Although a FY 2023 spending package was unveiled yesterday, the federal government runs out of money on December 23 because it has not been ratified by Congress and signed by the one-horse pony.

Therefore, the new schedule has likely been abbreviated and will grow when the bill becomes law.

The previous schedule had 14 darting programs.  The new schedule has eight.

All but one of the eight roundups employ bait trapping by agency personnel.

The Beatys Butte roundup started on December 12, not on December 1 as originally announced, but there is no link for it on the Oregon gather page.

RELATED: FY 2023 Roundup Schedule Inching Closer to Publication?

The September Facility Report showed two preparation facilities in Nevada as of September 19, Fallon and Palomino Valley.

The November report shows three such facilities as of October 24, Fallon, Palomino Valley and Winnemucca, the third and newest with a capacity of 4,000 animals and current population of 143.

The report showed 505 animals at Winnemucca on November 21.

The facility is owned and operated by JS Livestock.

RELATED: Winnemucca CAFO Approved.

Yesterday’s report by The Epoch Times indicates 43 confirmed deaths, with 11 horses still missing.

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The advocates hope that DNA testing will determine whether the herd is of domestic or wild lineage.

Between the removals and the shootings, they estimate that fewer than 200 of the original 400 horses in the herd remain.

The Forest Service has acknowledged none of this at the ASNF home page.

RELATED: Alpine Shooting Update.

Refer to this press release dated December 20 for the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which includes summaries, fact sheets and explanatory statements for each of the twelve spending bills.

The Wild Horse and Burro Program falls under Division G, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.

• Summary
• Fact Sheet
• Explanatory Statement

If approved, the program would receive $147.9 million, including $11 million for research on reversible immunocontraceptive fertility control and its administration, a 10.8% increase over the $137.1 million authorized for FY 2022 and 5.2% less than the $153.1 million requested for FY 2023.

RELATED: FY 2023 Roundup Schedule Inching Closer to Publication?

Here is a map of southeastern Oregon and western Idaho, with layers added one by one, from the BLM National Data Viewer.  Click on image to open in new tab.

First, in gray, areas of critical environmental concern.

Second, in black, the HAs, lands identified for wild horses and burros.

Third, in orange, the HMAs, areas managed for wild horses and burros.

Fourth, in green, the grazing allotments, the #1 priority of rangeland management, obliterating everything else.

This is why you have 62,000 wild horses and burros in off-range holding and why the FY 2023 roundup schedule, not yet released, may top last year’s capture and removal targets.

Despite these results, the advocates continue to bash the drillers and miners, a small threat compared to permitted grazing, and push their ruinous darting programs.

The horses and burros don’t have a chance.

RELATED: The Carrying Capacity Puzzle.

At Grayson Highlands State Park with Xanik Xeus.

Check out this video by KTVN News of Reno.

Would you say the herd is growing at a rate of 20% per year?

If not, why not?

Hint: On another day, you might see individuals wearing high-visibility vests and “Stay Wild” caps.

A December 15 news release said the Grand Junction Field Office has acquired two parcels through the Land and Water Conservation Fund covering 1,600 acres in Mesa and Garfield counties, adjacent to the South Shale Ridge Area of Critical Environmental Concern and Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range.

Private land is shown in white on this map from the National Data Viewer.

The Fund acquired the property from the Latham family and is now transferring it to the BLM, according to the announcement.

The Operator Information Report in RAS associates Authorization #0507007 with John R. Latham of De Beque.

The Allotment Information Report ties the authorization to the Dry Fork Allotment.

The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Maintain Category with 564 active AUMs on 10,973 public acres.

The allotment, not shown on the map, is a few miles north of the ACEC.

Although the selling price was not given, what other “good and valuable consideration” might come from the transaction?

• Faster processing of permit renewals?
• Greater flexibility in on and off dates?
• Access to nonrenewable AUMs?
• Minor problems overlooked?

Who knows!  Maybe it’s a different Latham.

But how are you supposed to be objective and even-handed in cases like this?

The stopgap spending bill signed yesterday, originally introduced as an amendment to the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017, keeps the federal government running for another week, suggesting that the current Congress intends to produce a full-year spending package before the new Congress can be seated.

