Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
An unpublished notice in the Federal Register indicates a venue in Phoenix, with field trips to the Lake Pleasant HMA and Florence off-range corrals.
Apparently, they passed up a chance to visit the Salt River and see a fully contracepted herd that’s dying off, as NPS envisions for Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
RELATED: More Conflicts of Interest at WHBAB?
UPDATE: The meeting will be livestreamed according to the BLM news release.
The DR and Final EIS were copied to the project folder on October 23.
BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in the October 26 news release that responsible development of critical minerals is central to the clean energy transition, adding that the BLM is leading the way with efficient and collaborative permitting processes as it builds a sustainable supply chain to power a clean energy future.
When did they put that up for a vote?
They didn’t. They’re cramming it down our throats while sabotaging traditional energy sources that are clean, dependable and affordable.
They don’t believe in consent of the governed. Rather, they believe in big, bloated, overreaching, iron-fisted, authoritarian government.
A twist in the story, since the Draft EA was put out for review, is that Nevada Vanadium purchased Fish Creek Ranch, the source of water for the mine, for $4.2 million.
Livestock and hay were sold.
Fish Creek Ranch was a base property with grazing preference on the Fish Creek Ranch Allotment.
The permittee was Bench Creek Ranch.
A Rangeland Management Specialist with the Battle Mountain District indicated last week that that they had not been notified of the sale and that the permit was on hold until they could get further information.
The Allotment Master Report puts Fish Creek Ranch in the Improve category, with 4,815 active AUMs on 289,292 public acres.
The allotment overlaps the Fish Creek HMA.
RELATED: Water for Vanadium Mine to Be Supplied by Fish Creek Ranch.
The BLM and Forest Service seek public input on proposed gathers outside the Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory in Mono County, CA.
The horses have migrated west to Mono Lake and are a safety concern for motorists traveling on Highways 6 and 120.
They may also be consuming forage intended for livestock, but this was not stated in today’s news release.
The scoping letter has been copied to the project folder in ePlanning.
The WHT has an AML of 138 to 230. It’s not listed on the WHT home page.
An aerial survey in 2020 counted 654 horses, with most of them outside the WHT.
The BLM is the lead agency preparing the environmental assessment and the Inyo National Forest would be the lead agency for an initial gather.
The Forest Service announcement directs traffic to ePlanning.
Comments will be accepted through December 7.
RELATED: Montgomery Pass Wild Horses Migrating Westward?
The incident concluded yesterday, with 858 horses captured, 847 shipped, one released and ten dead.
There were no unaccounted-for animals.
The capture and removal goals were 1,106 and 1,068, respectively.
The death rate was 1.0%. Horses lost in the Day 9 truck rollover were not included in the total.
The capture total included 338 stallions, 397 mares and 123 foals.
Youngsters represented 14.3% of the animals gathered, suggesting the herd was growing at a rate of 9% per year.
Of the adults, 46.0% were male and 54.0% were female.
The number of horses removed cannot be determined at this time.
Up to 19 mares were to be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide, before being returned to the range with up to 19 stallions.
The number of horses shipped on Day 11 was changed from 50 to 52.
A stallion was released, perhaps by accident, on Day 14. No details were given.
The operation supported three tenets of rangeland management:
Three HMAs were affected.
The National Data Viewer shows habitat loss and grazing allotments. Click on image to open in new tab.
RELATED: Roberts Mountain Roundup Starts Next Week.
The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses indicated in the October report that 120 mares received 121 doses of Zonastat-H during the month, 20 given as a primer and 101 as a booster.
Over the life of the program, which began in 2019, 1,961 mares have received an astonishing 8,231 doses of the ovary-killing pesticide.
Of the 169 foals born this year in the primary target zone, 85 have died.
The current population is thought to be 3,498 with 338 horses listed as missing, compared to 3,513 with 356 listed as missing in September.
Not discussed in the report:
The program, now in its fifth year, is at the point of no return.
The report will be submitted to the Nevada Department of Agriculture.
RELATED: Virginia Range Darting Update for September 2023.
The incident began on October 22. Results through November 5:
The location of the trap site was not given.
Gather operations concluded on Day 15 but shipping will continue for another day or two.
A filly was put down on Day 15 because of club feet. Two mares were also dispatched because of blindness.
The death rate is 1.0%. Horses lost in the Day 9 truck rollover are not included in the total.
The capture total includes 338 stallions, 397 mares and 123 foals.
Youngsters represented 14.3% of the animals gathered, suggesting the herd is growing at a rate of 9% per year.
Of the adults, 46.0% were male and 54.0% were female.
Body condition scores ranged from 3 to 5 on Days 14 and 15.
The HMAs and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
*According to advocates.
Day 15 ended with 75 unaccounted-for animals.
Data quality has been good.
Up to 19 mares will be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide, before being returned to the range with up to 19 stallions.
Other statistics:
Overpopulation means more horses than allowed by plan, not more horses than the land can support. If this was not true, you’d see body condition scores of 3 or less.
