many Allotments Overlap Onaqui Mountain HMA?

Onaqui Allotments 09-29-21

More Wild Horses Lost This Winter Than Usual?

Storms that rolled across California over the past three months knocking down trees and dumping record-breaking snow in the Sierra also threatened cattle in Nevada, according to a story by the Elko Daily Free Press.

The animals drift with the wind, sometimes into rugged terrain where they can’t be reached.

Some operators are fearful of losing them.  After flying over his spread, one rancher said, “I don’t know how I’m going to get to them.”

Although ranchers can bring hay to stranded cattle, wild horses are on their own.

Food and water may be hard to find for the same reason BLM staff can’t get on the range to assess the damage: Everything’s buried under several feet of snow.

Winter on the Virginia Range 04-02-23

Horses in America Before Arrival of Europeans?

Oral histories of native peoples, dismissed as folklore, say they were.

Now, research suggests that horses were distributed across indigenous communities from Wyoming to Kansas generations before European accounts established their presence, according to a story dated March 31 by The Hill.

The team performed genetic and radiocarbon testing on previously untested horse skeletons in museums and held by tribal nations, finding dozens of examples of horses in these communities that had been ridden, fed by humans and even received veterinary care long before European accounts allow for them having horses at all.

One of the investigators argued in her 2017 thesis that there was no actual evidence “scientific or otherwise” to disprove Native American oral histories of horse cultures that predated Spanish arrival.

Empirical conclusions can’t be proven like theorems in geometry—they are always subject to the test of future experience—but to accumulate enough evidence to cast doubt on the prevailing narrative would have a devastating effect on the ranching agenda, where horses and other native animals have been pushed aside on public lands across the American west to accommodate millions of nonnative cattle and sheep.

RELATED: Free-Roaming Horses Native to North America?

American Prairie Acquires Another Base Property

This report by the Billings Gazette parallels a news release from American Prairie.

The property covers 4,960 total acres southwest of Malta, MT, including 3,075 deeded acres, 1,245 BLM acres and 640 state acres, according to the listing on Land & Farm.

The BLM land lies within the North Wild Horse Allotment, adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Custodial category, with 1,142 public acres and 143 active AUMs per year, enough to support twelve wild horses.

The Authorization Use Report shows a year-round grazing season.

American Prairie did not indicate if it would petition the BLM for a change in livestock type, to allow bison on the allotment instead of cattle.

RELATED: American Prairie Using Leverage to Achieve Conservation Goals.

North Wild Horse Allotment Map 03-31-23

Specialized Approach Dropped from Pryor Management Plan?

The preliminary plan noted that management of the WHR can be more specialized than that of most HMAs, but the concept has vanished from the preliminary EA now out for public review, according to a report dated March 30 by The Sheridan Press.

Strict adherence to BLM guidance has changed the document from specialized to standardized, similar to plans for wild horse areas across the country.

A woman interviewed for the story explained that all BLM lands are managed in accordance with RMPs, which establish how they will be used, a concept that eludes most advocates, especially those selling HMAPs as a solution to wild horse problems.

Comments on the EA will be accepted through April 14.

All documents have been posted to the project folder in ePlanning.

RELATED: Draft EA Released for Pryor Mountain RMP Update.