Casper Base Properties Available for $16.7 Million

Big Red Creek Ranch covers 2,130 deeded acres and 7,997 leased acres, including 4,363 BLM acres, with support for 500 cow-calf pairs.

The asking price is $7.5 million.

The listing does not provide a map of the deeded acreage and does not give the name of the attached allotment but Western Horse Watchers believes it’s Muddy Mountain.

Thieves Den Ranch covers 3,040 deeded acres and 5,441 leased acres, including 5,286 BLM acres, with support for 125 cow-calf pairs.

The asking price is $9.2 million.

The listing does not include a map of the deeded acreage but identifies the allotment as Posvar.

The allotment master report gives management status and active AUMs.

Big Red Creek meets three out of four requirements for a wild horse refuge.

Same for Thieves Den.

Muddy Mountain currently supports livestock equivalent to 15.3 wild horses per thousand public acres.

Posvar supports livestock equivalent to 7.5 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.

The advocates, unable to distinguish between an AUM and AML, underscore the narrative with their darting programs.

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: Key Indicators for New Wild Horse Preserves.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

The Perfect Gift for Your Wild Horse Valentine

The third edition of the National Pesticide Applicator Certification Manual should be available for sale this week—giving you plenty of time to order one for Valentine’s Day.

It’s a no-brainer.  What advocate isn’t striving to become a certified applicator of restricted-use pesticides?

Unfortunately, the publisher does not donate a percentage of the selling price to Rifles for WretchesTM or similar charity that equips the advocates with the tools of their trade.

RELATED: PERC Updates National Pesticide Applicator Certification Manual.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Would Owens Dugout Make a Good Wild Horse Refuge?

It’s too small but the permit is up for renewal according to a BLM news release.

The project description says the new permit would have the same livestock numbers, grazing periods, AUMs and terms as the existing permit.

The allotment master report puts it in the Improve category with 275 active AUMs on 2,155 public acres, equivalent to 10.6 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.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

HR6938 Advances in Senate

The bill cleared a procedural hurdle yesterday according to a report by The Hill.

The plan is to bring it to a floor vote and pass it without amendments this week.

The article said there appears to be enough support among the members to quash a filibuster and get it across the finish line.

The measure would give the BLM a budget for FY26.

Look for a new roundup schedule to drop shortly after that.

RELATED: BLM to Receive Full-Year Funding with 30% of FY26 Gone?

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Nevada Vanadium Selling Fish Creek Ranch

The original plan was to lease water rights from the ranch to serve mining operations to the south.

But a year and a half before the Final EIS was released, the company bought the ranch, including water rights.  Refer to section 4.7 in this report on mineral resources.

Now, the company has listed the property for sale, minus 650 gpm of water and 100 acres for a man camp.

Gone is the grazing preference on the Fish Springs Ranch Allotment.

That asset was retained by or transferred to Bench Creek Ranch in Fallon.

The allotment offers 4,815 active AUMs on 289,292 public acres, equivalent to 1.4 wild horses per thousand public acres.

The allotment master report puts it in the Improve category with most of the AUMs in the suspended column.

RELATED: Water for Vanadium Mine to Be Supplied by Fish Creek Ranch.

UPDATE: The listing on Redfin shows a price increase last October.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

PERC Updates National Pesticide Applicator Certification Manual

The Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative, not to be confused with the Property and Environment Research Center, has prepared a third edition that covers changes in regulations since 2014 according to an article by Capital Press.

The second edition is available at the EPA website.

The manual is intended as a study guide for those planning to take the Pesticide Applicator Certification Core Exam.

The 2014 edition states on page 51 that restricted-use pesticides (such as PZP) demand special attention because there is reason to believe they could harm humans, livestock, wildlife or the environment even when used according to label directions.

Such as permanent infertility in mares.

Unlawful use of pesticides is discussed on page 39.

Failure to use the product as directed on the label.

The advocates want you to think of PZP as a medication, always referring to the product as a vaccine.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Foal-Free Friday, Systematic Removal Edition

As stated in its Year Two Report, the Colorado Wild Horse Working Group believes that strategic darting should be the cornerstone of wild horse management.

It’s an indication that the stakeholders are willing to play the long game in support of their goals and a major win for the advocates.

Not mentioned in the discussion are the long-term effects of the fertility control pesticides and the eventual disappearance of the herds.

PREVIOUS: Foal-Free Friday, Year of the RUP Edition.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Stewardship or Exploitation of the Public Lands?

One of the most amazing statistics in this report by High Country News is the number of individuals who declined to comment.

The article did not mention services provided by the wild horse advocates that benefit the ranchers.

Beating the horse populations down with ovary-killing pesticides.

The aim of the grazing program is to ensure that high-net-worth individuals receive generous government benefits, often at the expense of America’s wild horses, with no means testing and no expiration dates.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Helicopters Heading for Muddy Creek and Sinbad HMAs

They’ll be flying for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to capture bighorn sheep according to the BLM news release.

The Decision Record authorizes the Proposed Action, discussed in section 2.1 of the Final EA.

Table 1-2 indicates that “captures could take place in the Muddy Creek Wild Horse HMA as well as the Sinbad Burro HMA.  Helicopter overflights may temporarily disturb wild horses and burros in the vicinity of the capture.  Impacts beyond short-lived stress are not expected because these animals would not be the target of pursuits, which would already be short in duration, and could readily escape the area.”