The roundup was authorized because the horses have been trying to reclaim some of their food from the ranchers, not because they’re starving.
RELATED: Roberts Mountain Roundup, Day 13.
The Year 4 Report has been available for months at its darting resources page, but it contained some incriminating information that has been scrubbed from the summary.
So the statement in today’s announcement about releasing the Year 4 results should say re-releasing (and sanitizing) them for its gullible/uninformed/misinformed audience.
The aim of the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses is to convince you that removal by pesticide is better than removal by helicopter.
They don’t want you asking why removal occurs or if it’s even necessary.
Let’s set the record straight:
The darting program update for October has not been posted as of this morning but is expected this week.
RELATED: The Superiority Complex of the Wild Horse Advocates.
At the southwest corner of the Virginia Range with Jeff Martinez.
The absence of youngsters is not an accident.
The aging population may suffer major losses this winter, according to the advocates, but this is not a normal condition of a wild horse herd—unless it can’t have any babies.
Who’s responsible for that?
The bureaucrats may have requested a darting program, but the advocates delivered it.
RELATED: Advocate Takes McCullough Plea to Casper.
The incident began on October 22. Results through November 3:
The location of the trap site was not given.
A mare was put down for blindness in one eye on Day 12, a non-life-threatening condition, followed by another on Day 13.
The death rate is 0.7%. Horses lost in the Day 9 truck rollover are not included in the total.
The capture total includes 319 stallions, 379 mares and 119 foals.
Youngsters represented 14.6% of the animals gathered, suggesting the herd is growing at a rate of 10% per year.
Of the adults, 45.7% were male and 54.3% were female.
Body condition scores ranged from 3 to 6 on Days 12 and 13.
The HMAs and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
*According to advocates.
Day 13 ended with 143 unaccounted-for animals.
Up to 19 mares will be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide, before being returned to the range with up to 19 stallions.
Other statistics:
Overpopulation means more horses than allowed by plan, not more horses than the land can support. If this was not true, you’d see body condition scores of 3 or less.
The roundup was authorized because the horses have been trying to reclaim some of their food from the ranchers, not because they’re starving.
RELATED: Roberts Mountain Roundup, Day 11.
This letter to the editor marks her third attempt to forestall the bait-trap removal at McCullough Peaks, which was set to begin on November 1.
She’s so far gone and so lost in the pesticide paradigm that she can’t even see that she’s advocating for the ranchers, not the horses.
Let’s take a closer look.
From the second paragraph: To avoid motorized removal, the BLM implemented a reversible birth control program using Porcine Zona Pellucida. This program, administered through field darting, reduced the birth rate to 2% annually, keeping the herd’s numbers within the appropriate management level of 70-140 horses.
It’s not reversible! Damage begins with the first injection and progresses to sterility after five consecutive years. This is happening at the Virginia Range. The advocates refer to these mares as self-boosting.
If the birth rate is 2% per year, the growth rate is -3% per year, assuming a 5% death rate, meaning the herd is shrinking. Exactly what the ranchers want!
Third paragraph: The BLM’s plan involves trapping and removing 41 or more wild horses and using a controversial fertility control vaccine called GonaCon on the mares, for which preliminary evidence indicates permanent sterility.
It’s a pesticide not a vaccine! Vaccines prevent illness, supposedly.
A 2017 labeling amendment extended the interval between primer and booster from 30 days to 90 days but the BLM ignores it, an issue for law enforcement.
The remark about sterility is likely true, because the agency prefers it almost exclusively to PZP. Just look at the news releases over the past year. The condition is sometimes described as long-term infertility.
Fourth paragraph: The aging herd, with a significant portion over 15 years old and 22 horses over 20 years old, requires a population of at least 150 breeding aged adults for genetic viability. To make matters worse, the operation is scheduled to take place next month, before the impact of winter conditions can be assessed, possibly resulting in a slow decline toward extinction of this cherished herd.
That’s not the concern! It’s the size of the breeding population that matters. The 2% birth rate suggests it’s very small and that would be true if the AML was 500.
Describing the herd as “cherished” suggests she walks in lockstep with the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in nonmotorized removal.
No word about resource management and the prevalence of livestock in the HMA.
Next to the federal government, nobody’s getting rid of more wild horses and causing more long-term harm than the advocates.
Opposition to wild horses is expected from hunters, ranchers and bureaucrats who manage the public lands for their benefit.
But not from the advocates, who claim to be voices for the horses.
One of the most pressing issues in the wild horse world is to expose, dislodge and dismantle these groups, prohibiting their staff and membership from ever stetting foot in areas identified for wild horses.
Consider this example from the Virginia Range:
Scenario A, man kills stallion with arrow. Horse not replaced because the advocates have poisoned the mares with Zonastat-H
Scenario B, stallion dies of natural causes and is not replaced because the advocates sterilized the mares with Zonastat-H
Scenario A is bad, but Scenario B is good, according to the advocates.
Barren mares, shrinking herds and loss of genetic diversity are also good and the advocates are positioning themselves to be leaders in the industry.
