At or near the Little Book Cliffs WHR with Kathy Gardner.

A 1980 study showed that 8,165 cattle AUMs, 2,353 sheep AUMs, 322 wildlife AUMs and 3,116 horse AUMs were available for use in the HMAs of the Bible Springs Complex, according to Section 3.3.2 of the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

What can you conclude from these data if (a) you’re a sensible person and (b) you’re a wild horse advocate?

(a) Let’s simplify the dataset:

• Forage to livestock – 10,518 AUMs per year
• Forage to horses – 3,116 AUMs per year
• Forage to wildlife – 322 AUMs per year

1. The AML was 260.  It was small relative to the available forage.  Today it is 170.

2. Livestock received 3.4 times more forage than the horses.

3. The HMA was managed primarily for livestock.

4. Horses received 23% of the authorized forage, neglecting wildlife.

5. The number of horses displaced from the HMAs by livestock was 876.

6. The True AML was 1,136.

7. If the herd was at 4X AML, the number of excess horses was zero.

8. The HMA was not overpopulated.

9. There was no justification for a roundup or fertility control program.

10. There is considerable dietary overlap among horses, cattle and sheep.

(b) The BLM should be managing the herd with safe and reversible birth control, not cruel and inhumane helicopter roundups.

RELATED: Fun with Resource Allocations.

Section 3.3.2 in the Draft EA for resource enforcement actions in the Complex indicates 16 allotments with acreage inside the HMAs, although Table 3.1 shows 17.

The Allotment Master Report provides size, management status and active AUMs.

Approximately 69% of the public acres are in the Improve category.

Of the six allotments in the Maintain category, only Pine Valley has most its acreage outside the HMAs, according to the Western Watersheds map.  If wild horses are damaging public lands, all of those allotments should be outside the HMAs.

Forage production averages 46 AUMs per thousand acres, enough to support 3.8 wild horses per thousand acres.

The 170 horses allowed by plan roam on approximately 215,000 acres, so the land should be able to support 170 + 215 × 3.8 = 987 wild horses.

The current population is thought to be 831 per Section 1.1 of the EA.

If there was no dietary overlap between horses and livestock, there’d be no grazing inside the Complex and the horses probably wouldn’t survive beyond it.

RELATED: Draft EA for Bible Springs Complex Out for Review.

A search of the IRS records for tax-exempt organizations yielded two results.

The first group is helping the Park Service take wild horses off Mesa Verde National Park.

Their mission is to preserve and protect horses in the wild and to promote conscious and humane herd management.

One of their board members is a trained PZP darter.

The other group, whose mission is to protect wild mustangs, according to their 2019 Form 990, the most recent available, has a permit to graze cattle on the Sheep Spring Allotment in southwestern Utah.

The address on the 990 matches the address in the Operator Information Report at RAS, PO Box 1367, Cedar City, Utah.

Western Horse Watchers is unable to determine if the groups are related.

The Allotment Master Report shows 86 active AUMs on 15,373 public acres.

The Authorization Use Report indicates 19 head on a 4.5 month grazing season.

Curiously, the allotment is in the Improve category.

It overlaps the Tilly Creek and Bible Spring HMAs, which means seven wild horses have been displaced from their home range by a group claiming to protect them.

The two HMAs belong to the Bible Springs Complex, target of a new pest control plan, so the group would benefit from roundups and fertility control programs.

Maybe the allotment has been repurposed for adopted or rescued horses and the BLM records haven’t been updated.  The tiny forage allocation would make sense if true.

Or maybe they’re just frauds like most advocacy groups.  Who knows.

Western Horse Watchers was unable to find a web site for the group but they may have a presence on socialist media.

RELATED: Mesa Verde Roundup Continues, Private Placement Begins.

Refer to this report by Cowboy State Daily.

No horses were lost to the virus this week according to the sitrep.

A West Douglas mare was found dead on May 30 but the loss was attributed to colic.

The total number dead remains at 145.

All fatalities have occurred in pens occupied by the West Douglas horses, displaced from their home range by privately owned livestock.

Approximately 17% were foals.

Updates are now provided on a weekly basis.  Previous reports can be found at the Colorado HMA page.

RELATED: Cañon City Incident, Day 35.

No youngsters observed in this band of around twenty Virginia Range mustangs.

The advocates have pumped almost six thousand doses of PZP into the herd over the last three years.

In two more years, the mares will become sterile and the herd will be toast.

This is how they protect wild horses.

RELATED: Foal-Free Friday, Fighting Crime One Mare at a Time.