Although the EA mentions livestock grazing, it does not show the allotments in the project area.

One of the greatest threats to wild sheep is illness picked up from domestic sheep.

The Authorization Use Report at RAS would tell which if any of the allotments are permitted for sheep.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Kisatchie Wild Horses Migrating to Woodworth?

Some residents were upset by limited opportunities for public comment at yesterday’s town council meeting according to a report by KALB News.

The mayor has received complaints ranging from horse manure and property damage to vehicle accidents and child safety.

The town is on the east side of the Evangeline Unit in the Calcasieu Ranger District, Kisatchie National Forest.

To the west is Fort Johnson (previously Fort Polk), an Army base the horses once called home.

The article did not associate the horses with the forest and did not indicate if the advocates had submitted a plan to beat the numbers down with ovary-killing pesticides.

RELATED: End of Line for Kisatchie Horses?

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Kentucky Humane Society Targets Free-Roaming Horses

The fertility control program was launched in Magoffin County early last year according to a story by WHAS News.

The report refers to PZP as a contraceptive vaccine, not a restricted-use pesticide.

Contrary to another statement in the article, the product is not reversible if applied for more than five years.

The group expects the population to stabilize in three years.

The story did not indicate if the partner organizations would become obsessed with pesticides as they have out west and if the effort would morph into a mass sterilization program across the nine-county region where the horses are found.

RELATED: Horses of the Coalfields: Tragedy, Nuisance or Tourist Attraction?

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

House and Senate Release FY26 Appropriations Bills

The Senate news release includes links to summaries and explanatory statements for (1) Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, (2) Energy and Water Development and (3) Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.

The bill for Interior provides $144 million for wild horse and burro management according to the Division C explanatory statement, including $11 million for fertility control.

Temporary funding for the department expires at the end of the month.

The House news release includes similar links.

The bill text indicates $144 million for the wild horse and burro program but is silent on fertility control.

RELATED: Government Reopens, Back to Business as Usual.

UPDATE: The House bill is now HR6938.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Powerball, Pesticides and the Probability of Success

The hypergeometric function in Excel lets you compute the probabilities of matching one to five numbers in the first part of the Powerball drawing.

Suppose your favorite number is seven.  What is the probability that it appears in the sample of five taken at random from a field of 69, as it did on November 15?

Using Excel’s nomenclature, the number of successes in the sample would be one, the sample size would be five, the number of successes in the population would be one, the population size would be 69 and the cumulative argument would be set to false.

The result is approximately .072, about 7.2%.  The probability that seven does not appear would be 1 – .072 = .928 or 92.8%.

What is the probability of matching all five numbers?   Change the number of successes in the sample to five and the number of successes in the population to five.

The result is almost zero, .000000089, or 1 in 11,238,513.

Unfortunately, Excel does not have a function for computing the probability of the advocates telling the truth about PZP in 2026, that you can’t use the pesticide for “humane population reduction” without sterilizing the mares.

RELATED: Probabilities and Possibilities for 2026.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Was Cañon City Closure Political?

A report by The Hill says President Trump is in a full-fledged feud with politicians in Colorado due to the prosecution of former Mesa County elections clerk Tina Peters, who has aligned herself with the president’s claims of election fraud in 2020.

The article suggests that actions by the administration are retribution over Peters.

  • Vetoing a bill that would have completed the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a project that would send water to the southeastern part of the state
  • Dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research, an institution specializing in climate science
  • Denial of a disaster declaration following wildfires and flooding last year in southwestern Colorado

The writer did not cite the scuttling of the inmate training program at Cañon City.

Western Horse Watchers is not aware of closures in other states, which host programs at Florence, Rio Cosumnes, Hutchinson, Carson City and Riverton.

RELATED: BLM Pulling Wild Horses and Burros from Cañon City Prison.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Probabilities and Possibilities for 2026

The odds of winning the Powerball grand prize are 1 in 292,201,338 according to the prize chart.

You might have a better chance of being hit by lightning.

What are the odds that the advocates do something beneficial for wild horses in 2026?

Powerball players choose five numbers between 1 and 69 for the white balls and one number between 1 and 26 for the red Powerball.

The odds of matching the first five numbers are 1 in 11,238,513 and the odds of matching the Powerball are 1 in 26.

The odds of matching all six are 1 in 11,238,513 × 1 in 26 = 1 in 292,201,338.

RELATED: The Buckeye Lottery.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.

Foal-Free Friday, Year of the RUP Edition

Some folks say 2026 is the Year of the Horse, the perfect time to raise awareness about helicopter roundups.

They don’t see it as an opportunity to stop the removals and restore basic concepts such as principal use and management at the minimum feasible level.

Instead, they see it as an opportunity to expand the use of RUPs, to replace motorized removal with mass sterilization.

They don’t want you to know that public lands in the western U.S. can sustain many more wild horses than the government admits.

They are servants of the ranchers and don’t deserve a penny of your support.

PREVIOUS: Foal-Free Friday, Wave of the Future Edition.

► Get the truth about wild horses and the wild horse advocates at westernhorsewatchers.com.