They use footage from roundups to convince you that removal by pesticide is better than removal by helicopter.
They want you to think they have all the answers. They can’t distinguish between cause and effect, and won’t look at the data, so they don’t even know what the problem is.
And they hate dissent. If you disagree with them, or their allies, you’ll be disappeared by their big-tech minions.
This commentary was inspired by the real estate agent and PZP darter in the Minden/Gardnerville area, whose column about inhumane treatment of animals appears in the October edition of Horse Tales, starting at the bottom of page eight.
Naturally, she absolved herself and other field workers from any wrongdoing and couldn’t heap enough praise on the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses and Wild Horse Eradication, two of the greatest offenders.
Next to the federal government, nobody’s getting rid of more wild horses and causing more long-term harm than the advocates.
RELATED: Combatting Duplicity in the Wild Horse World.
The incident will begin on or about November 7 according to the BLM news release.
A helicopter will push the horses into the trap and operations will be open to public observation, probably from a distance.
The capture and removal goals are 1,594 and 1,381, respectively.
Up to 81 mares will be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide, before being returned the range with up to 121 stallions.
The target zone is approximately 60 miles east of Fallon, NV in Churchill County.
The 979 horses allowed by plan require 11,748 AUMs per year.
The stocking rate allowed by plan is 3.3 wild horses per thousand acres, three times higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres.
The current population is thought to be 1,661 plus this year’s foals.
Captured animals will be taken to the off-range corrals at Palomino Valley.
Gather stats and daily reports will be posted to this page.
The HMA and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
It is the same size as the HA and the management plan assigns more forage to horses than livestock. Click on map to open in new tab.
RELATED: BLM Publishes Clan Alpine Final Planning Documents.
A $500,000 grant from the American Rescue Plan Act will pay for the project, according to a report by KTVN News.
Councilwoman Naomi Duerr said the money will help them fully fence the range, which probably means the portion inside city limits.
The Park Service has proposed the removal of wild horses from Theodore Roosevelt National Park under two scenarios, Alternatives B and C.
In option B, horses would be forcibly removed to quickly reduce the herd size to zero.
Alternative C corresponds to a fully contracepted herd that dies off after some of the horses are removed.
The Park Service designated option C as the Proposed Action (preferred option).
The plan faces stiff opposition, especially from the advocates.
At the Salt River, Virginia Range and McCullough Peaks, you have fully contracepted herds, or nearly so, that are dying off, but the advocates offer no opposition.
They think it’s great!
So who’s fooling whom?
What they really want is a contract with the Park Service to carry out Alternative C.
The pesticide of choice would likely be Zonastat-H.
RELATED: Foal Free-Friday, Questioning the Assumptions Edition.
The incident began on October 22. Results through November 1:
The location of the trap site was not given.
The death rate is 0.5%. Horses lost in the Day 9 truck rollover were not included in the death count.
The capture total includes 295 stallions, 351 mares and 115 foals.
Youngsters represented 15.1% of the animals gathered, suggesting the herd is growing at a rate of 10% per year.
Of the adults, 45.7% were male and 54.3% were female.
Body condition scores ranged from 4 to 5 on Days 10 and 11.
The HMAs and surrounding lands are subject to permitted grazing.
*According to advocates.
Day 11 ended with 206 unaccounted-for animals.
Up to 19 mares will be treated with GonaCon Equine, a fertility control pesticide, before being returned to the range with up to 19 stallions.
Other statistics:
Overpopulation means more horses than allowed by plan, not necessarily more horses than the land can support.
RELATED: Roberts Mountain Roundup, Day 9.
The herd on the Maryland side of the island consisted of 15 bands and 81 horses according to the October 27 inventory.
Last update was in July.
Seven foals were born this year, seven years after the darting program was shut off.
The pesticide of choice was Zonastat-H, a favorite of the advocates.
Not included in the report:
The BLM WHB Handbook indicates the breeding population should exceed 50 animals to maintain an acceptable level of genetic diversity.
The Assateague Island Alliance updates the lists.
RELATED: Assateague Pony Census, July 2023.
Proposals should align with the 2021 Strategic Plan and funding is subject to Congressional direction and appropriations. according to yesterday’s news release.
Priorities include new or improved fertility control methods for wild horses, examining the relationships between wild horses or burros and their environment, and improving a variety of wild horse and burro program activities, such as aerial surveys, genetic monitoring, animal handling, adoption rates and the human dimensions of wild horse and burro management.
An interesting topic in the area of human dimensions would be the role of moral depravity in wild horse and burro management.
For example, how do promiscuity, adultery, contraception, abortion, sterilization, divorce and sexual perversion (LGBT) influence policy and practice?
How many of the advocates subscribe to these values?
As for the role of man-made climate change, there is none.
Absence of predators? Totally man made, to protect the most noble and deserving nonnative species on America’s public lands.
RELATED: Decision Published for Fertility Control Research.
Western Horse Watchers Association 