West Virginia has them and so does eastern Kentucky. Some are unbranded/unclaimed and some are privately owned. They’re not federally protected.
Stallions have joined the herds in Kentucky and populations are growing, according to a story posted this morning by WHAS-TV of Louisville.
Volunteers with a nonprofit care for sick and injured animals, Their history page says the horses have been roaming in a nine-county area for at least 30 years, some on reclaimed lands after the mines were closed.
Horses in Floyd county had to be evacuated in late 2019 after 21 were shot dead.
The Fort Polk Army base overlaps some of the territory and in 2015 the order was given to get rid of them.
The Pegasus Equine Guardian Association says the horse have roamed the area for centuries and have reverted to a wild state, especially through their offspring who have never known anything other than wild.
The HMA covers 475,574 acres, so the stocking rate at the new AML would be 1,818 ÷ 475,574 × 1,000 = 3.8 wild horses per thousand acres, about four times higher than the target rate of one wild horse per thousand acres across all HMAs.
Probably not. Elimination of livestock grazing in wild horse areas will likely originate in the judiciary, not in the bureaucracy and not in the legislature.
Last year, at the urging of the advocates, the politicians offered an exciting new alternative to helicopter roundups: Get rid of the horses with contraceptives.
These animals are being forced off the range because most of their food had been sold to public-lands ranchers, not because there are too many of them.
Although the letter has the right idea, Western Horse Watchers believes that its scope is too narrow. The absence of certain signatories should be of great interest.
The story last week by The New York Times about the $1,000 adoption incentive, and the ‘unintended’ consequences associated therewith, fueled the debate about the best way to get rid of wild horses. No surprise that the Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses was involved.
Subsequent coverage, such as this report by KLAS News, gives them an opportunity to push their ruinous fertility control programs.
They’re not questioning if the horses need to be removed, only if it can be done ‘humanely.’
“We’re calling it ‘slaughtergate.’ It happens about every decade,” Roy shared. “The BLM gets exposed to sending wild horses, federally protected wild horses and burrows [sic] to slaughter. And the reason this keeps happening is because the BLM keeps rounding up wild horses.”
Why won’t they look upstream in the wild horse management process? Why aren’t they interested in resource allocations and management priorities in wild horse areas?
Because the data would show that many of them are not overpopulated. They have too many cattle and sheep, not too many horses.
The argument in favor of fertility control would fall to the ground—and that’s not good for business.
A band of six left the 4WD area north of town to visit the local grocery, only to be escorted back to their habitat, according to a story by OBX Today.
The herd manager for the local advocacy group said you should never chase the horses or try to move them yourself. Let the advocates do that or they may be killed.
Western Horse Watchers estimates that the group got rid of ten to fifteen wild horses this year with their fertility control program.
Who’s the greater threat to these animals? You or the advocates?
An advisory council, consisting of four individuals with expertise in business, law, conservation and Native American traditions, has been established for the project, according to a news release dated May 20.
Additional members will be announced in the next few weeks.
The proposed facility would be located in South Dakota.
The announcement concludes with a note about the organization’s research that led to a model for managing wild horses based on the idea of stable family bands.
Western Horse Watchers agrees with the concept and believes it warrants further study.
However, an email sent to ISPMB on March 6, asking for a link to the reports, which were to be published by the end of 2018 according to the second paragraph in a rebuttal of criticisms regarding conditions at the ranch in 2016, was never answered.
Legislation to stop horse slaughter in the U.S., known as the Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, was introduced in the House today, according to a news release by Animal Wellness Action.
Previously, the measure was called the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act.
The schedule was updated May 7 for the remainder of FY 2021. Most of the activity will occur in Utah, Oregon and Nevada.
Emergency roundups are also possible.
The chart shows 35 wild horses removed from private lands at the Chloride Canyon HMA in April, but Western Horse Watchers was unable to find any announcements at the BLM news site or Utah gather page.
The writer of a guest column appearing today in the Sierra Nevada Ally looks back at some of the issues that never came up in the hearings.
Although not stated explicitly, one of the most remarkable statistics in the debate is the amount of money the government spends on the WHB program and other grazing program ancillaries to prop up just 3.5% of the nation’s cattle output.