A new project was created in ePlanning but only a map was posted for public review.

The HMA covers about 90,000 acres in southeastern Utah and the 100 burros allowed by plan require 600 AUMs per year.

The HMA intersects two allotments according to the Western Watersheds map, a small portion of Saucer Basin to the north and a larger portion of Robbers Roost in the south.

The Proposed Action would likely keep the pests in check so the ranchers could enjoy more of what their allotments have to offer.

The arrangement suggests an appreciable amount of dietary overlap between livestock and burros.  If that was not true, there’d be little if any grazing inside the HMA and the burros would probably not survive outside the HMA.

The same could be said for areas identified for wild horses.

Is that why livestock receive almost three times more forage than the horses?

The BLM has determined that excess horses are present, removal is necessary and growth rates must be suppressed to achieve a thriving ecological balance in the HMA.

An HMAP would reiterate, ratify and reinforce existing management practices that put ranching interests far above those of the horses.

The AML, which is small relative to the available forage, would carry over into the new plan, the HMA would be managed primarily for livestock, as it is now, and enforcement actions, such as those mentioned above, would be implemented to ensure the herd can’t consume more than its fair share of the food and water.

Refer to the final paragraph in Section 1.4 of the Final EA.

RELATED: How Many Horses Can Jackson Mountains HMA Support?

The HMA lies in a area occupied by six allotments, described in Section 3.3.3 of the Final EA for resource enforcement actions therein.

The Western Watersheds map shows the arrangement.

The easterly border of the HMA no longer crosses the Desert Valley Allotment, as indicated on page 18 of the Nevada HMA maps.

The 217 horses allowed by plan require 2,604 AUMs per year.

As noted previously, livestock receive an estimated 7,394 AUMs per year inside the HMA, enough to support 616 wild horses.

The True AML, the number of animals the HMA could sustain if it was managed principally for horses—as specified in the original statute—would be 217 + 616 = 833.

The current population, thought to be 451 according to Table 1 in the EA, is well within this range, so there are no excess animals, the HMA is not overpopulated and there is no basis for a roundup or fertility control program.  The problem is public-lands ranching.

The 616 horses displaced from the HMA by permitted grazing account for roughly one percent of the animals in off-range holding.

An emergency roundup last year took 526 horses off the range with a death rate of 5.9%, including a foal that was put down because it was an orphan.

The HMA does not appear in the latest roundup schedule.

RELATED: Decision Announced for Jackson Mountains Enforcement Plan.

The Proposed Action has been selected, effective immediately, and implementation can begin once funding and holding space become available.

The decision authorizes the removal of excess horses from lands in and around the HMA over a ten-year period and the use of various fertility control techniques to maintain the population within AML, according to today’s news release.

Birth rates would be limited by PZP, GonaCon, sex ratio skewing and sterilization per Section 2.2 of the Final EA.

The HMA intersects six grazing allotments, identified in Section 3.3.3, and livestock receive approximately three times more forage than the horses.  The new enforcement plan will assure that this ratio is maintained over the life of the project.

The Decision Record and Final EA were posted with other project documents.

The decision is subject to a 30-day appeal period.

RELATED: Draft EA for Jackson Mountains Gather Plan Out for Review.

There is no independent proof of the explanation given by the BLM, according to the writer of a column in the Pagosa Daily Post, and third-party verification of the cause of death and the disposition of deceased animals are needed.

RELATED: Cañon City Audit in the News.

A woman in Eastern Washington rescues wild foals from reservations such as Yakama, Colville and White Swan, and places them into new homes, according to a report posted today by FOX13 News in Seattle.

She expects more horses to be turned loose due to rising hay prices.

Statements in the story that may pique your interest:

• The foals have been separated from their family bands in Central and Eastern Washington, where officials said the wild horse population is growing too large
• The Bureau of Land Management controls the population of wild horses on state land through sterilization injections
• Babies are roped and hog-tied during roundups, and they can be left that way for a significant amount of time until they get back to a trailer
• Some orphans are purchased by horse traders who contact volunteers to rehabilitate them and when they get a home, they get their money

There are no HMAs or WHTs in Washington state.  What’s going on here?

Western Horse Watchers offers the following explanation, subject to further research:

Native peoples in Washington state are rounding up wild horses and shipping them to slaughter.  Pregnant mares drop their foals in feedlots while awaiting transfer.

The foals are rescued by non-profits that quietly carry out their work without pointing a finger at tribal leadership or their contractors.

If they were to speak publicly about the arrangement, the deal would be over and the foals would be lost because they have little or no value to the kill buyers.