At that point, budgets for the DOI and BLM will be revealed and program expenditures can be set in motion.

Those figures are usually found in the Division G Explanatory Statement which accompanies the legislation.

The FY 2022 spending bill authorized a wild horse and burro task force, to be established within 90 days of enactment.

Western Horse Watchers has not seen any news releases about it.

RELATED: FY 2023 Roundup Schedule Delayed by Spending Bill?

Their official duty is to carry the nation’s military heroes to their final resting places at Arlington National Cemetery.

Off-duty hours are spent in stables at Fort Myer and Fort Belvoir, Army bases south of Washington.

A BLM news release dated December 15 said the agency has granted the Army a temporary right-of-way to graze up to twelve horses on fourteen acres in the Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area near Lorton, VA.

The Proposed Action, described in a DNA worksheet, indicates an immediate need for interim pasture space due to renovations at Fort Belvoir that will take three to five years to complete.

The driver of the renovations was not given.

A report by the Army’s Public Health Command-Atlantic, covered in an April 7 story by CNN, cited unsanitary and potentially life-threatening conditions at the facilities, with the horses consuming poor-quality feed, suffering from parasites and standing in tiny mud lots scattered with gravel and construction waste.

Two horses died unexpectedly in February.

The primary issues were lack of space, inadequate funding for improvements and routine turnover of the unit’s top leaders, according to the report.

Western Horses Watchers does not know if the renovations at Belvoir and the temporary housing at Meadowood were prompted by the findings.

The DNA worksheet was the only document posted to the project in ePlanning.

Opportunities for public involvement appear to be limited.

UPDATE: A story by Military dot com suggests the renovations and findings are related.

Research over a ten-year period indicates a mortality rate of 1.7% for bait-trap gathers and 1.0% for helicopter gathers, according to an article by the Elko Daily Free Press.

Not mentioned in the story was the 5.9% death rate in the 2021 Jackson Mountains roundup, acute + chronic.

Criticism of roundups by the advocates is self-serving.  They don’t care if the horses have been cheated by the bureaucrats in favor of the ranchers.

Just give them a larger share of the wild horse removal market and greater use of a vaccine that causes illness instead of preventing it.

Perfect topic for Foal-Free Friday.

RELATED: Difference Between Helicopter Roundups and Darting Programs.

Scenes like this will be increasingly rare if the advocates have their way.

They want to replace removal by helicopter with removal by pesticide.

Confine them to their base properties along with the ranchers.

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, the Advocates Don’t Mean Well Edition.

A new project was created in ePlanning yesterday but no documents were posted.

The HMA covers 302,226 total acres in central Nevada, including 298,064 public acres.

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, considerably higher than the target rate across all HMAs of one wild horse per thousand acres.

The estimated population as of March 1 was 1,944.

The HMA overlaps three allotments, Cow Canyon on the west side, Clan Alpine on the east side and Dixie Valley on the south side.

The Allotment Master Report puts all three in the Improve category.

The allotments offer 15,038 active AUMs per year on 796,683 public acres, for a weighted average forage availability of 18.9 AUMs per year per thousand acres, enough to support an additional 1.5 wild horses per thousand acres.

Curiously, on a per acres basis, the horses receive twice as much forage as livestock, an outlier in the resource management process!

The Nevada Board of Agriculture met today in Las Vegas.

The Animal Industry update was item 9 on the agenda.

The report indicated that 24 horse-vehicle collisions have occurred in 2022, compared to 27 in 2021 and 46 in 2020.

Wild Horse Connection continues to feed the horses in NDA approved locations to draw them away from highways and urban areas.

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in the wild horse removal industry, has delivered 941 doses of their favorite pesticide in FY23, including 221 primers and 720 boosters.

With 77% of the injections being boosters, the program is moving into its final phase, and many of the mares will become sterile in another year or nearly so.

There is no hesitation.  They are not having second thoughts about what they are doing.

It’s balls to the wall to win the approval of the bureaucrats and ranchers.

RELATED: Virginia Range Crimefighting Efforts Paying Off?