Exposing the Hypocrisy, Lies and Incompetence of the Wild Horse Advocates
They knew it was coming. They’ve been involved in it from the beginning.
What do you call it when your political allies submit legislation that orders the government to procure services you provide?
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The co-chair of the House Pesticide Caucus has reintroduced a bill that would stop the roundups but not the removals according to a report by KLAS News.
Predictably, the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in mass sterilization and fierce opponent of principal use, endorsed it.
Originally known as the Save a Horse, Hire a Cowboy Act, the bill supports three tenets of rangeland management, forcing a change in methods but not the goals.
It will likely go nowhere in a Republican-controlled Congress.
If wild horses are good for the environment, why are the advocates trying to get rid of them?
Maybe because they’re phonies. Maybe because they want the ranchers to win.
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Wild Horse Basin Ranch covers 92,351 acres according to the agent’s listing.
The ranch boundary coincides roughly with that of the FL Ranch Allotment.
The allotment master report puts it in the Improve category, with 5,548 active AUMs on 35,098 public acres, equivalent to 13.2 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Your faithful public servants claim that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (25,500 animals on 25.6 million acres).
The ArcGIS Viewer shows state and private lands within the allotment but the acreage is not given in the report.
The successful bidder will likely be a high net worth individual or corporation but will be eligible for generous government benefits with no means testing.
The listing does not give the deeded acreage but the difference between the total acreage and leased acreage is 31,892.
Thus, the ranch meets three out of four requirements for a wild horse refuge.
The agent’s video says the ranch can support 1,000 head year around, so that would be an estimate of the carrying capacity if it was repurposed as a refuge.
Wild horses can be placed on public lands not identified for their use by acquiring or controlling base properties tied to one or more grazing allotments and flipping the preference to horses.
There is no assurance that the stakeholders would agree to such a change and opposition at the state and local levels may be intense.
The incident will begin on or about July 15 according to the BLM news release.
A helicopter will push the horses into the traps and operations will be open to public observation.
The capture and removal goals are 1,675 each.
The size of the herd was not given but the 2025 population dataset put it at 2,382 as of March 1.
The management plan allows 259 to 536.
The destination of captured animals was not given.
The name of the contractor was not disclosed.
There are no plans to treat any of the mares with fertility control pesticides and return them to the range.
The HMA, downsized as a result of the Rock Springs RMP Amendments, is subject to permitted grazing.
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Story by KTNV News in Las Vegas. Video.
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UPDATE: A report by KTNV says they’re headed to Utah.
Why should the Virginia Range get all the glory?
The advocates have a better way to get rid of wild horses.
Why not use it to zero-out the HMA?
The ranchers will need to be patient but the advocates will be so relieved they’ll probably offer to do it for free.
The incident started on July 7 with nine horses captured, none shipped, none released and no deaths.
It was not billed as an emergency and there was no news release.
The method of capture is bait.
The capture goal is 60. The removal goal was not given.
Operations are not open to public observation.
Animals identified for removal will be taken to the off-range corrals in Cañon City.
The HMA is subject to permitted grazing.
They could keep the helicopters on the ground and eradicate the herd with PZP.
The advocates might offer to do it for free.
Mass sterilization, the inevitable result of humane population reduction, is key to wild horse conservation.
If we get rid of them they can stay.
The incident started on June 9. Results through July 6:
The figures above are based on the daily reports.
Results for Days 20 to 28 were posted today.
An abandoned foal was euthanized on Day 25, lifting the death rate to 0.3%.
The capture total includes 311 jacks, 279 jennies and 53 foals.
Youngsters represented 8.2% of the animals gathered.
Of the adults, 52.7% were male and 47.3% were female.
The location of the trap site is not known.
The name of the contractor was not provided.
Eighteen jennies were treated with PZP on Day 19, bringing the total to 78.
The July 1 schedule indicates the pesticide of choice was GonaCon Equine.
The Complex is subject to permitted grazing. Resources liberated to date:
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Sproul Ranch covers 15,911 deeded acres in eastern Oregon, with grazing preference on five Forest Service allotments, for a total of 68,284 acres.
The allotments offer 3,058 AUMs per year on 52,373 acres according to the agent’s brochure, equivalent to 255 wild horses.
The stocking rate would be 4.9 wild horses per thousand acres.
The ranch meets the basic requirements for a wild horse refuge.
The brochure includes a map of each allotment, all within the Malheur National Forest.
Wild horses can be placed on public lands not identified for their use by acquiring base properties tied to one or more grazing allotments and flipping the preference to horses.
RELATED: Key Indicators for New Wild Horse Preserves.
What if they decided to get rid of the herd with PZP?
A sigh of relief would go up from the advocates.
They might offer to do it for free.
The ranchers would have to be patient.
But the horses would be gone for good, a result that can’t be achieved with helicopters.
The event runs from 9 AM to noon according to the BLM news release.
The privately owned facility gained media attention earlier this year when burros taken in the Canyonlands roundup died while in custody.
The facilities report indicates that 921 burros and 1,119 horses were present as of June 22.
The allotment is on the east side of Independence Mountain in northern Colorado.
The Allotment Master Report puts it in the Custodial category, condition unknown.
The permittee receives 809 active AUMs on 2,610 public acres. equivalent to 67 wild horses, or 25.7 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Your faithful public servants claim that public lands in the western U.S. can only support one wild horse per thousand acres (25,500 animals on 25.6 million acres).
The advocates, allies of the bureaucrats and ranchers, bolster the narrative with their darting programs.
The allotment is too small to be an HMA but if it was, the AML would be 3 and 64 wild horses would be consigned to off-range holding because of permitted grazing.
BLM allotments in the state support livestock equivalent to 49,546 wild horses on 7,448,367 public acres, or 6.7 wild horses per thousand public acres.
Wild horses can be placed on public lands not identified for their use by acquiring base properties associated with grazing allotments and flipping the preference to horses.
RELATED: The Allotments Tell the Story: They’re Lying, All of Them.
The advocates are trying to sell mass sterilization as a humane alternative to motorized removal.
On the Virginia Range, they’re using PZP to shrink the herd by 80% because 10% of their land has been identified for development.
The stated reason is habitat loss but the real reason is to bring the herd in line with the carrying capacity narrative on public lands: No more than one or two wild horses per thousand acres.
Instead of acting as guardians of wild horses, the advocates have thrown in with their enemies.
The inevitable result is extermination.
Apparently not.
A keyword search of a BLM blog post about the May 6 hearing yielded these results:
Some individuals argued for greater use of fertility control, which the agency recognizes as an important management tool for slowing population growth but not for reducing wild horse and burro overpopulation.
An area is said to be overpopulated when the herd exceeds the low end of AML but is far from the carrying capacity of the land.
RELATED: Motorized Removal Hearing Set for May 6.
Muddy Creek and Piute Mountain have been added to emergency/nuisance section of the July 1 update but Kiger and Riddle Mountain have been removed from 4Q25.
Their method is flawed and they know it.
You cannot use PZP for population reduction without sterilizing the mares, yet they want it to become the standard for herd management.
How stupid do you have to be to accept this as wild horse conservation?
Investigators determined that it died from a gunshot wound.
A $7,000 reward has been offered according to a BLM news release.
The nonprofit pledging $5,000 routinely shoots mares with pesticide-laced darts.
Western Horse Watchers Association 